#wrfweek

Furiosa sounds the horn. Toast takes it as her cue to wrap her shawl around a bar of one of the produce shelves, and ties the ends together.

‘Hold onto something’ she warns the others.

She puts her back against the shelves and pulls Angharad between her outstretched legs, providing a barrier against the uncomfortable metal bars and rough ropes that secure the goods. After grabbing a rope herself, she puts the improvised handle into Angharad’s hand and wraps her legs and spare arm around her for greater stability. Toast worries Furiosa hasn’t turned in time to avoid the trap but the War Rig makes a sharp right – sharper than usual. It’s easy to forget the parts you always get right when you’re so focused on figuring out what you did wrong. Toast slams her head back against the shelf, startled by the screams of the time they were caught out by the tripwire trap. She remembers the pain and the sobbing after the tanker had stopped rolling and the shock had worn off; the way the light had shone through the bashed-in door illuminating Capable’s broken body cradled in Angharad’s arms. She doesn’t want to remember. She can’t tell if the explosions are real or part of another memory come back to haunt her. She bites down hard on her lip to give herself something to focus on and then there is silence. She feels calm but it’s an uneasy calm; there’s something she’s supposed to do but she’d have to exert herself to recall it. It feels nice to exist without purpose. Her world is pulsating; enclosing and shrinking with each muffled beat. As the space around her is erased, her distressing thoughts are obscured by a layer of static that slowly builds, filling her mind and resonating in her bones. Her whole body is humming as she floats into a void of weightless tranquillity – the empty space between her current reality and her past. She doesn’t want to leave this place but someone is calling her name.

‘Toast?’

A high-pitched whine pulls her out of her trance and an explosion brings her crashing back to the most recent present. She panics – was that the first or second Spiked Jalopie? The roar of the flamethrower being used up top answers her question by announcing the arrival of the Buzzard Excavator. The temperature in the tanker rises and Toast remembers the heat of the fuel pod exploding – had she died that time? She tastes the tang of heated metal on her tongue as the heavy air starts to clog her mouth and nose. She takes deeper breaths but it’s not enough to get past the lump that’s formed in her throat. Fear is rising in her chest, she clenches her jaw to prevent it from screaming its way out; only a whimper escapes. Desperation takes hold, tightening around her lungs.

‘Toast, can you hear me? Are you ok?’

Toast tries to speak, the words form in her mouth but fail to express themselves. Someone is tightening something around her hand, she closes her fingers around it and recognises the softness of her shawl. She reaches out to the departing Angharad, her fingers just manage to brush against her wrist as she makes her way to the door. The War Boys are shouting again; bearing witness to a tragic act made glorious by desperate men and mediocre gods. Light floods the tanker as the door slides open, Toast tries to focus on the women that share her temporary cage – some barely noticeable scrapes and bruises but nothing compared to the first few times. After experimenting with various routes, despite the tripwire, their current course had been the most successful. Failed attempts lead them into similar traps that had either slowed them down enough for Joe’s Carmada to catch up, or resulted in total devastation to both the rig and her stolen cargo. The door slides shut as the tanker buckles, liquid seeps then gushes through the cracked baffles, crates break free from their restraints and tumble towards the stowaways. Toast instinctively attempts to cover her head before realising that her hand is attached to the sturdy shelves – a fractured reality is a lot harder to piece together in the dark.

A large explosion shakes the tanker and marks the end of the Buzzards’ pursuit. Toast returns her face to her hands, she searches for something to occupy her thoughts before the unwelcome ones fill the vacancy. She remembers when time had done this before. Her mother had warned her it could happen; it was something that all children of the tribe were prepared for from a young age. The day she had arrived at the Citadel had actually lasted at least 17 before they got it right – although there was no more ‘they’ by the time the vehicle came to a halt and she had been firmly directed to the lift. The Elders of the Chrono Conductors had taught her the importance of counting; timing was everything – if you could map the course of an approaching party, it would stay the same until it was interrupted by someone who experienced the time shifts. Unfortunately, the party the tribe interrupted was on a supply run from Bullet Farm. That day she also learnt the value of sacrifice. Lives served purposes and restarts occurred when lives ended too soon, surviving beyond that was fortunate but not necessary. The ultimate purpose was unknown, though some Seers had their predictions (and some predictions had been known to come true). Though tribe members who gave their lives keeping time in check were honoured in death, there wasn’t the same glamour that the War Boys associated with self-sacrifice. The tribe saw the War Boy’s indulgence in self-destruction as something to be pitied – disregarding the permanence of death whilst relishing the act. Toast found it a lot harder to pity them, considering what they’d taken, and felt a sudden burst of rage contort her face. She doesn’t want to think about what was taken because she has no outlet for pain and anger – nothing can bring them back. As the battle between misdirected anger and self-pity plays out in her weary mind, a different battle is raging outside the rig; the Badlands aren’t done with them yet.