140. Visiting a city, 1

(Rose)

B - Good morning Rose. Rise and shine.

R - Hm... Morning Blume. Just give me a few more minutes...

I feel like I spend my life walking alongside empty roads nowadays. It could have been depressing, but I'm in good company. The flowers are tickling me under the blanket as they move. Night time is boring for her, so she's eager for me to get up.

I'm acting a little spoiled because I'm feeling rather good lately. I don't need to put up a strong front. The tickles on my skin here and there are her way to mock me currently. I can't escape it. I giggle and twitch around, losing the warmth from sleep.

I surrender and get up.

I camped on the middle of the dark road heading south. Nothing comes by anyway.

I stretch a little.

R - You're not the one having to do all the walking. I need my rest...

B - But the sun is so high already. Let us go!

R - Why are you so impatient anyway? Have you sensed something interesting was close?

B - Maybe I have? No, I did not.

R - Nothing but us in the empty world... Alright, we'll be shortly on our way.

I feel that strange urge again and swallow whole chunks of soil and grass. I don't understand how I can eat that, but I don't get sick and Blume grows on me.

I pack up and resume waking while masticating and eating very slowly small chunks of soft wood. It tastes bad, but now I can survive eating just that.

B - Maybe you could run a little faster? You're stronger than you think now.

R - I'm not like that girl I used to know, I don't like running without necessity.

B - Say, what's in that city you want to visit now?

R - London? Well, lots of things. But foremost it is my chance to visit places I could never have normally, like the royal palace... But it doesn't mean much to you, does it?

B - I know a definition of royalty, not much more. Were you envious of their wealth or power?

R - Actually, no... I'm just really curious at how the ruling class of my time lived really. The sort of environment they evolved within could be worth seeing.

B - What about your house?

R - Oh, you know... It's a ruin now, barely standing. There's nothing left for me there but the family graves. I'd say our friends house is now my true home, and you're also my new family.

B - The cities we went across were already filled with wonders from science and technologic achievements. I wonder what more we could expect from London?

R- Oh everything, trust me. It was such a city that I can't imagine it being otherwise even today.

Unfortunately it is otherwise.

The field of ruins is covered with a yellow thick and glowing snow, more than a metre thick, spreading all over the horizon. And we're only on the outskirts while the temperature clearly is not below freezing point.

R - What on Earth is that?

B - Careful, it's toxic. It's a mixture of mushrooms and bacterias that your skin reacts to. I don't think you should inhale that air further.

R - That's... So disappointing. London is fully contaminated?

B - You could take a look at the river from elsewhere. From this side... No. I think it's really stagnant and everywhere.

R - What happened... A mushroom ate the entire city?

I walk along the biological border of that toxic waste field. The sticky yellow foam is everywhere, still and dirty.

R - We can't clean it I guess?

B - It would be difficult, even for me. It's not one single mushroom but an infinite population and a cloud of spores. It would probably spread very wide if you tried burning it.

R - I'm so disappointed... My highest hopes were just washed down. The palace, the museums, the libraries... Everything we could have learnt and discovered here...

B - I'm sorry.

R - Reality doesn't always live up to the legend and expectations, I know that. But it's a little too painful this time.

We head south east until the cloud is gone and the environment looks more normal. We reach the banks of the Thames and stop there. There's an old building still standing next to the water.

I break the rusty door with my shoulder and go inside. It's dusty, empty.

I climb the stairs and head to the roof a few stories above. The sun is setting.

We get a better sight. The city's slightly more clear in the distance.

R - The path above the river looks rather clean, but we're against stream from here... With a boat from the western side, maybe we could do a quick journey through the city, simply being carried by the flow.

B - I'll find a way to protect us from the poison while you go there then.

Somehow, despite the disappointment and the grim scenery, I smile. There's beauty and some sort of will left around. We'll thrive.

~

After a short night sleep, we go for a long walk around the city poisonous limits, until we reach the river Thames upstream.

B - I found a way to protect your skin and lungs but you won't like it.

R - What is it?

B - Covering your skin with mud, and breathing through a cloth heavily loaded with coal we'll have to craft.

R - Mud? Coal? Making coal?

B - I'll take care of it. It's some knowledge I retain from the German brain I learnt from.

London may have fallen and turned into something hostile, but we're not giving up yet. We will prevail over the setback we encountered. We will see the city up close, very soon.

~

We crossed the river, on the south-eastern end of the city. We then reached the toxic limit from there and followed it west. It took longer than expected but on a later evening, we found ourselves in the limit of the ruins upstream. The river flowing in is the new mouth of London. Through the buildings are now all covered with the foamy mushrooms. We'll see more next day.

I haven't found any good boat, but I found a bad one, damaged and covered with heavy fouling, doubling its weight surely. But who cared, it still floats!

During the night, I made a big fire as Blume wants to prepare her coal. On the river abandoned bank, I'm burning down an entire building in a great blaze. A bonfire.

R - I made sure it wouldn't spread; this building is remote enough. I won't want to accidentally burn the city I came to visit.

B - Obviously. Now, throw the wood you gathered where the temperature is at the highest... Around that piece of metal there.

I proceed following to her instructions. Pieces of woods sealed into various pots and bottles are thrown into the fire and we watch them disappear into the flames.

B - Now let's begin. Try not to move too much, I'll try to increase that fire's temperature.

She does. The flower protruding most from my clothes, seemingly looking at the fire. I feel the blood flowing within me speeding up and I see the flames turning blue and brighter.

R - What's happening?

B - I'm improving the process, burning it to a better cinder. We'll make a good coal to protect you there.

R - Wouldn't your magic be enough?

R - Maybe. Maybe not. It's not just snapping your fingers, just like what we're doing right now. My magic is like sculpture while being blind. It might be powerful but I can't fully predict what will come from outside toward us, and neither how it will really turn out in the end. The faster and stronger it's done, the less reliable it is I would say.

R - Well, it did take you three years to release me into the world.

B - It took far more time than that. It took me three and something years to gather the energy required, but hundreds more to set everything properly. You don't know how many atoms were in all of you on my picture. It took time.

R - I see... I'm glad you're a patient one. A patient flower.

The fire is blinding me. On the morning it should be down.

We spend the night discussing about this and that, looking at the large fire, rather than sleeping. She's wise now that she lives with me. And we're happy.

~

I wake up suddenly on morning. She greets me as usual and I smile. I gather the coal powder and load a fortune gas mask with it. I don't have goggles to add but she thinks I should be fine there, as long as I don't keep my eyes open too much.

I cover myself in cold mud. This feels really unpleasant. I cover her too with the slime. She squeals oddly and loses some leaves and petals. She doesn't like it either.

Lightly dressed, dipped in mud and soon on the drifting boat, we're entering the silent mouth of London.

~

The stream goes steadily. The cloud is softer above the river, where it's too damp for the mushroom to grow.

It's so silent compared to what I recall. Only the sounds from the water remain.

I see something on the right.

R - I think it's the garden... Some plants didn't get eaten, look. Those trees look fine.

Some trees are turning around on themselves, though being far away, as if they took a look at us. Maybe the watched us go, as if we were lost on our drifting ship.

We follow the stream where it takes us for a long while before I can recognise anything.

A strange set of needles is there on the left. It doesn't look like anything clear anymore, but it probably was the house of parliament. I think. The foam shrank and covered everything that hadn't collapsed already.

The bridges all have collapsed too.

We pass by or see very odd metallic buildings, arcs, sculptures, and later on some of the tallest skyscrapers I've ever seen. Some are even clean from the mushroom up there, above the cloud that floats and stays at low altitude.

I breathe slowly through the heavy mask, stuck into my mouth and nose. My eyes are crying a lot and stingy from the gas remaining above the water. But I can't stop looking around with curiosity at this city I've once briefly known. It's like a kind of jungle took it over and is not letting it go now.

We pass next to other ruins of monuments I've briefly seen before and could barely recognise now.

The row through London reaches its end just like that, not long after. We reach the outskirts of town and then the place we were once before.

We leave the boat and pull it to shore. I take the mask off and cough heavily. My eyes are red and swollen as if I had a terrible hay fever or worse.

I swipe one of the flowers from the mud covering it. She makes the sound of a smile. We did it.

I smile and cough again. We did it.

~