Author: Jackie Small

Since the world gave up the fight, and finally started to die in earnest, it takes longer to get to work in the morning.

The consequences of dietary deficiencies are time consuming. Muscle wasting and anaemia cause such extreme fatigue and shortness of breath, that the time and effort needed to shower and dress, becomes equivalent to that required to run a marathon. Creams and dressings must be applied to rashes and sores, and teeth and hair must be brushed slowly and carefully to minimise gum bleeding and hair loss.

Chronic exposure to toxic air pollution exacerbates breathlessness and throws in occasional prolonged and disabling coughing fits, especially in the mornings.
Breakfast is protracted and complex. Filtering, sterilising and heating water on a Calor Gas stove, to reconstitute dried milk for porridge, takes considerably longer than pouring milk from a carton in the fridge, and heating it in the microwave. Eating and drinking is slow and painful, due to mouth and throat ulcers.

The walk to work is mercifully short since Colin and I set up in his building two blocks away. We relocated there when the museum closed six months ago, and we were the only two left. Most of our colleagues had moved or died, and the rest simply stopped coming to work.

A lot of people did that. Simply stopped going out. It is as if they have come out in sympathy with Mother Earth. Given up the fight. They sit about in their bathrobes. They don’t get dressed. They smoke and drink like there is no tomorrow, which of course there isn’t. Not really.

Giving up was never an option for us. We are getting close and we are running out of time. Of course, we are dying, everyone is, but it is worse than that. If the long, slow decline towards a “natural” death isn’t enough, governments are threatening to hasten the end by blowing everything to bits as they squabble about the allocation of the remaining natural resources.

For many, the prospect of a quick and painless end holds a certain attraction, but for us it only serves to increase our urgency. Where we had previously been looking at months for the end stages of the project, we are now talking weeks, maybe days. We have taken to working in shifts. Colin works at night and I do the days.

It has been a seven-year project. At the time of the discovery, the whole world was talking about what we had found and what it might mean for humanity. At the start, the funding came flooding in and, at its peak, there were thirty people in the team. But the work was laborious and painstaking. We made slow progress and the world soon lost interest.

I pull my hood down over my face, adjust my goggles and make sure my bandana is snug around my nose and mouth, before I open the front door. Tall, grey buildings tower over the deserted street on both sides. A thousand vacant windows gaze mournfully down on cracked and uneven sidewalks, that are lined with the withered skeletons of long dead planetrees. Rusted vehicles have become one with crumbling tarmac. It is cold. Only I, hear the forlorn moan of the lonesome north-easterly as it passes through the city.

I walk as quickly as I can. Head bowed against the cold and the wind. Concentrating on my breathing and conserving my limited energy. When I reach Colin’s building, I am surprised. He is looking out of the window. A pale, gaunt face with hollow cheeks and dark eyes. He is waiting for me. When he sees me, his features break into an uncharacteristic smile and he motions at me to hurry. My heart quickens.

When I arrive at his apartment the door is already open. He is standing in the entrance grinning, a small tumbler of amber liquid in each hand.
“I’ve done it! I mean, we’ve done it! We’ve broken the code!” He giggles. I have never heard him laugh.
For a moment I am confused. Stunned. “When? How?” My voice is breathy.
“About two hours ago. Here.” He thrusts one of the glasses at me. “We’re celebrating!”
I look stupidly at the glass and then at him, before logic kicks in. “Have you…”
“Translated? No. Of course not. I was waiting for you.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t quite believe it. I just wasn’t expecting…so soon…”

I should be exulted, but a terrible sadness sweeps over me.
It is almost over. We have reached the end. I want to cry.
“I knew you’d be like this. It’s a shock. Don’t worry. Look, just drink the Bourbon and then we’ll do it together.”
I drink the Bourbon and we do it together.
We translate.

I am a linguist and Colin is an archaeologist. In 2025 we were part of a team that discovered some inscriptions in a cave in southern Italy, after volcanic activity opened some new fissures. The inscriptions are thought to be the oldest ever discovered. Estimates suggest that they are over 2.5 million years old, and predate the development of the human race, as we know it.

When we are done, we look at each other and at the translation. Colin drains his glass and a single tear rolls down his cheek. I read the translation aloud.

We are the last survivors of humanity. We are dying. Our planet is dying.
We have destroyed the world through greed and selfish desire. We knew what we were doing but we did not stop. We ignored the warning signs. We paid no heed to the pleas of our wise women and scientists. We closed our ears and eyes to the inevitable until it was too late.
Don’t be like us.
Cherish your planet. Respect your environment. Protect all life forms. Celebrate biodiversity. Conserve natural resources. Embrace the power and beauty of the natural world.
Learn from our mistakes. Do not do what we have done.

The steady drone of the Lancaster’s four engines drowned out all other sound. Not that there was anything else to hear. The crew were unusually tense and quiet in the dark cockpit. The end of this trip would mark our 30th operation and the end of our first tour. Only two other squadrons had made it this far and one of these never returned from their last raid. The other was back at base tonight, ready to fly the following evening.

There were seven of us in total. As rear-gunner, I was at the back in the most exposed part of the aircraft. I could never tell if it was the cold or the fear that caused my teeth to chatter. Above and behind me, Rog, our mid-upper gunner, was humming tunelessly under his breath. I wanted to tell him to shut-up but I knew it was his way of dealing with his nerves. Will, our navigator, worked in a curtained off compartment so that his light would not reveal our position to the enemy. Charlie, our pilot and squadron leader, and Bob, our flight engineer, sat up front. Beneath them Norm, at twenty-four the old man of the group, and our front gunner and bomb-aimer, lay on his stomach, waiting to guide our cargo home.

We were a tightknit crew. Our approach was simple. We each knew what we had to do and we did it. All of our lives depended on it. We were a brotherhood. We worked and played together. We worked hard and played harder.
“Bogey on your right, John!” Rog’s voice broke the silence.
“Christ, where’d he come from?” I saw the bursts of white light and heard the rattle of gunfire at exactly the same time as Rog spoke.
We were hit before I could even return fire.
There was a searing blast of simultaneous light, heat and pain and then I was floating in a vast, black space. The last thing I heard was the high pitched whine of a falling aircraft intensifying into a metallic scream just before everything was covered with a blanket of silence.

***

I am flying. Soaring above myself. Leaving my lifeless body floating face down in the water. The cold, cold water. Six pale faces watch me go. Pale, haunted faces with dark, pleading eyes, bobbing in the cold, cold water. Watching me soar and fly. Dark eyes willing me up and onward.

I am small. I am light. I am weightless.
Home, I must get home.
Fly, I must fly.
To fly home is all I know and all I am.
Water beneath. Sky above. Home ahead.

But behind, what is behind? Black billowing smoke. Fear, pain and cold.
Light, heat, pain. Vast, black space.
Death. Death is behind.

Home is ahead. I must get home.
This time it is more important than ever. Dark eyes, pale faces.

Day and night I fly. My feathers are slick and heavy with oil. I am buffeted by wind and rain. I swerve, soar and dive to escape hawks, falcons and gunfire. Day and night I fly.

I am over land now. I have lost track of time and space. I am exhausted. I must get home.

The coop ahead! I am home. I glide gently inside. I lower my head and preen. I rest.

There is a bustle of activity. Running about. Raised voices. Gentle hands remove me from the coop. Examine me. Tend my wounds. Remove my tag. I am home. My job is done.

***

Charles sat in the rescue plane, wrapped in blankets and looked at the faces of his crew. They were all alive. Cold, shocked, battered, bruised and dehydrated but alive. All alive except John, that was. He had taken a direct hit and was dead before they hit the water. He had never stood a chance. Charles looked at the cold still figure under the blanket at the back of the plane.
“How did you find us?” he asked one of the rescue team.
“The pigeon, mate. The bloody pigeon!”
Charles shook his head. “I can’t believe it. We only released her in desperation when there seemed to be nothing else we could do. Never honestly thought…”
“Her owner rang it in the minute she got home. Base worked out your position from the time the plane ditched and her arrival, taking into account wind speed and direction and her likely flight speed, given her injuries and the oil on her feathers. Took the rescue team just fifteen minutes to find you.”
“Bloody hell.”
“Even still, no-one knows how she made it, poor little thing. Half-dead she was. Somethin’ powerful was driving her. Somethin’ I doubt anyone will ever understand.”
“You’re probably right, we’ll never know how she did it, but thank god she did.”

***

It was as if my life had just begun that night in the cold and dark over the North Sea. I couldn’t remember a single thing from before my ordeal. I was long since recovered now of course, enjoying an extended period of rest in the coop. Until today that was. Right now I had no idea what was going on. George, my owner had bathed me this morning and now he was standing outside the coop with a group of strangers. They were all staring at me. Reaching in to pat me and stroke me. It was slightly annoying. I flapped my wings and ruffled my feathers, pecking at their fingers.
“Steady on! Steady on!” one of the men laughed. I recognised his voice, his laugh. Come to think of it, they were all very familiar. I had seen them all somewhere before. Heard their voices, their laughter, somewhere before. A memory came to me. A memory of six pale faces with dark eyes staring up at me, getting smaller and smaller as I flew higher and higher. That was it. But no, it was something else, the reason that I knew them. Something more, something much, much more…