1: Jo
I woke up with a cracking hangover, my dreads wrapped around my face as if they had been trying to suffocate me. I lay very still while a wave of nausea swept over me and tried to make me throw up. It was then that I realised: I had no idea where I was.
I sat up with a jerk and looked around. To my relief I found myself in Dan and Nufonia’s room, with Nufonia asleep next to me and Dan slouched – snoring gently – on a couch in front of the television at the other end of the room. I was going to go back to sleep until I glanced at the clock on the bed side table. It said 13:00.
Cursing I staggered out of bed, trying to extricate myself from the bedclothes as well as my mess of hair.
In the process of this undignified flailing, Nufonia woke up and greeted me sleepily.
“Hello, little Miss Drunky Poo.” She sniggered.
“Hey, what happened last night?” I asked as I tried to find my other sock.
“I am guessing you don’t remember getting here?” She teased.
“No,” I looked at her, “did I do something stupid?”
“After the club, we went drinking on the beach and you kept insisting you were fine to drive. You popped in to use the loo and then just crawled into bed.”
I stood up and adjusted my jeans that had ridden up during my sleep. I winced as I realised that I had probably given myself a wedgie during my slumber. Hardly lady like.
“I am so late for class.” I muttered.
“Why even bother going at all?” Nu asked lazily.
“Because I haven’t been in over a month.” I replied. “And an education is important.”
“Pah, I am going to lounge in bed for another hour and then make myself breakfast so that I can watch mid-afternoon television and then see if I can coax Dan into waking up and having sexy fun-times.”
“Good luck with that.” I snorted, eyeing Dan’s unmoving form on the sofa.
“We’ll see.” Nufonia retorted. “What are you up to later?”
“Trying to get my shit together, I imagine.” I picked up my bag that was at the door way to their room. “What are your plans?”
“Thinking about having a couple of pints with Sarah and Muz. Fancy it?”
“Yeah that would be nice.”
There was a pause like one of us should have said something, instead I just got back down on the bed and gave her a hug and left.
I knew I was late and I knew there was no point trying to make it there on time for my first class so, instead I drove to a place called the Dumb Waiter and had breakfast to try and contain the hangover. By my experience there are four types of hangover: the head hangover, the gut hangover, the emotional hangover and permutations of those three. At that point time I was suffering from a stomach complaint as well as a lot of regret. I suspected that most of it was unfounded as it wasn’t like I had puked all over their carpet or something.
I knew I could still make it to my second class so I summoned up all the strength. I stuck on some mix tape that Nu had made for me, an ironic compilation of Courtney Love, No Doubt and Pink. I fucking hate Courtney Love and when ‘All the Drugs’ came on, as I was pulling into the University car park, I was scrambling for another tape.
I don’t know what happened, but the next thing I knew was that all of this information was being shot at me, like I was in the middle of a fever dream. Then nothing, an unending space, there was a moment where I remembered this film with Ethan Hawke, done in a cartoon style, where he talks with this French woman about the idea of the subconscious being able to expand out into infinity and that eternity is forever in a few seconds.
Then I was in my car, the band 4 Non Blondes were singing their 90s hit. My face was against the steering wheel, I looked up and my car – Bertha – was ‘parked’ in a tree.
I panicked and managed to get out of my car. I checked myself for injuries but found none. I must have been driving slowly enough that it wasn’t a real accident. I figured out that 4 Non Blondes were 3 songs after the Courtney song so I’d passed out about 12-14 minutes previously. Why hadn’t anyone come to help me?
I looked around and saw that it seemed like everyone else had passed out at the same time.
The first person I tried to call was my mother. You see, not only are we parent and daughter, but we were also like best friends.
I knew that something was terribly wrong. People just didn't all pass out in unison.
Well, everyone knows that. But this was something more; it was freaky to see everyone start to dust themselves off in the same dazed manner as me. Yet I had this feeling like it was something more.
I scratched my head and winced as I found a bump under my hairline.
All around me there were weary looking faces, some with bruises and cuts from hitting the solid ground of the University's courtyard. Staring at each other in one unanimous 'what the fuck?'
Maybe mum passed out whilst on the phone, it was an odd thought to pass through my head, but I couldn't ignore it. My mother finally answered, and to my relief she seemed fine, albeit a little startled by what had just happened to her. It was a nationwide thing for sure.
Then I called Nufonia, I can’t explain it but I just had this feeling that something was wrong.
As the phone started to ring, I got back into Bertha. The phone kept on ringing, to the point that I gave up and called Dan. It rang once, twice, three times then an answer.
“Um, hello?” It was Dan; he seemed confused, probably still drunk.
“Where are Nu and Isaac,” I asked. “Are they okay?”
“Nu hurt her head.” Dan no longer seemed pissed to me, just dozy. “What's going on?”
“I don't know, but I'm getting in my car and I'm on my way. Take care.”
Bertha wasn't the most obedient creature, but despite the discombobulated feelings floating through my head, she responded promptly to my coaxing with the key.
It took me quite a while to get out of the parking lot, everyone had the same idea. One guy even hammered on my window to ask me where I was going. He gave me a sweet little smile and thanked me for my time, when I replied that I was going to Brighton. He was trying to get to Portsmouth or somewhere like that.
When I got onto the roads, it confirmed all my fears. It was insane avoiding all the wreckage. There were trashed cars, trashed trucks, trashed buses... you name it and they were trashed.
I looked away from the really nasty ones.
When I turned to Radio 1, there wasn't any music only loads of distraught, garbled announcements; Lots of death, and strife, so I switched it off and stuck the compilation back on. I had forgotten that Six Pence None the Richer were on it.
I kept trying to tell myself that this was some kind of piss take, an elaborate hoax, part of a big budget TV program and that some bearded twat was going to appear and laugh 'You really thought it was the end of the world didn't you?'
Instead I found myself weaving around all manner of things, thinking how truly I wished this was a dream, or a joke or anything. My housemate called me to ask me if I was okay, I thanked her for the call and checked she was okay then I hung up and focused on getting to Regency Square.
This took an age as the roads were completely screwed at one point I even had to get out and help a man in a suit and his wife (also suited) push their totaled car to the edge of the road so I could get past.
It was past 18:00 by the time I got to Dan and Nu’s, there was a spot right in front of the building.
I didn't register the sluggish Grey smoke coming from one of the ground floor flats until I was up the front steps.
I went through the main entrance and was met by a soot covered Isaac, Dan and Nufonia’s housemate.
“Hey.” He smiled with the same dopey smile he always had.
“How are you doing?” I asked, at the same time, I couldn't help but smile. The dopey bastard was a little cutey even when he looked like he was a chimney sweep.
“Me and these guys.” Isaac said, grinning from ear-to-ear pointed to the group of people around the smoking flat's front door. “Have been fighting fire.”
“What happened?”
“Well the guy from downstairs banged on our door, so I answered, and he was like, 'There's a fire! Come and help us put it out' so I went down. And it was crazy. You know?” He smiled, scratching his long blond hair.
The hallway was a state. Graffiti spray style black stains plumed from the top of the flat's door. It was actually sort of pretty.
“Is it out?” I said, looking into his blue eyes and wishing that I was single, and he wasn't covered in shit.
“Yeah, almost.” He said. “But the old lady, who lived there, is dead.”
“Shit, that's horrible.” I had never really known the lady but for some reason I still felt bad.
“Yeah.” He agreed, then a little more animatedly. “You seen what's going on? It looks like the end of the world.”
That's because it is.
The two of us left the scene and went upstairs to the flat. Isaac went and had a bath, while I went straight to Nu and Dan's room to watch the telly.
The news, and that was all there was on all five channels, was awful. It just kept rolling up with estimated death tolls all over the world.
I went into the kitchen, partly to make myself a cup of tea, partly to escape the television. There was this big red\black puddle on the floor, slowly coagulating, after I'd turned on the kettle, I grabbed a sponge and wiped as much of it as would come off.
I made Isaac a cuppa as well, as he had now come out of the bathroom.
We sat down and watched television, I didn't ask him about the (supposed) blood stain and that was fine. He didn't say much anyway. I also didn't ask him where Dan and Nufonia were. My mind kept saying that they were dead and I kept telling myself that was stupid, I had just spoken to Dan.
The news on the television continued and after a couple of hours I couldn't stand it anymore. It wasn't hard to convince Isaac to put on a computer game.
We played Sonic until about one in the morning, and then Isaac decided he needed sleep and shuffled off to bed.
I turned off the screen and then sat and listened to some music, nothing too loud. I didn't want to upset the flat association. I could just imagine, even with all hell breaking loose, each of them keeping a log of any discrepancies for the Land lord.
Brighton was still burning in places, and the fires were like distress beacons. There were flashing lights of fire trucks racing along the seafront every few minutes. I tried my brother's mobile; he was supposed to off in the Lake District with his girlfriend. So it was horrific when my mother answered.
“Hello, Jo?” My mother sounded worried.
“Hello mum?” I could feel my heart racing, almost as fast as the time I'd snorted poppers and given myself a headache. “What's going on?”
“It's your brother, he's had an accident. Hang on this things beeping.” There was a pause, in which I could hear trolleys trundling along linoleum floors and imperious voices barking short orders. Then: “Look honey, the battery's low, I'll-
This is bad, really bad.
You can say that again, I muttered to myself.
When they still hadn't come back by three, my thoughts of earlier came back. But this time I was wondering if they were both dead. Had Dan crashed the car? Maybe they had been attacked, maybe, maybe.
I made myself a cup of tea and sat in Dan and Nufonia’s room and waited for my mother to call me or for Nufonia and Dan to get back.
I awoke with a start, for a minute I thought that it had happened again. That the whole world had blacked out with me.
Then I remembered giving up and tiredly lying down on the couch and dozing off.
I was startled by a commotion coming from, what sounded like, the kitchen.
I approached the noise with trepidation. It sounded like someone scratching metal on a wood surface.
Because of all of this people have already started looting.
I fought the urge to creep to Isaac's room and get him to go and check for me; instead I looked for a weapon as I got into the main hallway.
The light was on in the cooking area. The sound carried on in a haphazard manner, it reminded me a bit of the way my cat used to claw at my door when it wanted to get in. I saw a men’s mag, Isaac's no doubt, with some women with nice tits on the front, and I quietly rolled it up.
It's a stray cat, I told myself, it got in through an open window and is trying to get into one of the cupboards-
A shriek came from the kitchen now; I slammed my hand against my mouth to keep the surprised squeak that from coming out of my mouth.
I took a deep breath and looked around the corner of the door frame.
It was Dan; he was crouched over the set of draws that had had some blood on them.
“Hey.” I said quietly, feeling a sense of relief wash over me.
Either he didn't hear me over the racket he was making, or he ignored me, so I repeated the greeting.
This time he stopped and turned to look at me. I could now see that he had been levering off the metal frame on the edges of each of the kitchen draws.
“What's going on?”
“There, only for aesthetics.” Dan replied, his voice dull. His face showed signs of not having had any sleep.
I could feel a fear rising in my chest.
“Where's Nu? Is she still at the hospital?”
Dan started to shake, his face contorted and he looked like he was going to start laughing. In that split second I almost threw up, I can't explain where it came from. I just felt the bile rising out of my stomach, and I had to fight to keep it down for the second time today.
Then he started crying, big wretched sobs uncurled from his mouth. He dropped the screwdriver and covered his face in his hands.
I half walked, half stumbled, over to him, squatted down next to him and gave him a hug. Without even realizing it I found myself bawling my eyes out as well.
We stayed like that for quite some time, when we parted, my eyes were puffy and I felt like throwing up again. He looked at me and tried to wipe the snot from his nose.
I stood up sniffling as well, conscious that I was probably in the same state.
“Look,” I said wiping my eyes with the back of my hands. “Let's get you to bed.”
“I've been driving for a couple hours.” He mumbled, as I ushered him to his room. “I've just been driving around, Jo; it's like hell out there. Revelations day, have you looked?”
“I know, it is seriously fucked.” I whispered, patting him on the head.
He nodded slowly and tiredly. I got him to his room and he dumped himself on the edge of the bed and his shoulders slumped forwards, so dejectedly, I just wanted to hug him again.
Instead, I got him to take his shoes and socks off, then his T-shirt. After that I tucked him in and sat in a chair to watch over him for a while.
He fell asleep almost instantly and a little after that I drifted off too.
I was awoken by Isaac tapping me on the shoulder.
“Fancy a cup of tea?” He asked.
I nodded.
I looked over to the bed Dan was gone. The duvet was scrunched up at the foot of the mattress. I looked at my watch it was quarter past midday.
“Where's Dan?” I asked as Isaac pottered off to put on the kettle.
“I'm in the bathroom.” Dan's voice sounded out, his shout muffled behind the closed door.
Isaac came back with three mugs.
“Are you going to get ready?” He asked solemnly.
“Ready? For what?” I asked to stretch the kinks out of my back, having spent several hours scrunched up in the chair.
To avoid the risk of spreading infection, there being so many bodies to dispose of. Burials were being effected immediately.
Dan told me that he had left his details, and they had given him a reference number. Then just before Isaac had awoken me. Dan had gotten a phone call with the time and place of Nufonia's brief ceremony.
I said I thought it was sick that Nu had been reduced to a number. He had only shrugged.
We tried to get in touch with Nu's parents, they were in the North of England, most of the power was still out and it was obviously affecting their area as it was not possible to get through.
“Probably for the best, they wouldn't be able to make it in time anyway.” Dan said, almost casually.
I managed to get in touch with my mother, through my brother's mobile again. It was good news from her end, Michael my brother, had survived a motorbike crash. Nothing but a few cracked ribs, a sprained wrist, some cuts and bruises, on top of a damaged pride. However, the doctors were keeping him in hospital. She wasn't sure what it was about someone had mentioned a minor anomaly in his 'respiratory system'.
Isaac's family called him, on my mobile; he very rarely switched his on, and that was only to call one of his mates to score off of, or if he had some weed to sell. I semi-resented the fact that I was the point of contact, given that I didn’t live with him.
Isaac’s family wanted him to visit them; they lived in one of the suburbs of the greater London area, as I was going to see my family in London and offered him a lift.
Dan's parents lived abroad, so he didn't even bother trying to call them as all offshore civilian lines were down. Instead he had decided that after the funeral. He would go and see Nu's parents and then try to get in touch with his brother.
We drove up to a rise just outside Brighton, near Devil's Dyke.
As we went, it was possible to see the cleanup had already begun. But as this was the city that took a few days to sort out the mess left after a Fatboy Slim concert, the signs were few and far between. The sense of desolation was pretty apparent, everywhere we went there were burnt out houses and abandoned, written off cars.
At some point in the morning it must have had really poured down. Which was good because it probably helped put out some of the fires, and bad because it made traversing the city even more hazardous as the roads were still slick with water.
When we got closer to the site, I got my first glimpse of a police officer. It was weird as I would have expected to see them everywhere after such a catastrophe. However, in this case, there were probably twenty or thirty controlling the traffic and guiding people to places to park.
I don't know what I was expecting, but I'd expected to see Nu’s grave. Instead, all we got was minister. A priest because Nufonia was considered Catholic, all around us people conjugated in their divided into different religious groups and there were priests, rabbis, monks, imams and the like. They were giving the last rites or whatever was required of their beliefs then the bodies were wheeled off out of sight.
The whole thing was utterly depressing, not that I thought it was going to be fun. I'd just hoped there would have been more ceremony that it could have seemed more civilised.
Every now and then, when the crying, the whispering and general mourning abated for a few seconds, I could hear the sounds of barked orders and the sound of diggers.
That day stayed with me, I watched those men carting the wrapped bodies away, and I wanted to know what happened to them.
When we finally got up there and Dan gave the woman in charge the reference number. An entirely wrapped body, that could have been anyone, was brought out.
Apart from a couple of tears, the grief I showed was little. I was too aware that there were people behind us waiting. It was like if I started crying it would delay them from their moment of grief. Isaac looked terrible; he and Nu had been friends the longest. He merely tilted his head, covering his face almost entirely in his hair. Occasionally, briefly he would appear from under the layers only to look miserably at our wrapped friend while the priest went through the motions. I could hardly blame this servant of ‘God’ for being so lackluster. He'd probably been doing the same thing for hours but you know when you just want to punch someone, because they just don't give a shit when they should? That is how I felt looking at this man.
I was surprised to hear Dan mumbling in unison with the priest. I looked over at him; his eyes were closed, his long dreads partly obscuring his visage. For a minute I thought that I might be imagining it. After staring at him for a while it was easy to make out his voice, faintly accompanying the Priest's words.
When it was over and Nu's mummy-wrapped body was gone in a barrow to join the others. We walked down the hill, I almost slipped but Dan caught me.
I smiled at him awkwardly and he looked at me as the sun, struggling with the gloom of the afternoon storm clouds, managed to illuminate his face. There was this look in his eyes, that I had never seen before and it scared me a little.
He was smiling, but the look in his eyes was blank; like his mind wasn't thinking of anything and it was enough to make me shiver a little.
Dan then peered into the sky.
“Let's hope this weather holds.” He said then looked at me again, the expression from before was gone. “It’ll be easier to travel.”
“Yeah.” I agreed.
Isaac had carried on ahead and we walked a little faster to catch up.
Dan drove straight to the main road; I left him to his journey back to the empty house.
Isaac and I drove more or less in silence. He put on a tape of Sublime and DJ Shadow, rolled a joint that, once finished, he offered to me and I declined.
“Fuck, what are we going to do?” Isaac blurted out.
“I don’t know.” I replied.
“Nu is going, she is really gone.” Isaac hesitated. “I never told her how much I cared about her.”
I got a flashback to the conversation we had before I tried to go to class. Could I have saved her if I had been there? Could it be that she would have been somewhere else in the house and when the blackout had happened she wouldn’t have smashed her head and died?
“There is nothing you could have done.” I said, almost to myself. “Besides, she knew you cared.”
After about an hour we got to Isaac’s suburb and at that point we parted ways and I started my trip in earnest.
I only stopped once to have a quiet cry to myself, it was the first time I had had on my own and it hit me strong now that there was no one watching:
Nufonia is really dead.
I just found myself fucking bawling my eyes out in big, awkward yelps as tears just streamed down my face and I let it all go. After about 2 minutes of this I finally managed to bring myself to a stop and get back on the road.
It took me a couple of hours to arrive at my parents’ house, my step father met me and I drove him to the hospital. As we went he filled me in on what the news was saying. There were scientists working on finding the reason why the entire globe had simultaneously lost consciousness.
“The general consensus is: 'We don't have a clue'.” He grunted in his gravelly voice. “I mean seriously what do we pay these people for? I could have told you that for nothing. That's why this country is going to rot: we pay people to generate think tanks. So that another bunch of people can sit around and shrug a lot.
“Instead of paying people to actually do something about our problems.”
“Yeah, I suppose.” I said, trying not to laugh.
“You see in my father's days there was thinking that needed doing; you had things like the Enigma code that needed cracking. Politics were in their prime, none of this rubbish about 'Cool Britannia'.”
I loved him dearly, but my step-dad was one of those walking stereotypes that gave me hours of entertainment.
It wasn't long before we were at the hospital. My stepfather took me straight up to the fourth floor.
We found my mum, in one of the many overcrowded waiting rooms.
Pristine hallways in all directions, I glanced around expecting to see Ben walking\limping down one of them.
My mother stood up from where she had been sitting and came over to hug me. I had to stoop to return the gesture.
She looked a great deal older than last time we had seen each other, I figured it must have been the stress.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Where's Ben?”
“Oh he'll be here soon... you see dear.” Her brow furrowed, definitely more wrinkles than last time I'd seen her. “They've found something in his lungs; apparently they don't think it's anything serious. They just want to do a few more tests. Then he has to come for more checkups later in the week.
“They say he isn't suffering from concussion.” My stepfather added, a little bit more upbeat.
Ben was discharged and came out on crutches, his left ankle wrapped. The doctors said he'd been lucky that he hadn't been going faster. That there were many other cases that hadn't even made it as far as the hospital.
Well they didn't say that, but they implied as much.
I drove us all home. The chatter remained light, after the depression in the flat I was so relieved that everything was okay.
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