twist of fate had inscribed his name on the list of survivors rather than that of the missing, believed drowned. Unless the drowned are actually the ones left above the surface. The lower city, which shivers in the dark mirror of the port of Paris, might be more real than its three-dimensional sister.
“One or two sugars in your tea, Mr Book?” asked the man.
When he shut his eyes the images of destruction that the television had seared permanently into his brain would vividly reappear. Dead fish covering terraces like silvery snow; seabirds entangled in the death grip of television aerials; houses, broken in two, floating away; ships aground in the crags of the Alps. In Spain, bulls had run amok in fear and stampeded in the direction of the water, meeting it, true to their nature, head on, but losing their last fight like monstrous lemmings. People were trying to clamber on tables or wardrobes, then scrambling onto roofs for safety and watching in horror as the angry serpent of water snaked its way to their perch, demolishing walls and ripping up foundations as it approached. Prisoners, neglected in all the panic behind locked bars in Italy, drowned like rats. The skeletal old woman near Ephesus who refused to take the hand offered her by her rescuers made the point as her expressionless face disappeared inch by inch under the water that so often life after the disaster could be unfavourably compared to oblivion. The face of that old lady gradually and stoically refusing to participate in what followed sealed the tomb of the era of logical reactions to stimuli.
Unfortunately the Evil did not reach Ireland, where the fifteen-year-old Book was waiting, so it could drown him and expiate his guilt. After some time, the underground reservoirs were depleted and the water levels stabilised. A huge lake had been formed between three continents, from Gibraltar to the Red Sea in the south, and the Black Sea to the north. The bottom of this monstrous lake was festooned with the remains of the romantic civilisations of the past that East and West had strived so jealously to guard.
The realisation of the ease with which the status quo could be completely overthrown had left its mark on the planet’s sense of balance, more than the geological catastrophe itself and the uncountable human casualties. The water had not just swept away human souls and buildings, but had destroyed the safety of the belief that the universe operates with comprehensible rules, and had cruelly cast us adrift with the knowledge that our lives are just a temporary and ridiculous interregnum in the vastness of non-existence. The blood-laden mud that the waves violently churned and deposited over the new coastlines stained the soul and mind and robbed Man of his innocence. It added lead weights to the hand of the Author and to the paintbrush of the Artist, corrupted the smooth perfection of marble, coated the piano keys with acid.
The shock of the Overflow could be expected to affect the arts, the sciences and the economy, but no one had really expected it to have such an effect on day-to-day life, to alter one’s walk, to alter the sound of a voice, sleep, love. It was as if the laws of perspectives had been skewed by the catastrophe, quite literally at times, such as when passengers on vessels bound for the Black Sea are asked to look over the side to see in the depths the four minarets of Hagia Sophia. Atlantis was actually in mankind’s future and not in its history.
“Have you not considered, Mr Book, that the price of blood had been necessary for the earth to relinquish its most precious diamond?”
Book, in shame, tried to hide his fingernails, on which a grain or two of violet salt could be discerned. He might dislike the Consortium, but he manically consumed its product, and this was a contradiction with which he had to live, as did all the others. The mental processes that demanded that the spicy substance that sprang from the ancient earth of
“One or two sugars in your tea, Mr Book?” asked the man.
When he shut his eyes the images of destruction that the television had seared permanently into his brain would vividly reappear. Dead fish covering terraces like silvery snow; seabirds entangled in the death grip of television aerials; houses, broken in two, floating away; ships aground in the crags of the Alps. In Spain, bulls had run amok in fear and stampeded in the direction of the water, meeting it, true to their nature, head on, but losing their last fight like monstrous lemmings. People were trying to clamber on tables or wardrobes, then scrambling onto roofs for safety and watching in horror as the angry serpent of water snaked its way to their perch, demolishing walls and ripping up foundations as it approached. Prisoners, neglected in all the panic behind locked bars in Italy, drowned like rats. The skeletal old woman near Ephesus who refused to take the hand offered her by her rescuers made the point as her expressionless face disappeared inch by inch under the water that so often life after the disaster could be unfavourably compared to oblivion. The face of that old lady gradually and stoically refusing to participate in what followed sealed the tomb of the era of logical reactions to stimuli.
Unfortunately the Evil did not reach Ireland, where the fifteen-year-old Book was waiting, so it could drown him and expiate his guilt. After some time, the underground reservoirs were depleted and the water levels stabilised. A huge lake had been formed between three continents, from Gibraltar to the Red Sea in the south, and the Black Sea to the north. The bottom of this monstrous lake was festooned with the remains of the romantic civilisations of the past that East and West had strived so jealously to guard.
The realisation of the ease with which the status quo could be completely overthrown had left its mark on the planet’s sense of balance, more than the geological catastrophe itself and the uncountable human casualties. The water had not just swept away human souls and buildings, but had destroyed the safety of the belief that the universe operates with comprehensible rules, and had cruelly cast us adrift with the knowledge that our lives are just a temporary and ridiculous interregnum in the vastness of non-existence. The blood-laden mud that the waves violently churned and deposited over the new coastlines stained the soul and mind and robbed Man of his innocence. It added lead weights to the hand of the Author and to the paintbrush of the Artist, corrupted the smooth perfection of marble, coated the piano keys with acid.
The shock of the Overflow could be expected to affect the arts, the sciences and the economy, but no one had really expected it to have such an effect on day-to-day life, to alter one’s walk, to alter the sound of a voice, sleep, love. It was as if the laws of perspectives had been skewed by the catastrophe, quite literally at times, such as when passengers on vessels bound for the Black Sea are asked to look over the side to see in the depths the four minarets of Hagia Sophia. Atlantis was actually in mankind’s future and not in its history.
“Have you not considered, Mr Book, that the price of blood had been necessary for the earth to relinquish its most precious diamond?”
Book, in shame, tried to hide his fingernails, on which a grain or two of violet salt could be discerned. He might dislike the Consortium, but he manically consumed its product, and this was a contradiction with which he had to live, as did all the others. The mental processes that demanded that the spicy substance that sprang from the ancient earth of
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