White and Other Tales of Ruin

I took another swig of beer and the screaming man stopped screaming. There was a thud, like a door slamming shut or a page being turned in a heavy book, and then silence.

The man in front sighed, and I saw a hand raise up and smooth down his wispy hair. It was old, wrinkled, calloused, the hand of a manual worker. I wondered if he worked in the inner-city farms, or the sewers, or the tunnel projects that were meant to link city to city, country to country.

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” he said.

I caught an whiff of burning bodies, as if a flake of scorched flesh was caught in my nostrils. “Of course it matters!” I said, wanting to shout. “Didn’t you see them? Poor bastards, poor …” I trailed off because I realised how inadequate anything I could say would sound.

“It’s all put on for us because we’re in Hell, and that’s how they do things here,” the man said. “Ha! I can’t even see you, for all I know you’re a machine with reaction software, or just one of them.” I heard him tapping his fingers against the window, as if trying to read dark Braille there. “In fact, I’m sure you are.”

“I’m not!” I said. “Maybe you are! Maybe everyone on this coach — ”

“Not me,” he said. “But I don’t worry or hold it against you, because what’s the capital of Syria?”

“Huh?”

He was silent for a couple of seconds and I saw the woman looking over, interest arching her eyebrows. I suddenly felt unreasonably good, seeing something other than fear, dread or sorrow on her face.

“I suppose I’d have to be quicker than that to catch out reaction software, wouldn’t I?”

“Absolutely, Sir,” I said in a slow monotone, and the woman snorted.

Something made the coach sway slightly, and I heard a couple of coughs as people tried to ignore the sick movement in their stomachs. I glanced at the window, waiting for it to brighten again and terrified at what I would see, but it remained dark.

I wondered where Laura was right then. It felt strange thinking of her, because it was almost certain that she wasn’t thinking of me. At most I was an invader in her memory. In a way I wished that I could forget as well, but she wasn’t in pain, wasn’t burning or being shot. I sent love to Laura, knowing she wouldn’t hear it but doing it for myself. It didn’t help, but I pretended it did.

The windows brightened and I thought we were back. Back where I wasn’t exactly sure — somewhere deep in the Welsh mountains, perhaps — but at least our journey was at an end. The view from the window was wonderful, a mountainous rural paradise, and I sat back and smiled as the coach moved slowly through the scene.

So come on, I thought, show us pollution or global warming or deforestation or disease or death. But the image remained pure, the trees and shrubs and flowers and grasses grew lush and healthy. Things weren’t so bad after all. There were a lot of people much more worse off than me. What this meant for them I tried not to consider, because this trip was all about me, and for the woman across the aisle it was purely about her, and so on, and so on …

If thinking that way worked I was not about to argue.

It was only as I noticed the shapes slung between the trees that I realised we still had some way to go. They came into focus, my breath hitched, my heart stuttered. And I knew it wasn’t a holo or a movie or an act.

It was more than that. I knew for certain that this, all of this, was far more real than anyone could have guessed.

I knew, because I recognised one of the shapes strung up on the barbed wire.

Laura.

“Laura!” I strained in my seat, fighting against the straps. I needed to press close to the window, closer to Laura, just to make sure it was her. Her hair was tangled in a knot of wire above her, arms flung out and bleeding where they were tied, legs dangling. I recognised the dress she wore … she’d first worn it on her thirteenth birthday. I’d bought it for her. Expensive. And even before the party started she spilled orange juice down it, and she started to cry because her party was spoiled. I’d told her that it was the girl, not the dress that mattered. The girl inside …

“Laura!” I screamed again. The strap was biting into my waist as I reached for the window. The coach was moving along slowly, and other hanging figures were coming into view. Some of them were still but for the movement of birds and other carrion creatures, but most of them still moved where they hung, each movement drawing more blood or further cries or moans.

Laura moved.

I sat still and watched, and just as she passed out of sight behind a thick clump of trees she shifted again, her mouth falling open into a scream I heard from afar.

“That’s Laura out there!” I shouted, having no comprehension of how this could be so, simply knowing that it was. I could no longer see her but her scream remained. “That’s Laura!”

“Hey, I’m sure you didn’t see?”

“Don’t tell me I don’t know my own daughter!” I shouted at the woman, and she flinched as if slapped.