#birds hell

(Coughs)

Obviously.

(Coughs, laughs)

There’s nobody left to read it, is there? In the whole world. Just those doctor things. And it’s not reading, what they do. It’s scanning. It’s all just a…bar code to them. Horrible plastic bastards.  (Laughs) Just doing their job, of course. Picking through the rubble, you know, the rubble and the wreckage.  Sifting through the ruins. Probing the remains.  

(Laughs)

Of which I am one. Actually, get this - I’m the only one of my particular type of ruin still standing.  I’m the very last of the human ruins.  

Rare specimen I am. No not rare, beyond rare. No wonder they won’t let me go back.  The bastards.  Back to the little…nest.  My Junction 33.  Peace and quiet there at least.  I can empty out my…pockets.  There, I can. And only there.(Laughs) I want to go back to my bloody nest.

So that’s it, bollocks, I’m not writing any more. It's pointless, innit? I’ll just ramble on into this thing until I fall asleep. Then they can take it away and transcribe it or whatever they want to do with it. To be honest (Laughs) they can make it into a major bloody motion picture for all the shits I now give. (Cough)  

I really don’t care anymore.  I just … I don’t care.  I just want to ... um … sleep, you know what I mean?

______________

Okay, so... (Yawns)…I’ve slept. It’s gone from fake night-time to fake daytime. If they’ve kept to the usual pattern, that’s got to be eight hours’ kip I've just had. They do it with lights. I wish they wouldn’t bother. Days and nights don’t work like that anymore, they haven’t for ages. So what’s the point pretending? Stupid sods.

(Shouts) Stupid sods!

(Laughs)

Right, from the start, here we go. This is the first I knew of it. I woke up in hospital. Not this one, this isn't a real one.  

(Coughs)

My head was bandaged and I couldn’t help noticing that I was being transfused. Or had been.  

There was a line in my arm going to an empty blood bag. Confusion. I couldn’t remember much. What happened to me? I was fully clothed but they weren't my clothes. For definite. I mean, I don't own any grey flannel tracksuits. Or Fred Perry t-shirts.

No underpants, I noticed. None at all.

And also, why was it so incredibly quiet on this ward? Seriously, it was silent in there.

Thirsty I was, really really thirsty.  My lips were crusty, my throat all choked.  

That’s when I remembered falling down the stairs in Wetherspoons.  Yup.  It was coming back to me now.  I got dizzy on the way back from the toilets in Wetherspoons, the one in Ponty, and I fell down the stairs.  

Must have bashed my head.  Lost some blood.  That’s what I was doing in hospital.  And I remember thinking, well ... you know, Jesus Christ like, what a bloody state to get in.  

I was in a very bad mood, see. There’s actually no use trying to cheer yourself up beyond a certain point, it just makes it worse. At that stage, you might as well go and get pissed on your own in fucking Wetherspoons. Anything else would be dishonest.  

Reason I was in a bad mood was (Laughs) woman trouble. (Coughs) See, I was expecting to drive to Heathrow the next day and get on a plane to Ghana. I was going to surprise someone. I hoped she’d be pleased to see me, right? Yeah? Get the picture?

I’d packed in my terrible job.  I was going to do volunteering. Conservation work. I hadn’t really looked into it properly, to be honest. I was hoping my ... friend would help me sort it all out. She’d already gone out there, six months ago. I was going to surprise her. I thought I'd (Coughs) fallen in love.

  I barely even … knew her. I just got wrapped up in it all. My job was shit, my life was shit, I was becoming shit myself. It was getting so I couldn’t look in a mirror because I couldn’t stand the sight of the shit staring back at me.  

I mean, yes, the whole thing felt slightly insane. But it was good, it felt good, being adventurous.  Been too timid, half my problem. Time to ... sort of ... shake things up, have an adventure, maybe reset my whole life. Maybe I could make this the summer when everything changed for the better.

(Sighs deeply)

I think I was probably depressed.  

(Laughs, coughs)

Anyway, whatever. Sense of momentum, you know, getting it all sorted, flight, passport, visa, and the shots, yellow fever, cholera, rabies, hepatitis et cetera, plus I'd been taking anti-malaria tablets for a fortnight. Bought a whole load of clothes, shorts and polo shirts ... (Laughs) I looked like a fucking (Coughs) ... I looked a right charlie, let's just say. Some blokes are cut out for that kind of thing. I'm not. I knew it, deep down. But I was trying not to be such a miserable bastard.  

To be honest, thank god I never made it to Ghana because it's bound to be choked up with rich white men from various nations, all machoed up, ex-pats and tourists indulging their dick-swinging fantasies, especially along the coast.

Not now, obviously. If it's anything like round here, all it's choked up with now is weeds and birds.

(Drinks, coughs)

(Shouts) Noisy bastard birds! All the bloody time! Driving me round the bastard bend!

(Drinks)  

Ah well, just doing their thing. It's all theirs now. To cover in white shit and feathers.

______________

(Burps twice)

Basically, she'd met someone out there, another volunteer. Swedish guy. Noah. Fair play really. Thank fuck she told me her news before I told her mine. So we had a nice chat on Skype. She told me all about the village where they were staying, and the work they were doing, and about all the people she'd met. I told her it sounded amazing. I told her to keep up the good work, take care, and keep posting stuff to her blog because the pictures were amazing. I told her I was glad she was happy.

Little white lie there. Her pictures weren't really amazing. Kind of ordinary.  

And then I went to Wetherspoons to get completely annihilated.  

(Laughs) Instead, I just fell down the stairs, bumped my head, and everyone else got annihilated.  

So even that little plan went arse-about-tit.

(Shrieks) You got to laugh, haven't you!

(Quieter) Slit your throat otherwise.

(Still quieter) To quote my late grandmother.

______________

So, yeah, I wake up in hospital. And I recognise it straight away. I know exactly where I am. The Royal Glamorgan. Near Talbot Green, not far from the Mint. But the whole place is completely silent. No telly, no phones ringing, no trolleys rattling, no things going beep, no people talking, laughing, groaning, being sick – none of it.  

I'm sitting on the bed. Looking round the ward. All on my own. Dressing gowns and slippers, puzzle books and phones are all here, but not their owners.  On their tables, half-drunk drinks, tea still steaming. No nurses, no porters, no doctors.

(Spits) And I'm busting for a pee. So, a bit groggy, dizzy still, but off I go. Pair of ugly white trainers under the bed, I put 'em on, just so I look like the complete dick, and I'm pushing the blood bag along on a tripod. Out past the nurses' station. Empty. Past the next ward. Empty. Along the corridor.  Empty. It was starting to get to me.

Arrived at the toilet. Empty. Though, of course, I was glad of it in this case.

(Coughs)

So I was standing there, pissing, and the bastard light in the ceiling went out. Pitch black suddenly and I shot pee everywhere. I'm quite a jumpy person. But then I thought, okay, maybe it's one of those energy saving lights, gone wrong. But no, because when I opened the door everything was in deep gloom, corridor and ward, all lights out, silent.

Now, me, when I'm in panic mode it's like my autonomic nervous system hacks direct into my internal monologue.  It's like (Quietly) Hmm, that's odd, I wonder if there's been some kind of (Shouts) FUCK GOING BACK TO THE WARD! SOMETHING'S FUCKED! GET OUTSIDE!

(Opens bottle, pours, drinks)

So off I go, dragging my little tin tripod on shitty casters, the empty bag waving like some sick flag, the tube looping in the air and coming back up into my arm, off I go, stumbling down this gloomy-as-fuck corridor. There were no windows that showed outside, just other insides, wards and waiting rooms and canteens, and the faintest glow of light came from occasional and titchy slits and slats of glass tucked away in geometrical alcoves in the ceiling.

And no fucking people, none.

I put my hand on the wall and it was clammy, you know?  Like your forehead when you've got 'flu.  And in some bits it was like you could feel lumps under the surface, mushy lumps somewhere.

They've evacuated the hospital. That was my first thought. There's a problem and they've had to get everyone out. Gas leak maybe? And I suppose they just forgot me. I was unconscious at the time, of course, and it must be easily done when you're dealing with unconscious people, to just forget about them. I didn't feel any anger or indignation or anything. Shit happens, right?  

Obviously if anything bad did happen to me, I'd be taking the local health board to the fucking cleaners.

So I come to the lobby or the foyer or whatever, the big main entrance, and there's still no-one, it's still silent.  Past the WRVS shop and the vending machines I go, out the wide open doors. The tripod's trundling along concrete now. And I'm like – where the hell's all the people who got evacuated?  Is this not a muster point? Shouldn't there be fucking chaos all round here?  Where's all the desperately ill patients shivering in their beds?  Where's all the medicals trying to save them?

I just stood there looking at the handful of cars parked in the drop off zone. Windows were open, like they'd just been left. There was an ambulance there too. The back doors were open and I could just see inside.

Something moved.

I didn't see what, just a movement, something black.

My heart was thumping.  I went a bit closer, to look.

My tripod's wheels squeaked and two big black birds flew out of the ambulance.

I heard myself shout, and I fell to my knees. The birds shot over my head, screeching, straight into the hopsital.  I heard their echoes behind my back, cawing down the corridors.

I was like, Jesus Christ! And I got up and went. I just picked up the IV stand and ran like fuck. In a straight line, you know, away from the hospital. Over the flowerbeds. Zebra crossing. Footbridge. Over the river. Into the massive visitors' car park. Precisely zero thinking going on at this point. Panic system at peak flow. My eyes about to burst out of my head. Running like fuck in this grey tracksuit and ugly trainers, all a bit too big for me, you know.   And my balls are going to ache like a bastard when the adrenaline wears off, bouncing all over the place because I've got no pants on.

I keep going and now I'm at the far end of the car park. Perimeter fence marks the border of the hospital empire and beyond that it's just knotweed nettle wilderness, with encroachment of invasive weeds continous from May to September. Eventually I calm down, you know, stop running. Sit on the kerb to get my breath back.  

(Exhales noisily and lengthily)

And then I noticed the cars. They were, like...old. Rusty. You couldn't even tell what colours they'd been, they were all just a mixture of orange and green, rust and moss. And they were dead. Their seals were gone, rubber perished, there was water inside them. I saw seats sprouting ferns, vines coiled round gear sticks, toadstools on parcel shelves. Even their oil puddles had dried up into dead little rainbows.

(Quietly, barely audible) All just sitting there, man, side by side, all rotted, with the tyres gone.  Rolls of (Indecipherable) ... like my father did ... (Indecipherable) ... and lungs, for non smokers like, down to that little brook, past the pay station and the footbridge.  

A couple of years, I'd say, left alone. For them to get like that. At least a couple of years. I wondered if the steam was still rising from the abandoned teas and coffees. I turned to look back at the hospital. I could just make it out through the trees. Something about the shapes visible between the leaves and branches seemed ... wrong. So I stood up for a proper look, and I saw that the hospital was dead too. Long dead. But different from the cars, not rusty or mossy, more melted. Like when you look at a rotting peach. (Laughs) I threw up then.

(Hums same four note interval repeatedly)

Bollocks, that'll do for tonight.

______________

(Inhales vaporised nicotine solution from electronic dispenser.  Prolonged coughing.)

Christ help, this rum and coke flavour's a bit harsh. (Coughs) That Zestappeal was bloody horrible too.  I think I'll go back to the caramint mocha. Even though it gives me the shits.

Where was I? In the hospital car park. I sort of slumped on the ground. It could have been two hours I was there, and I swear not one thought went through my mind. In the end it was the needle in my arm that got me moving. It was irritating my skin so I just pulled it out, left the tripod behind, and started walking.

Things were just as bad when I got to the dual carriageway. The big roundabout on the A4119, it used to be all landscaped with grass and bushes and trees. Now you could hardly make out where it ended and the road began. Looking over to Heol-y-Sarn I could see the Royal Mint, grey and brown, misshapen, soft like the hospital. There was Finnings, the plant hire place, and the GeesinkNorba factory, and they were ruined too.  But differently ruined. Not melted looking. Exploded looking.  

And Christ my head's really spinning now. I've walked round the roundabout twice already. Once clockwise then backards. Why won't everything go back to normal?

(Laughs, coughs, hums same four note interval repeatedly)

______________

(Inaudible) ... even have a relaxing shit in peace ... (Muffled) ... doctors, so-called doctors, drones they...(Voice obscured by rustling) ... and christ alone knows what they want with it ...(Indecipherable) ... piece of genuine human dung ... fucking ... soi-disant doctors (Inaudible) ... in a bloody museum.

(Yawns)

Anyway, so, next thing I know I'm riding a bike along the motorway to Cardiff. Can't quite remember where I got it, might have been Halford's. One of those big shops anyway, on the retail park in Talbot Green. Whole place was a ruin, it wasn't like theft. A shrinking circle of concrete with ragged green closing in. Moss covered signs, Argos, New Look, Next.

They were in pretty good nick, the bikes, sheltered in the store, no rust. So I wheeled one out, on to the pavement. The noise disturbed some birds in the remains of Pizza Hut. I saw them rise up through the broken roof and soar away in a cloud. It hit me again - just birds. And me. Nothing else. I remember shaking my head for a while, while those words kept repeating in my mind – just birds...and me...nothing else. It got on my nerves so bad I screamed Shut up! More birds burst out of some burnt out shell, squawking, clouding up, and soaring away. And me, I jumped on the bike and headed for the junction with the M4, pedalling as hard as I could.

The motorway was all green and bumpy. Dead cars scattered along it. Trees growing out of it. Five years, at least, more like ten. To get like this. But it still led east, to the city. And I wanted to see the city. Perhaps things would be better in Cardiff.

Like that's ever worked before.

(Laughs for almost a minute, then coughs for just over minute)

See, I know ... I knew ... There were people I knew in Cardiff. People I'd worked with, mainly. Not friends, colleagues. I only had one friend and I didn't really like him

(Pours drink)

And Julia, of course. My ex-wife.  

(Sound of tablets dissolving in liquid)

And Connor. Of course.

(Long pause followed by sound of drinking)

It was hard work, I tell you, pedalling along that fucked up motorway. (Burps) Lumpy and bumpy. Vines and creepers. Hard bloody work. Hot too, proper June heat, but humid, sunless. It was only about six miles into Cardiff but it took me ages. After a while, I was just doubled over the bike, pushing all my energy into the legs, which were numb, and staring down at the ground beneath the wheels. I hardly knew where I was, what I was doing. I saw no-one, no sign of anyone. Not just people, no animals either, not even a rat in the rubble, not even a dog barking somewhere, not even a fly in my eye.

The trees, though, and the sky, and the ruins, they were full of birds. Even when I had my head down I could hear them, noisy bloody birds, driving me (Shouts) round the bloody bend!

(Coughs)

One time, just after the Junction 33 exit, I lifted myself and look round. I was in a desert. Not like a golden desert of shimmering sands. A dirty brown desert. Dried up and cracked. All those rolling fields on the way to Cardiff, you know, skirting the Vale, all those farms and golf courses? All the different shades of green, the big shady acres between the pylons? All gone. No buildings, no pylons, no grass. Just black clouds blowing round a dustbowl. No signs of life except some big legged buzzards clawing the dirt. I put my head down again and kept going.

See, hope isn't your friend, it's not. It's your enemy.  (Laughs, coughs, inhales vapourised nicotine)

(Huskily) I feel so much better since I gave up hope.

(Exhales vapourised nicotine while laughing)

I used to have key-ring with that written on it. Present from Julia.

(Laughs quietly but steadily for several minutes)

______________

Yeah, so then I was in Cardiff, cycling through Whitchurch. Expensive part of town. Wide avenues, big trees, Georgian houses, semi-detached with drives. Lots of Audis and BMWs, Mercs and four-by-fours, and the odd Jag. Real quality avenues, quality trees. It was all perfect too. No ruins, no rust. It was late autumn now though. The leaves were falling like snow.

(Sound of teeth grinding)

So I turned left into another avenue. And I knew it. There was a small school halfway along on the left. For special needs kids. Just a small school, two houses joined together with a yard between. I knew this street. That, over there, was Connor's school. My son, our son. Julia and me.

I'd been to this place about ... maybe two or three times before. The first when we came to have a look at it, Julia and me and the social worker, we met the headteacher. Second time on his first morning when we dropped him off. And maybe one more time, I think I went there once more, just after we separated. I'm sure I remember ... It'll come back to me. It was before the divorce but after I moved out, I think, and I was in a bit of a mess. I mean...to be honest with you I just wanted to die.  Every day I'd wake up and ... the guilt, you know ... I just didn't want to ...

(Sighs)

Yeah. So.  (Vapes noisily) I'm walking up the drive. So quiet. No noise from the yard, no music from the classrooms, no laughing, no crying. I'm looking through the railings, and of course there's no kids. Fallen leaves rustling, that's all, dry and red and orange and yellow. A breeze whips up and it sends them whirling. Through the railings they look like patches of fire, like flames dancing.

The door was locked. I pressed the intercom and heard it buzz through the building. Then I climbed on to the windowsill and looked in. All was in flux. Paint pots open, paintings still drying, you could see the liquid sheen on the blobs and blots. Toys scattered everywhere, coats all hanging on pegs. Empty wheelchairs. My throat went tight.

I jumped down and walked round the back.

I heard a noise, a hissing. Coming from the classroom. I looked through the door and saw it. Someone had left a tap on. Water was gushing into a big blue bowl, which was overflowing. The desk it stood on was wet, and the floor was a puddle.

I wondered again if the steam was still rising from the cups in the hospital.

Soon the whole floor of the classroom will be flooded.

Connor.

(Inhales sharply)

And if ... even if he'd been there ... he wouldn't recognise me. His mum, maybe. Yes, probably ... no, definitely. Definitley his mum. His new dad? Maybe, maybe not. Who could tell? Definitely not me though. It was too late, it was all too late. Even before this, it was already too late.

So I walked away from the place, passing the yard on the way, looking up so as not to see the wheelchairs all covered with dead leaves, and noticing that the trees that rose above the yard were full of small birds, five or six to a branch, not singing, just looking at me.

  (Exhales lengthily)

______________

(Indistinct, muffled) ... it's that, innit? Without my ... (inaudible) ... that the last generation has to carry the whole weight of all the generations that came before. And they buckle under it, obviously.

(Vapes profoundly)

Shit, it hasn't been recording. (Sniggers) Oh well, doesn't matter. Nobody needs half an hour of me philosophizing. Let's just say Cardiff was ... no good.

I tried my flat but the whole place looked like it had been bombed. Bombed several times then left to nature. Western Avenue was like a deep green trench. The Cathedral School was in ruins, sprouting trees, noisy with birds. The Crescent was still there, 80s redbrick ziggurat on a traffic island, but it looked like a grinning mouthful of broken teeth. Horton House, down the end, was flattened to the ground floor.  Reynoldston House was full of holes, right through. Cheriton House, my place, was still mostly standing, but like a doll's house with the front missing. The whole lot was sunk in deep green.

It started to rain and my tooth started to ache. The wind picked up too. And I was just wearing this crappy grey tracksuit, like. So now I'm just thinking about shelter, you know, all I want is to get inside somewhere.

It was funny, you know. Looking up at the fourth floor corridor that led to my flat ... with all the windows smashed ... and thinking....y'know ... that's where I tried to top myself.

(In his grandmother's voice) Got to laugh.

(In his own voice) After the divorce, see, this is where I came. This flat. Rented it off a nice lady in Porthmadog. Work all day then back here for constant self-medication, alone, in the dark. Rum and pills. Phone turned off. The guilt, et cetera. Overdid it one night with Co-codamol. You know. Despair, and all that. Changed my mind, halfway through. Typical me. Puked most of it back up. Still felt rough though. For hours. Had to give in, eventually, my guts were killing me. Called the ambulance. Couldn't really do it, go through with it. It was the ... well, I suppose it was the thought of my mother. (Coughs) Ha, my poor old Mammy. Well, she's already buried one kid, like, and I've seen what it's done. To her, I mean, to her brain. Driven her half mad at least. So...off to the Heath Hospital, A and E. Stomach pumped. No harm done. I couldn't do it to her. Pretended it was an accident I did. Maybe it was. What is an accident anyway?

(Long pause – 1 min. 42sec.)

Well, some harm done but not enough.

(Quietly) Slit your throat otherwise.

______________

Oh yeah, and a funny thing happened when I got into my flat. See, I live on the fourth floor and the stairs were blown to bits so I had to climb up. I went into the nearest flat with a hole right through it and no ceiling, I stacked up a load of broken furniture, and climbed into the flat above. Then to the next one. It was like climbing up inside a Swiss cheese. Glimpsing burnt and broken bits of people's lives. African masks and Indian tapestries in the first, pewter tankards and horse brasses in the second, melted chrome and broken glass in the third.

By the time I got to mine, the toothache was really bad. It had been building up for a while, my tooth was rotting and the filling fell out a few months earlier. But a dentist was on the endless list of shit I hadn't sorted out for myself since the divorce. So the only thing I could think of, standing there in my blasted out flat, was pain relief. There should have been a stash of Tramadol in a drawer somewhere. But the furniture was upside down, burnt black, missing legs and feet and arms. The whole left side of my face was throbbing. I couldn't think of anything else, you know what it's like. It was like I had tentacles in there, reaching up to my brain. Everything had shrunk to this, to toothache.

So I'm rummaging through the mess, trying to find pain relief, and instead I find this blister pack buried in the ashes of the coffee table, and I don't think I recognise it. It's anonymous and there's just one pill left. I pop it out to have a look. A small capsule, green and yellow. Doesn't ring a bell. I furrow my brow but even that makes the left side of my face ache just a bit harder.

Squinting because I didn't have my glasses, I saw the pill had this printed on it – skd487. Now that seemed familiar. I couldn't place it but that number ... I can see it now, skd487... but I still can't work it out. I mean, at the time I only wanted to know one thing about it – would it help with the toothache? I wouldn't mind how it helped. Painkiller preferably, opioid for choice, but if it just knocked me out that would be fine too. My poor throbbing gob, you know? So I thought, fuck it, and I necked the pill.

As I stood up, a parrot landed on the brown bolted balcony and said the word Malaria. I nearly jumped through the hole in the floor. I recognised the parrot, we'd met before. He was Kenny and he lived next door, with old Grace and her ten thousand pot plants. I locked myself out once and knocked on number 33. Grace let me go out her balcony and climb over to mine. I went back for a cup of tea, to say thanks. That's when I met Kenny. He whistled a bit of Hitler has only got one ball and said things like More tea, vicar?

Now here he was, looking a little bit older, just round the eyes, standing on my balcony.

I said Malaria?

Kenny said Malaria.

I said it again, and so did he.

Then he cocked his head first left then right, looking at me. I told him I didn't understand. He said it one more time – Malaria - then he whistled his tune, turned, and leapt off the balcony. I went out too. Kenny was soaring over Llandaf Fields. Heading into town. I had glimpses of the Millennium Stadium and the BT building through the canopy of green leaves. A tower of black smoke reaching for the sky. A mile and half away, the city centre. The rain was still falling but the air was warm and smelled sweet. I was sweating. My hands were shaking. I felt very thirsty. But the toothache seemed to be easing off a bit, so that was a relief.

(Hums same four note interval repeatedly)

______________

So listen now, tell me if you’ve had this experience, right?  

Oh.

You can’t can you? You’re not real.  

Sorry, tactless.  

(Prolonged laughter and subsequent coughing)

Oh Christ alive … hang on.

(Sips drink)

No, but for the sake of argument, right?  

You’re looking up at the sky, it’s late night, there’s no clouds, it’s all clear from horizon to horizon, right? It’s a warm August night, say, and you’re looking at all the billions and trillions of stars.   And you begin to notice this one star in particular. It looks bigger than the rest, or maybe it’s brighter, or twinklier than the rest. It catches your attention. You’re wondering if it might be a planet, you know, maybe it's Venus or whatever.

And then you notice something – it's moving. Not like a shooting star, plummeting, fast. It's moving steadily, across the sky, in a straight line. For a second, you're a bit confused. Is it a comet? A UFO? But then you finally realise  - it's just an aeroplane. Nothing weird after all. Probably a 747 crammed with punters farting silently and trying to get to sleep, about 30,000 feet above you. You watch it fly into the distance, getting smaller and dimmer, dwindling, until you can't see it anymore. The stars, the real stars, they just keep twinkling on. You've had that, right? For the sake of argument?

Okay, yeah, but only I’ve had the experience of looking up at the sky one night and seeing every single star do that. And not come back, they've never come back.

Like I say, Cardiff was a dead loss.

(Produces a yawn which collapses into a cough)

I had a wander round the city centre, Queen Street, St Mary's Street, Castle Street, The Hayes. Nothing doing. All ruined and overgrown. The arcades all broken glass. Trees growing through St David's Hall. I leaned the bike against the fallen statue of Nye Bevan and wandered for hours, poking around the shops, picking up bits and pieces from the mess. Some Tramadol first for my aching gob, from behind the counter in Boots. I necked four of them straight away, washed down with an energy drink I found intact in a crushed fridge unit. I sat there, in the pharmacist's swivel chair, for about half an hour, waiting for them to kick in. It was quiet, the roof was missing, I watched the sun moving and the nice warm glow spread through me. The toothache faded away. I felt heavy and light at the same time, heavy on the inside and light on the outside. (Laughs) Ah, good old opioids.

(Breaks wind)

So I sort of drifted around town, picking stuff up if it looked okay. I got a Rolex, an iPad, two pairs of Raybans. A cashmere coat from John Lewis. Some Timberland boots, a decent pair of jeans from Jack Wills, a Superdry t-shirt ... erm, what else ... Three bottles of Glenlivet ... um ... a Zippo lighter, a Moleskine notebook with a posh pen ... some cigars. My mind was a total blank, but at least it was peaceful. With the four Tramadols inside me, I was quite enjoying myself, just going round the shops in a daze, trying things on.

I got hungry and I saw a Greggs, open at the front, dark inside. Creepers and vines round the entrance. Water trickling out, green moss. I took a few steps inside, I don't know what I was hoping for. Stale pasties.

I didn't get far though. Everything was covered in white shit and feathers. I heard them before I saw them. Gulls, big meaty ones, screaming out at me from the back of the shop. I don't know how many, it felt like fucking hundreds. So I turned and ran out, with all of them following me, dive bombing me, swooping at my head, getting the beak in. I was running and falling, over broken bits of building, roots, pipes, and in and out of holes in the pavement, cracks and craters. I dropped my whiskey. I kept going and the bloody birds kept following me, but thinning out slowly, dropping back.

By the time I got to St John's there were only a handful of the fuckers after me. The tall stone tower had collapsed and it lay along Church Street, broken open, like tree after fifty years rotting on the forest floor. I ducked into the indoor market and lost the last gulls. It was like a sunken labyrinth in there, stinking of rotten meat and mildew.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, it was getting dark and I was getting drowsy. I wanted to go somewhere warm and comfortable. I wanted to sit down, no, lie down, drink some booze, and hopefully sleep. I was right by Howells the department store so I thought, okay, I want to go to bed and they've got a bed department. So in I went. Wasn't too bad once you got further in. It's a proper big old department store, it's got endless nooks and crannies. You can get lost in there. I took a torch from the homeware department and found my way to the beds, in the basement. I found a good one, all intact, a kingsize double I think it was, and I made a little nest.

Before turning in, I swiped some more whiskey from the food hall and went up to the roof. I wanted to see if there were any lights anywhere in the city.  There were none, well, other than the glow of a fire burning somewhere out towards Grangetown.

Standing out there, drinking Glenmorangie, smoking a cigar, I had a three-sixty view of ... nothing. So unbelievably dark. Everything gone, the city, the hills. Just the glow in Grangetown visible in the blackness. Other than that, the only light came from the stars. And as looked up at them, so they began to move. Like airliners, you know, straight line and steady. Like 747s in the night. No sound though, in ones and twos, clusters then and swarms.  And all in different directions, every possible direction, as long as it was away.  

I can still see them now.They dwindle, into tiny twinkles you can hardly see. Then even the dwindles fade.

It was…I…all I could do was watch, it was…

(Long pause: 1m 53s)

The sky was completely black, completely empty then. And by then I'd drunk most of the bottle and smoked most of the cigars. I felt the whole weight of the day crushing down on me. Definitely time for bed. I just had to lie down or else fall down. Bedtime. Goodnight, nos da, no star. I staggered back into the store, stumbled down to the basement, found my bed, crawled in, passed out.

So yeah, that was it for Cardiff. Dead loss.

(Very long pause: 7m 22s)

(Coughs)

Next day, hungover to absolute fuck, I decided to go and find the bike and head up the valleys. See if there was anything left of the Rhondda.

(Laughs, coughs)

Guess what the answer to that was.

(Sniggers)

______________

(Long pause – 2m 11s)

Not far to go now. Nearly finished. Then I'll shut up.

(Sighs)

I saw a bus on North Road, all intact. I got on. There were shopping bags in the aisles. There were coats draped on rails. There was a walking a stick, a buggy, and a pram. It was like everyone on the bus had vanished, just disappeared, no more than a second ago. The keys were in the ignition.

But were the cups of tea still steaming in the hospital?

So yeah, I started the bus and drove out of Cardiff. There was nothing in my way. I followed the A470. Going north, into the Valleys. Back home.

At Tongwynlais I looked up to see if Castell Coch was still there but there was no sign of it, just the woods and the red cliffs. And passing Taffs Well I turned to see if our house was standing, Julia's house I mean, Julia and her ... new ... husband. And the kids ... of course.

(Sigh, vapes, coughs)  

All gone. Every house in the street. Nothing left but rubble, craters, scorch marks. The cul de sac road blasted with debris.

(Yawns)

I was heading up to the Rhondda, to Ferndale. It's where I grew up. My mother still lives there. Graig Terrace. It was pointless but .... Well, that's where I was going anyway.

It was quite nice driving along. I'd necked some more Tramadol, plus a little hair of the dog, and I was singing. Sometimes I'd shout stuff over my shoulder, like, Next stop Hopkinstown, Hopkinstown next stop. Mind your trolley there, love. You boys at the back – sit down!

Then back to the singing.

(Sings)

Feel I'm goin' back

To Massachussetts

Something's tellin' me

I must go home.

By the time I reached Porth the sun was strong, the sky pale blue. Flocks of homing pigeons swooping and gliding. I drove with the doors open, for the breeze. Familiar old contours of the snaking Rhondda. Childhood memories everywhere, up the woods, on the tips, down by the river. Dens by the railway line, boozing in the lanes.

I was deep in my fuzzy brain, numb with nostalgia, all the way up to Tylorstown. About a mile to my mother's house. And then I shook my head and had a proper look. The cars on the roads, they were old. Not old as in rusted et cetera, all intact. Old as in cars from the past, from the 70s. A Ford Capri, a Triumph Dolomite, a Vauxhall Chevette. The shops, they were the same. The houses, the adverts, everything. Lidl wasn't there, nor the new leisure centre. Pit buildings, depots and chapels stood there instead. I think I laughed. Laughed in a fuck me, what now? kind of way.

(Laughs)

(In grandmother's voice) Slit your throat otherwise!

(Laughs, coughs, laughs, coughs, laughs, coughs)

Just past the Duke of York I looked down at the banana tip and of course the bloody washery was standing there. Six storey grey concrete building with a giant funnel on the side open to the sky. For washing coal. I remembered watching them demolish it back when I was kid. We all came to watch, just about everyone from Ferndale and Tylorstown. I was there with my mam and my brother. I watched them demolish it, this was about ... 77, 78. We were always going to watch things being blown up or knocked down. It was the last days of coal in the Rhondda. You could see it all coming apart. Either that or they'd just leave things to rot, like the stone powerhouse in Pandy. We used to crawl in and explore. Heavy rotting hulks, sprouting vegetation, sinking in the undergrowth, dripping and crumbling. Me and Jason and Gremlin and Andrew Rowe and his brother. Sometimes you'd tread on a rusty nail and have to have a tetanus.

I was nearly at Graig Terrace now, just passing Oakland Villas. You could tell just from the curtains in the front windows that this was the 70s. In as much as I tried to work it out at all, I reckoned that whatever had happened to the world had happened to time as well. After all, space and time aren't separate, are they? Just two aspects of the same thing, right? So damage to one could, I suppose, damage the other. And that's about as far as I went with that.

Next stop, Graig Terrace, I shouted over my shoulder. Bus terminates here.

______________

So I park the bus in the street and walk up to the house. It's all there, the iron railings painted brown, the old windows, the old front door, wide open. Monet prints on the wall, the coal fire, shelf full of Reader's Digest, the Neil Diamond LPs, the old white telephone, the floral wallpaper, the Rediffusion telly.

And there's my brother's wheelchair, folded up in the alcove under the stairs. I should point out that Ryan died in 1985. He was seventeen, me fifteen. My parents split up the following year. Having a disabled kid can really fuck up a marriage. Especially if your husband is a fucking ... weak ... useless ... idiot.

(Long pause, 2m, 11s)

Just ask my ex-wife.

(Laughs hysterically, then coughs for almost a minute)

Anyway, so ... I... I just looked at Ryan's wheelchair for a few minutes.

Then I stood at the foot of the stairs and called out for my mother.

(Long pause, 3m 47s)

A memory came to me then, and it was like I was watching it happen in front of me.

(Sighs explosively)

There's me, aged eight, maybe nine, and I'm in the lounge there, watching telly. There's a documentary on about what would happen in a nuclear war. There's a pumpkin representing a human head pierced by glass shards. There's a detailed description of blast wounds and radiation sickness. You've got to put dead people in bin bags and chuck them out, in case they kill you too.

My eyes are wide, I can't stop watching. There's stock footage of Hiroshima, miles of shattered houses, people's shadows burnt on walls. If you can still have kids you mustn't because they'll come out wrong. The whole world will be sick. Life will be pointless. The best you can hope is they drop one right on you. Better for us all just to be vapourised, all of us turned to steam.

I shouldn't be watching this, it's past my bedtime. Is this really the way the world is? All the time, in school, playing in the yard, and down the park, and at the beach, and on Christmas Day, and ... tucked up in bed .... there's this thing hanging over us. And the most horrible part was that ... people made it like this. We made it.

(Coughs)

Always just ... four minutes away (Coughs, spits) .... from hell .

(Emits an unnameable sound, somewhere between a laugh, a cough, and a sob)

So I go looking for my mother, because I'm scared, no, more than scared. I'm shivering. Mam's busy trying to get my brother upstairs to bed. It's a bad one tonight, he's having a proper tantrum. Ryan must be about 11 but his mind's no more than three. He's swollen with steroids for his rheumatoid arthritis, and he's so wired you know that the next thing will be another seizure, one of the big ones. I can see them struggling on the stairs, halfway up, and hear the ragged voice coming out of my Mam as she tries to reason with him. I'm afraid to speak, but I've got to.

Don't know where my father was. Up the rugby club probably.

I tell her I've seen a thing on telly about nucelar bombs and I'm scared. Mam looks at me over Ryan's shoulder. Her eyes are red, raw.

"The sooner the better," she says, "and put us all out of our misery."

(Long pause, 2m 33s)

I went stumbling out through of the house, down the three steps into the street. I got back on the bus and drove away.

______________

(Sings)

And the lights all went out in Massachusetts

The day that I

Left her standing

On her own

(Sighs)

I spent that night up on Park Road, lying across the back seat of the bus. No houses this high. No pavements, no street lights, no cat's eyes. We used to play up here. Climb the hill behind the street. Walk through the ferns to Muddy Pool. Catch tadpoles. Look down at the colliery by the river. Later, we'd look down and see it falling apart, blowing up, rotting. And later still, when I was a teenager, after Ryan died, smoking weed all alone in the same ferns, I'd just see what we called the banana tip, a long and curved space, black, where nothing could grow.

So ... yeah. Sun went down. No lights in the valley. No stars in the sky. Just as I was falling asleep I heard an owl.

The next day, in the pissing rain, I turned the bus round and drove down from of the Rhondda towards the M4. There was nothing else to do, to see. I just didn't...care anymore.

I passed the Royal Glamorgan Hospital again on my way to Talbot Green. It was hardly there at all now. Like a month old peach. Even though it looked even worse than before, I didn't feel sick at all. The cups of tea, they wouldn't be steaming now. That was one less thing to wonder about.

(Snorts)

And as I got closer to Junction 34 it was clear that all the stuff like the hospital, the schools, the council estate, they'd all gone the same way, slowly rotting, dissolving into slime and fungus. But the shops, you know, the retail park and the pubs, the fast food places, the new builds, they were different, they'd just exploded. But you know what? I didn't give a fuck by then.

So I got to the motorway services at Junction 33, stopped the bus, and went in. It was nice and dark in there, and I was sick of seeing things. I went past the Burger King and the WHSmith, and I made a nest for myself in the Costa. I made it comfy, you know, and warm. I emptied out my pockets. I fed off stale biscuits and muffins, M&Ms, Coke. Mostly I just lay down in my nest. It was dark and quiet, and that's all I wanted. Peace and quiet.

Once I thought I heard a voice. Coming from somewhere near the disabled toilet. A kid's voice, saying something. I sat up and looked into the gloom. Heart thumping fast again, after going so slow for so long. But there was nothing, no movement, no sound. What was the voice saying, what did it call? Was it my name, Danny? Or was it Daddy? Or nothing at all?

It's too late now.

______________

(Laughs)

And .... basically ... that went on for ....

(Long pause, 2m, 13s)

... I don't know, ages. Then one day I woke up and it was all bright. (Chuckles) And noisy. All the ... bloody ... lights were on ... and, y'know ... all the fruit machines were dinging away ... and you could smell the coffee ... and the Burger King ... (Laughs) And I rubbed my eyes and I saw the whole place was full of people. Just coming and going, eating and drinking, buying shit from Smith's ... taking their drinks out to their cars ... And, basically, it was just a normal fucking day at Cardiff West services ...

(Laughs, yawns, long pause – 3m 31s)

(Speaks increasingly slowly and with more frequent pauses) And, y'know ... seemed the world hadn't ended after all ... (Chuckles) It was just me after all ... The whole thing was ... in my head ... (Gasps) And I thought I'd ... basically ... lost my mind ... had a breakdown or ... whatever. And then I thought about all the shit I had to deal with now .... all my debts ... quitting my job ... Julia and Connor ... and now I was ... mentally ill ... and I'd have to face up to all this ... shit ... and carry on living. Because the world, y'know ... it hadn't ended, it was still going. And then this nice lady asked me if I was okay and I started screaming and I couldn't stop and they brought me here.

(Yawns, long pause – 3m 56s)

You don't fucking fool me though. This is all bollocks, I know. You're trying to make me think everyone's still alive. This is a simulation, don't think I'm ... unaware of that. I don't know who the fuck you are or where you come from, but I know you're keeping me in this fake hospital because I'm a rare specimen. (Yawns) No, more than rare. The world really has ended.

(Yawns, long pause – 4m 23s)

Very last ... of the ... human ruins ... (Chuckles)

(Long pause, 2m.48s. followed by snoring for 6h 22m)

End of transcription.

______________

Date: REDACTED

From: REDACTED

To: REDACTED

Subject: Transcript D – might come in handy?

Morning Pete,

Here’s the document you were after, transcript D, hope it’s useful. I’ve read it twice now and it certainly helps puts some flesh on the bones. I’d say there’s some good stuff in there, from the point of view of suggesting that the poor fella may have been at least halfway to a mental breakdown long before he took your client's anti-malaria medication. So granted the side effects brought on his psychosis, there’s no denying that was a factor, they’ve got the doctor’s report.  

But by his own account he was a pretty unstable personality anyway. There may be implications for your client’s liability that could be explored.  There might be a case for reduced damages, or at least some kind of ceiling on the amount, given the obvious instability of their client well in advance of taking the product.  

It may help to minimize the drug’s role at least a little, but if you don’t need it please feel free to shred it.  

Have a good weekend

Kev