White and Other Tales of Ruin

I was in a bus or coach, my seat so comfortable that it must have moulded to my form. The air in the coach was of a perfect temperature and humidity. On a small table in front of me sat several bottles of water, wine and beer, and three packed meals, red self-heating lights all glowing. The lighting was at an optimum level, and although it seemed that the sun shone brightly outside, the windows filtered the glare. It was perfect.

Glancing down, I saw that I was firmly strapped into my seat.

Be glad you don’t live here, a voice whispered, so intimate that it felt as though it originated inside my head.

I looked outside again and nothing was wrong. Kids played along the pavement, parents chatted over fences or washed cars or cut lawns, a family cycled along the street, passing so close to my window that I could see a shaving-cut on the father’s face. They seemed not to notice us. It was so silent inside the coach — if there were other passengers, their attention was concentrated on what was happening outside — that a sense of foreboding built rapidly, a feeling that nothing could be right with a scene that looked so perfect. Something bad was coming. It had

to be. We were, after all, in Hell.

My breathing quickened and I almost went to rap on the window, but then I remembered where I was and why. I’d come because I wanted to see things like this. I needed to know that my life wasn’t so bad after all.

There’s no such thing as perfect, the voice purred, soft, androgynous, a tickle in my ear.

And then the madman came.

It only took a couple of minutes from beginning to end. Our coach moved silently to one side to allow the high-powered car to roar past, scream into a skid and mount the pavement. A toddler disappeared beneath its front bumper and re-emerged as a red streak on the pavement, baseball cap fluttering in the car’s slipstream like a wounded butterfly. A bigger kid went flying, parting company with his bike and spinning through the air, blood spiraling as it caught the calm afternoon sun.

I saw a parent open their mouth and heard the scream, and I thought at least Laura’s still alive, somewhere.

The car struck a garden wall and the driver tumbled out … and then the true terror of what we were about to see became apparent.

He had guns. Slung around his neck, a belt dangled hand grenades like poisoned apples, full of death. A knife gleamed in his belt. His face was grim and spattered with blood, as if this was just another stop in a slew of mayhem, and I saw that he had a good haircut, manicured nails, a fake tan. I wondered what had driven him to this.

The madman stepped in a soft, red, wet mess next to his car. He wiped his foot slowly and carefully on a clump of grass. And then he opened fire.

I ducked, but the coach seemed to be beyond his sight. He swung the guns around, left, right, left again, then dropped one and plucked a grenade from the belt. People tumbled, sagged, screamed, shoved themselves under cars and behind doors with shattered legs, tried to catch their blood. Sounds and colours combined, the bloody red roar of rifle fire, the black explosions of grenades, the glinting screams of agony as windows burst out and glass lacerated, crumpled brick brained, fire rolled and added to itself.

Overhead, storm clouds had gathered from out of nowhere, and lightning forked down beyond the street. High up I saw a passenger plane struck and begin a slow, terrible roll towards earth.

Our coach pulled away quickly, leaving the scene of devastation behind. I should have been shocked, but there was only relief.

Be glad you didn’t live there

, the voice whispered again. A woman across the aisle smiled softly to herself, and I knew that everyone was being spoken to.

“Where are we?” I shouted. The woman frowned at me as if I was disturbing the climax of a particularly moving opera. “Where are we?” But I knew. I think it was just panic.

“Shut up,” said a soft voice from the seat in front of me. I could not see the person speaking. The straps did not allow any intermingling.

“But is all that supposed to help?” I said. I turned to the woman, feeling the need for eye contact, but she had averted her gaze. It was dark outside now and there was a definite sense of movement, but the windows gave no reflection. Unless she chose to look at me I may as well have been talking to myself. “Seeing those people shot,” I continued, “murdered in cold blood, and that plane falling from the sky, who knows what the passengers were thinking? How can that help, all that pain — ”

“It helps because you’ve never felt it,” the man in front said. His voice was still low but it carried, bearing authority and experience and a weariness I had never encountered before. I wondered how long he had been here. The certainty that it was forever sent me cold. “Be glad.”