II

Later, though he didn’t know how much. It didn’t really matter. The grey ground of compacted ash was springy beneath his feet. What were once walking boots now cadaverous and bound with twine and strings. Soaked and dried hundreds of times. The sky was still grey but different. A colder, blank, cloudless, pale grey. What trees were still standing had no branches, let alone leaves. They appeared like cracks in the paint of the sky, splintering up from the blackened skirting board of blasted country that stretched out before him.

Occasionally he would cross a concrete forecourt of some kind, its borders and edges concealed by a grey carpet of ash and leaves almost fossilised. The resident buildings long since rendered featureless and bleached. Paint peeling, functionless, they all looked the same now. Not even birds to leave droppings on the windowsills or crow in the echoing interiors. Where had the birds gone?

All he could remember was that the first things to go were her and the little animal. What had started as a choice, ended as one. And so it was that some time ago they seemed to have ceased. It was almost as if he couldn’t remember if they had been there or not. But something, a decision, had been made. Everything else probably followed. Such is the power of intention.

It was cold again.

And the people. Before, he had seen them moving on the horizon, or in windows. From inside and out. Heard their exchanges. Watched their jaws moving. Uncomprehending, mystified by their codes. What formula to their ritual conversing? What values did they hold? No door to speak of. No entrance. It didn’t matter anyway. They were gone now. Just like everything.

It was disturbing, when every once in a while, she seemed as alien to him as everyone else.