Patient Blue-Chapter 2 - Strange New Dawn (Part two)

A Chapter by Alex Paul

Leaving the communal entrance lobby and heading down the three steps to the path, I'm immediately struck by the fierce heat, this is January yet it feels more like a burning hot day in July. The mist hangs in strands and patches and where I can see the sky fantastically it appears to be undulating, which is the only word I can think of to describe it, erudite for 3 am, with green lemon and lilac hues. Large numbers of seagulls are wheeling at very high altitude and several bats skitter and chitter across the lawn. With their hibernation disturbed they're desperately searching for insects that won't be there, weird.

The beach is about three miles away and I reckon it will take me under an hour at a reasonable walking pace to reach. I considered taking the car but it's very low on fuel and I'm planning to stop at the garage on my way to work. Anyway, I'm in the mood for a walk and can observe far more on foot than from my ageing Golf with its dodgy clutch. As I leave the communal gardens of Blenheim House, a ludicrously grand name for a weathered three storey block of flats built in the early seventies, and enter the surrounding streets, the situation seems surreal. I appear to be the only person up and about and this only adds to the overall post- apocalyptic feeling that this strange light and mist engenders, another impressive word, I'm on a roll, that thesaurus has certainly paid for itself.

I'm sweating in the heat and remove the jumper I've put on out of habit and tie it round my waist. All the houses have their curtains drawn and apart from the distant cries of the high altitude gulls and the occasional single bark from a dog, it is disconcertingly quiet.

The mist appears to have thickened diffusing further the eerie half-light. It reminds me of the total eclipse of the sun experienced in Britain in 1999. My twin brother David, Davey to everyone who knew him, was found in a coma just before that event and died without regaining consciousness just days after. It was me who found him I panicked tried giving him the kiss of life, tasted the vomit in his mouth and gagged, banged his chest I didn't know what I was doing, probably made it worse. Tears spring to my eyes every time I think of that scene they spring to my eyes now, my failure, my loss. I press on through the spectral dawn.

I've decided that this light is similar to that experienced just before the eclipse totality occurred, alien, other, unnatural. The portents now, despite the death of Davey, seem somehow far more alarming than anything I felt back at the end of the last Millennium complete with its cardboard eclipse glasses given away free in The Sun. Then it was just one personal tragedy, but this, I can't quite put it into words. It seems bad like something terrifying and unstoppable may have been unleashed and I, we, the human race, despite our science and technology, are mere fragile bystanders waiting to be swept away by powerful pitiless forces. Stop it get a grip, it's probably something that's happened before but I didn't notice. Even as I think this I know it's not true.

As I continue my walk to the beach it's obvious there's a power cut covering the whole area. Traffic lights are out this will cause awesome chaos and delays in the rush hour later. I pause at the electricity transformer standing inside a barbed wire topped fence that borders a residential back garden. It bears a stark yellow sign with a lightning bolt and an electrocuted stick figure man along with the warning Danger of Death. There is a rustling in the grass, probably a rat nosing through the dumped remnants of takeaway food. I can see a used condom, the semen like some toxic faintly glowing residue clearly visible inside. Anemic looking tendrils of bean sprouts spill onto the grass from a foil carton someone has lobbed over the fence, a rat banquet for one. 'You want fried rice with that?' I wonder as always on the negative effect such a device will have on the sale price of this property. I mean a house sign saying, Danger of death, doesn't have quite the same charm as "Rose Cottage" or "Fairview." Normally a low hum can be heard, but now it's silent, an ugly utilitarian structure impotent and without purpose. A bit like my long deflated boner from earlier.

Ahead walking, or rather dragging a small dog on a lead I can see a stooped elderly man who appears to be wearing a dressing gown and slippers. As I draw alongside, the dog, a runty type of mongrel terrier with fleshy diseased looking nodules poking through its greying fur, bares its teeth and growls at me.

'Stop it Prince,' says the man, a salt of the earth type, to the incongruously named mutt , 'It's alright he won't bite, just a bit old and grouchy like the rest of us.'

Speak for yourself granddad I think, taking an instant dislike to the dog. 'He's a lovely old boy, aren't you lad. What do you make of all this?' I spread my arms skyward indicating the day.

'Strange, the dog barking woke me up, I think there was a loud bang that set him off.'

'Yes; I thought I heard that, what do you think it was?

'I don't know it came from the direction of the sea.'

'I can't get anything on the radio or TV I thought I'd take a stroll down to the beach, see if anything's going on. This light, it's so strange.'

'Do you think there will be anything going on down there? I'd come with you only Prince gets knackered after about two hundred yards and he's already done his business,' the man holds up a plastic Tesco bag full of dog s**t.'

Thank God for small mercies I think, but say; 'Oh dear, what a pity, still never mind there's probably not much to see. I'll be off then, goodbye.'

Prince growls again, c***s his leg and pisses on a child's glove lying abandoned on the pavement, reminding me why I would never own a dog. Though if I ever do it will be some sort of huge magnificent hound, not a runty little b*****d like that.

The walk to the beach takes just over half an hour I see a few cars and one or two other confused looking people but don't stop to talk. It has become both hotter and brighter and the mist has begun to lift, now just mere wisps. The tide's coming in and gentle waves lap the coarse sand that borders the shingle and pebbles of Aldwick beach. The unseen sun is creating spectacular though decidedly strange light effects and I'm starting to wonder if I might be having some sort of flashback. There are pale pulsing trails of colour lilac, yellow and green, reminding me of a documentary I once saw, with Joanna Lumley all awed and breathy saying words like magnificent, gosh and wow as she looked at rippling curtains of light high in the Arctic sky. Actually, even though she's not Kate Humble and old enough to be my mother, she's definitely still doable. But as I'm not a Gurkha I probably wouldn't get a look in. I know that you can occasionally get auroras in Southern England. I have a picture in the bathroom at home of the Northern Lights over Corfe Castle, but they look nothing like this, in fact maybe not there at all. Just a bit of overexposure cleverly sold as the real thing to gullible tourists, of which I am apparently one.

I'm starting to feel both excited and terrified by the spectacle overhead now, an almost ancient primal fear of the unknown. About a mile out to sea I can see a collection of boats, some of them quite large gathered together in one spot. I assume these are fishing boats maybe taking advantage of the benign conditions and unexpected early light to cast their nets for lobsters. There's also a riot of blue flashing lights reflecting off Bognor Regis pier some two miles distant. There's obviously been a major incident and not just a standard brawl amongst Poland's finest in the dodgy nightclub sited on the remnant of the pier, still just long enough to hold the Bognor Birdman competition. What a town.

On a whim I've decided to take off my shoes and socks roll up my trousers and take a paddle in the sea. As I wade into the calm water with its surface psychedelically reflecting the sky above I wince. It's bloody freezing even though the air temperature must be in the high eighties it is still January after all. The mist clears further and I can see trash floating on the incoming tide, lots of it. Jesus, no wonder English seaside resorts are struggling when you see all that crap floating in the water. I look down and see a child's shoe bobbing in the barely perceptible swell, there are scraps of paper, foam cups and a piece of white linen emblazoned with a green and gold logo, TANZAN-AIR. I can see a bigger chunk of something slowly approaching the shore, large and dark covered in seaweed. I examine the thing out of curiosity but recoil in shock and scream like a girl as I realize I'm staring at a dead body, a large black man floating face down and scraping on the sand as the tide brings him in closer to the beach.

The corpse is naked, except for wearing one white sock and a Nike trainer on the right foot his arms are stretched out in front with the head between them. In my shock I manage to fall over landing on my backside in the shallow water which causes the body, cold and stiff to nudge into me. I try to move away, escape this horror, but just manage to kick and splash and move backwards in a crab like motion which only causes the cadaver to follow me as if by magnetic attraction. Then suddenly as if a switch has been thrown it goes dark and I'm left sitting in the sea involuntarily cradling the head of the dead man in my lap under a winter sky that's now full of stars. 'Oh Jesus Christ, somebody help me please!'

The time is 5.22 am.

prev chapter