I sleep for days again. And when I wake, it’s morning. The weak light reaches through the apartment window and touches the tins of beans, the canisters of water, the old notebooks. Raleigh’s survivalist stockpile has lasted months more than he told me it would now that I’m the only one eating it – and not always remembering to eat. But it’s still running out.
My laptop and notebooks are still in my backpack from the last time I managed to go outside, carefully wrapped inside scabby plastic bags in case of rain. I didn’t find any food, but I made it to Café Marina. The charge point still works, despite the dust clinging to the solar panels. Not that there’s much of point in working on my novel anymore. There’s nobody to read it.
But whenever my mind manages to wander, that’s where it goes: Ivan, dressed in princely blue, falling into Damien’s sinewy arms.
I throw my backpack on, carrying nothing but my writing, and step into the cool, dark corridor again. The stairwell smells worse every day. I’m not sure if it’s coming from the damp in the floor above, or from Raleigh’s old apartment on the ground floor. I gag at the memory of the last time I opened his door. When I went to see if there was anything to scavenge, knowing that’s what he would want. Every bottle of pills was empty; his heart medication and my antidepressants, that stockpile finally ran out. I could survive without my medication. Foggy, tired and miserable, but alive. And he...
I took the tins and his water filter. I couldn’t bring myself to take anything else. His clothes, or his knives. I washed his body, laid him in bed, and never went back.
I keep moving past his hallway and out the front door. Despite the stagnant heat, the smoggy sky is dim even in the daytime. Most of the people I knew in the before times were like me. Pretending, because we still had a job and still paid rent every month, that the world hadn’t already ended. Hoping that if we kept our heads down and acted as we always had, we could make normalcy come back, no matter how bad that normalcy had been.
But that didn’t happen. Raleigh’s paranoia was right – those with the power had already abandoned the rest of the world long before they left it. They took everything of value into their walled compounds and left the rest of us to fight over the scraps.
It would be the worst kind of naïve to think that everyone is living like I am, but if people are coming together anywhere in this city, I don’t know where they are.
I walk two blocks from my apartment before deciding nobody is following me. Double back, still watching over my shoulder, and head in the direction of Café Marina. There’s no food there, and I know that. But I don’t know where else to go.
When I am alone in the city, I like to pretend I’m doing research for Damien’s character. He is a mercenary and a loner; strong, resourceful, and caring. His fingernails are dirty with the grit of hard work, and he knows how to fend for himself. But I was never supposed to be him. I was supposed to be a soft and sheltered Ivan, or rather, Ivan was supposed to be me.
And a voice calls out through the thick heat, as I pass back in front of my apartment.
“Excuse me! Sir!”
A second voice cuts them off. “Marlowe, don’t. He could be a—”
“Do you know where we might find a solar panel?” the first voice continues.
I turn my head towards the sound. Don’t freeze, keep walking. A trio of young people are coming from the opposite street. They look… normal. Two are standing back, their hair ink-black and their skin parchment-brown, the boy wearing an oversized leather jacket and the girl in a denim shirt. The boy’s face is framed by fluffy whorls of adolescent stubble, and I feel suddenly very aware of my own bristling beard. I haven’t shaved since Raleigh died.
The third youth, who called out to me, is standing at the back. Sunburnt skin with patches of pale, wild red hair tightly pulled back from their face. They’re dressed in threadbare corduroy dungarees, a badge glinting on the pocket. Yellow, white, purple, and black, I recognise it as an old pride flag.
I almost smile. I wonder if they know what the pin means, or used to mean. If it’s foolish of me to wonder that. I haven’t seen anyone using a pride flag since the internet was cut off, and they’re all so young. Does our history matter to them? Are those patterns and their meanings something that had been handed down, preserved by someone?
My past life’s instinct is to be polite. Point them to Café Marina to see if the solar batteries have recharged since I used them. But I need to think like Raleigh would. Imagine them ransacking the café, my apartment, anything precious they can find. Raiders from the wasteland, from outside the city, come to pick at its bones, like vultures, like carrion eaters.
Not that I am a higher animal. Skittering in the darkness and scavenging in my own way, if they are vultures, then I am a cockroach.
“Sorry,” I blurt out. My teeth seem to shift as I speak, soft like slabs of chewing gum, my voice far rougher than I remember. My eyes are half-closed, and all I see are silhouettes. I am going to Café Marina to edit my novel, like I used to do every Sunday, and ignoring a teenager who is asking for directions. Ivan is to be presented to his people as their prince tomorrow morning, and he is nervous.
The redhead speaks again, insistently, even as the boy pulls at their arm. “Our van broke down, we can’t fix our own solar panels without power, and—”
The dark-haired girl murmurs something too quiet for me to hear, cutting them both off.
I could keep walking and probably never see them again. I will find more food, or I won’t. Either way, I’d walk this path, back and forth, until I die.
Or I could stop for them.
Maybe I can still do something good with the miserable dregs of my life. And if they are going to kill me, if this is how I’m going to die, at least it would be interesting. At least I would have Ivan and Damien by my side, their words pressed against my back. I owe them that much, if I’m not going to finish their story.
I stop.“Get your batteries,” I say, the words emerging from my throat as a low growl.
The redhead looks back at their companions.
The girl’s grim expression gives nothing away. She glances at the boy, and then back to the redhead.
“Fine,” she says. “Wait here.”
She whispers something to the boy before she slinks away. He doesn’t take his eyes off me, stiffly serious as the redhead smiles brightly, fidgeting fingers resting on their badge.
“This is Leighton,” the redhead offers, pointing at the boy, “and that was his sister Herzog. They’re twins.”
“Marlowe,” Leighton snaps, all teenage irritation.
“And I’m Marlowe,” the redhead continues, an edge of rambling nerves to their voice. “All of our ensemble take the names of great artists from the old world, and I take mine from the playwright. I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”
“…Not Shakespeare?” I say, unthinking.
Marlowe blinks rapidly. “I’m, erm, not familiar with their work.”
I shouldn’t have said anything. I hadn’t meant to embarrass them. But then their expression changes to open-mouthed delight. “Since you are of the old world, perhaps you could tell us more while we walk?”
I grunt in agreement. Marlowe grins, and Leighton still says nothing.
It doesn’t take long for Herzog to return, hefting a large, blocky battery pack in her arms. Their van must not be that far away. Leighton and Herzog must have minds like Raleigh’s, and see me as a threat, just as I had tried to convince myself they were to me. We’re close to everything they possess. Someone stronger than me could have ruined their lives, if they’d wanted to. Leighton offers his hand to Herzog, and the siblings carry the pack between them.
“Well?” Herzog prompts.
My voice catches in my throat, so I gesture them on with a wave of my hand, and turn towards Café Marina. As they begin to trail me, slowly and carefully, I notice that Leighton walks with a limp.
“So,” Marlowe says, stepping up to join me as their companions follow. “Who is Shakespeare?”
“He wrote at the same time as Marlowe,” I explain. The more they ask about him, the more I regret mentioning him. I still find myself walking on the pavement, as if a car is likely to come around the corner soon. The teens have none of my instincts, spreading and swaying across the cracked grey asphalt.
“But you seemed surprised that I knew Marlowe better,” they say.
“Marlowe died young,” I reply. “He only wrote six plays.”
“And Shakespeare,” Marlowe asks, inclining their head. “How many did he write?”
I start trying to count, but I can’t. Not without looking it up. “A lot,” I say.
Marlowe nods.“Do you think I should know Shakespeare?” they ask.
I pause. In my world, I might have said yes. I’m not sure if I would have been right to say it. There are places in the world where Shakespeare doesn’t matter, where people write without his shadow on the horizon. It doesn’t matter if these kids know him, the same way it doesn’t matter if Marlowe knows precisely what the flag they wear means. If they would even use the same words to describe themselves as we did, or if they’ve become something new and entirely different.
“I have books of some of his plays,” I reply carefully. “You can read them, if you want. But you don’t have to. You already have Marlowe.”
If they want to know the old world’s history, I won’t try to stop them. They’ll have their own ideas of what’s important and what’s not. Maybe they’ll take something from it that I couldn’t.
Café Marina’s once-bold blue paint stands out to me as we turn onto its street, but I realise that to Marlowe and the others, it must be indistinguishable from any of the other chipped and faded fronts lining the old shopping street, the letters beatenworn off away by years of disuseneglect.
“Here,” I say, stopping outside the door. I point through the wide bay windows. “The one at the back definitely works, the others need testing.”
Leighton and Herzog exchange glances, and then stare at the grimy window. I’m not sure if it will be more suspicious if I enter first, or if I insist on them doing so.
“Oh, thank you,” Marlowe says, breaking the tension by skimming through the door. Herzog follows closely, dragging Leighton with her by the battery.
I lean against the bay window as if I’m part of the furniture. The trio set their equipment against the wall. Before the world closed, this was a reading nook, nestled with cushions and had the best lighting in the café. Now, it’s a bare wooden ledge, the cushions long-scavenged along with anything else that could be carried out the door by someone even more desperate than me. Marlowe tinkers with a socket while Herzog unwinds cables from inside her jacket. Leighton watches me over his shoulder as they work. Click, click.
Marlowe turns the plug on, and a light on the battery pack turns orange. The siblings sit back, staring in silence for a few long moments.
“…It works,” Herzog says distantly.
“I told you,” Marlowe grins, vindicated.
I clear my throat and gesture to their battery. “Anyway, there it is. You want me to leave you to it?”
Herzog shakes her head. “You don’t have to.” She sits back against the wall, her knees drawn close. There’s chipped nail polish on her fingers, stubs of pink clinging to her cuticles. “Marlowe still has questions, if you want to answer them.”
Marlowe smiles. They’re kneeling by Herzog, long limbs tucked underneath them and an elbow draped against the battery.
I don’t have anywhere better to be. I rest the weight of my body against the ledge, and wait for them to say something.
But it’s Leighton who speaks first. “What was this place?” he asks, gaze darting around the crumbling wooden facades.
“A café,” I reply. I don’t know if I should explain what that is. “I used to come here at the weekend to write. The coffee was fine, and they didn’t mind how long I stayed.”
“You’re a writer?” Leighton asks, turning towards me with sudden interest.
I shift uncomfortably against the window. “I write. I’m not one of your great artists, if that’s what you mean.”
But Leighton is reaching inside his jacket, his hair falling across one eye like a crow’s wing.
“Leighton, seriously?” Herzog interrupts. “You brought it with you?”
“If something happened, I didn’t want to—”
“What are you writing?” Marlowe pipes up.
“It’s...”
I could never get it down to a summary. I didn’t tell a lot of people what I was doing, and when I did, I’d ramble. I turn my eyes towards the window.
“It’s a fairytale,” I say. I don’t want to tell them it’s a love story. I don’t want to tell them it’s a fantasy, that it won’t tell them anything about the old world because I used my story to escape it.
Leighton has finished pulling a book from the tight inside pocket of his jacket. He ignores Marlowe and his sister as he gets to his feet and crosses the room towards me with a steely determination. “What can you tell me about the person who wrote this?” he demands.
He holds it out towards me. I expected him to show me something like Catcher In The Rye. I expected to recognise it. But I don’t. A midnight blue cover with blocky white lettering. A man in shadows, walking the streets at night. What You Wish For, by Alex Leighton.
“This is the book you took your name from,” I note. Leighton nods. I take it from his fingers and turn it over gently in my hands.
“Leighton is in love with him,” Herzog says dryly. “That’s why he’s asking.”
“Shut up, Herz,” Leighton hisses over his shoulder.
If I’ve ever seen it before, I don’t remember it. Glanced over it in the crime section of a second-hand bookstore, dismissed it as a cheap airport novel.
“Can I open it?” I ask.
“Sure,” Leighton replies quickly.
I try not to let my face show that I’m not impressed as I skim the first page. If they’re missing someone as widely printed as Shakespeare, maybe this is the only crime novel they have.
“So?” Leighton prompts.
I feel a strange sympathy for this hack, this knock-off Chandler, and his cheap tricks with black-and-white and red. Who’s to say the writer can’t play cheap tricks with colour? I’ve done it before. The bright warm colours of the market Ivan gets lost in, compared to the desaturated coolness of the palace. He’s enjoying himself. This book took the writer years. I’m cringing at his soul the way I feared people would cringe at mine.
“I’ve read books like it,” I say carefully, passing it back to Leighton. “But not this one. I’m sorry.”
Leighton nods shyly, and returns the book to his jacket. Pulls his lapels closed, the pocket pressing over his heart. Despite its clumsiness, it means something to this boy whose life has been so different from mine. I think it’s for the best if they’re not poisoned by the old world’s ideas of what was worthy and what was not. It didn’t work out well for us, clearly.
“So, where are the rest of your people?” Herzog asks, blatantly covering for Leighton’s sheepishness. “You can’t all stay in that collapsing building.”
“I…”
It would be a straightforward question, if it wasn’t so difficult.
Even now, I don’t know how to talk about him. For a long time, I assumed that Raleigh was straight, but that I was there, and warm, and willing to stay the night. I became less sure of him, and then more again, and now he’s dead. He was never much of a talker, and I’ve never been good at telling if someone is interested in me. I don’t think it’s fair to say we loved each other, if I couldn’t figure out my cramped feelings while he was alive, if I’m writing him into a story that he can’t deny in death.
“I used to live with a friend,” I say carefully. “But he died a few months ago. Now, I live alone.”
The three teenagers fall silent. I turn to look out of the window. They’re just trying to survive. My grief isn’t their problem.
“Would you ever want to leave the city?” Marlowe asks, curiously quiet.
“I don’t think I’d survive,” I reply.
“Because, we…” Marlowe’s voice is threaded with urgency. But they stop.
“Because we have space,” Herzog finishes coolly. “It was just me and Leighton for a while, until we found Marlowe. And… maybe having someone else for company wouldn’t be so bad.”
“And you’re an artist,” Marlowe adds. “So… you’re one of us.”
I want to argue. Tell them I’m not an artist. Invent an obligation that keeps me here. My detour with them was supposed to be a break from life as a scavenger, not the beginning of an impossible new one. I didn’t make the most of the chance Raleigh offered me, and I’d only do the same to them.
“I’d be a drain on you,” I say. “I can’t grow anything, I can’t fix anything. I couldn’t repay you.”
“So?” Leighton replied. “None of us can do everything.”
“It’s more than that,” I say. Maybe I do want to go with them. If a stranger like me can help them out of the city… maybe they can be what I’m looking for, too. “I’m… ill,” I say carefully. “On my bad days, I can barely wake up.”
“And on my bad days, neither can I,” Leighton replies.
“We want to know what the world was like before,” Marlowe says, eyes gleaming and hands clenched. “And you’re the only one of us who has seen it. Let us do what you can’t. You will be doing the same for us.”
“I don’t want the old world to drag you down,” I say weakly. “The new world doesn’t need people like me.”
I try to convince myself with my own argument. They are new, and bright, and my illness is a metaphor for the burdens of the old world. They should not be plagued by someone with the infectious knowledge of where we used to think the boundaries of normal were. But…I know that’s not right. I didn’t thrive in our old ways. Most of us didn’t. We’d be in the walled compounds if we did. I’m just another person picking through the wreckage of a disaster that I didn’t realise was happening until it was too late.
My themes have always been the weakest part of my work, I suppose.
“Then let me give you a purpose, if you won’t give yourself one,” Herzog said, lifting her chin. “I want you to finish your story, your fairy tale. And I want you to write about our world. Someone has to, from outside the walled cities. You might as well be one of them.”
I think of Ivan, stumbling across Damien’s fishing boat as he runs from the assassins, and Damien, holding out his hand. I think of Raleigh, running into me in the hallway and inviting me into his life.
I used to think I was an insect who only survived because he lived in the cracks of the world. But that isn’t true. I am only here because others are kind, and I don’t know how to be kind in turn.
“Then… yes,” I say. “If you’re sure. I didn’t like the world I used to live in. But like you, I loved its art. I’ll bring my books, and anything else you can use. I’ll tell you what I can.”
“Then first,” Marlowe says. “Tell us about you.”
I don’t think my story is that interesting, but I tell them. About my old life, and my old job, and never really being happy. About writing on the weekends, and the time I wished I could afford to spend on what made me happy. About when I first met Raleigh, before I really knew who he was.
The batteries are fully charged before I can finish, but I know we’ll have more time. I lead the three teenagers back through the streets, pausing when they ask more questions. That used to be a café too, that used to be a vape shop. My head swirls with their excitement.
I let them go to the van to replace the battery and make their repairs while I head for the apartment.
And I turn towards Raleigh’s door, one last time.
He isn’t in here anymore. Isn’t in that body. But I lay my palm against the door, and incline my forehead. We will never say the things we didn’t, and our world will never fix the problems it started. But at least I can say goodbye.
“I’m sorry we didn’t talk more. I’m sorry that you’re not still here. I think you’d have liked them. Marlowe would have annoyed you with all their questions, Leighton would have talked to you about cheap crime novels, Herzog would have asked to see your knives.”
“I’ll miss you,” I murmur, “and… thank you. I hope I loved you when I knew you, as much as I love your memory.”
Marlowe, Leighton, and Herzog are waiting when I come back out with the books.
“We welcome you, writer, to our ensemble, our family,” Marlowe says, standing straight. A little formal for the three of us, but what should I expect from a playwright? “When each of us joined this caravan, we took on the name of a great artist. We would like to give you your name.” They hold a book towards me. Homage to Catalonia, not the Orwell I would expect. “We would give you the name Orwell, after the memoirist. May the legacy of your own story be as great as his.”
I realise the irony. I try not to laugh. I used to want to be like him, with that electric masculinity, that sense of moral purpose to my work. I know how he judged people like me, too soft, too weak, too queer.
For all Orwell’s influence, the world still fell apart. His legacy could not stop his words from being used to build exactly the future he was trying to prevent. And for all his unkind words for people like us, here he is. He survives as what we make of the parts of him we wish to keep.
In a hundred years or more, I don’t know what will survive of me. But neither did Alex Leighton. What should it matter what strangers remember of me in the world after this, when I am here, and I matter now?
“Thank you,” I say.
Carrion eaters and cockroaches, crawling over this dead world’s bones. But I want to leave, from my decay, the chance for something new to grow.
Heather Valentine is a queer speculative fiction writer based in Glasgow, Scotland. Her interests include knitting, fantasy RPGs and vintage horror films. She has previously had stories published in magazines and anthologies including We Were Always Here: A Queer Words Anthology, LampLight Magazine, and Unspeakable: A Queer Gothic Anthology.
Art: Stephen Daly