Have you ever seen stone rot away in seconds or dissolve like sugarlumps in boiling water? That was on the day the ceiling collapsed and the shadows of airships fell through the building’s cracked ribcage. They hung there drifting corpulently like boats seen from below the water. It seemed like we ran for hours after that, never fully escaping the shade.
Nobody knew precisely when it had begun or why. Something had gone badly wrong, or perhaps slightly wrong several million times. We were divided: some said that there had been a fraud committed, typical of such a cynical and calculating lot. Others said that an error of calculation had occurred, yet another characteristic demonstration of ineptitude. The more diplomatic among us, preferring to point an accusing finger outward rather than inward, postulated that a trick question had been posed and the wrong answer given. Regardless of the nature of the act its consequence remained. That was all any of us really cared about in any case, and above all of what would become of ourselves.
It was in the winter that the majority got wind of the crisis; although a few fragmented whispers had been filtering down for months. The atmosphere was strangely static, before it began. Few people were asking any questions then, as now, although at present it is because nobody thinks the answers will matter. We heard there’d been a declaration: give us what we’re owed or we’ll come in and get it. The disappearances began shortly afterwards.
At first it was direct. Vaults were hastily unbolted to find gold and silver mingling in puddles, trickling out through cracks in the brickwork and grates in the floor, determined to return to its owner. The people whose job it was to manage the money grabbed buckets, tried to scoop up whatever remained before it ebbed away. It was the first and only time I’d seen them genuinely concerned.
The books were next to go. I remember one afternoon they took flight, rising from our desks and flapping toward the nearest exit. After that we began to bring butterfly nets with us, put bars up on the windows. At that point they were to stop things escaping rather than getting in. Nevertheless we returned fire from the battlements and barricades, chanted facile slogans belying the secret selfish speculation in all of us – what will happen to me?
After that the words themselves began to vanish, fading from the pages or bleeding away through our fingers. We lost our own words too: in our minds, on our lips, from our pens. Some found it a spur though, joking that they “worked better under pressure”. The musicians continued practicing and played on while all around them burned. Even they were silenced by what came next – or rather what left.
People. One in twenty. One in ten. One in four. Eventually you came to wonder when entering a room with a group, how many would walk back out, who would remain after you turned away for a moment or woke up one morning. It reminded me of a game I played as a child – there was always one less chair when, suddenly, the music stopped. We all hung on until we had to let go or were made to.
As time went by we began to wonder who and why we were fighting. Everyone fought a different battle and although they claimed it was toward the good of the whole it was their own survival, first and foremost, that had priority. All our futures were at stake but each in a different way, some less immediately than others. Some gave up the pretence of unity entirely: sod you, what about me or at the moment it’s unavoidable that this has to happen, there are other areas that need to be propped up, made excuses as to why one department (likely the more profitable) needed resources rather than another, talked of a lack of interest as the rooms were boarded up, shelves of books sold off.
That was when those responsible for rations began charging us for drinking water, brought the price of a slice of bread far beyond what many were prepared to pay and eventually could afford. There was an uncomfortable realisation as to why we were here in the first place, not why we’d come but why it was that the doors were thrown open to us. Merchants set up shop in the corridors and common areas, given full license as long as they shared their spoils. They seemed unconcerned by the carnage while we ducked from snipers in the courtyards and searched warily through the rubble, their gaudy hoardings and cries for custom at stark contrast with the shattered surroundings. Some grew to hate them, others realised they were merely a symptom. At times the place seemed to belong more to them, or they to it, than us. For the first time since we arrived it appeared alien.
It seemed to be shrinking then, solid walls where there had once been archways, entire towers disappearing overnight. The claustrophobia was too much for many, scurrying away from the grounds under cover of night with silent breaths of relief or flinging themselves suddenly into the open where they died sprawled on the cobbles in the eager flurry of shots that followed.
When eventually the roof caved in it was the only glimpse of sunlight a few had seen for months: it and the exhilaration of the breeze held their faces high, opening long-fastened mouths to utter a few words too late as the bombs fell to meet them.
