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Endgame  Chris High

We’ve come away to spend our final days alone here at the summer - house.

The sea rolls in over the many rocks that fringe the sandy cove in which the wooden weatherproofed building is situated. It is out of harms way on its stilts, whilst the wind whips the water into a frenzy of breakers that fold into the shore beneath us.

It was bought as a place in which to find escape from the rigours of the city, as the jobs we both held were frenzied and stressful. This house, Baylodge as we christened it, has seen many happy and hopeful times for us both, but these now lie in the past.

For now Gabby lies sleeping fitfully and I am looking out of the window as the elements play their symphony in tune with the torment that I feel inside. Rain lashes the window from the malevolent looking clouds that seem to hang within touching distance. Lightening scritches and scratches it’s course across the sky, spitting forks of intense energy earthward, only to be quickly followed by the rumbles of thunder that roll out a rhythm, with ill kept timing.

The storm is drawing near.

I sip from my glass of chilled, but flat, Dom Perignon the taste of which is dull in my mouth. This is not the time for such extravagance, I know, but then, what better time could there be to sample the delights of one of man’s better creations?

Dusk is falling, but it’s all but impossible to recognise without first glancing at the clock. The sun has not fully appeared from behind its blanket of chemical induced cloud for days. The balance of meteorology has slipped from the understanding of the dominant species and is instead played like dice by whatever God has allowed this abominable moment to arrive. Yet to blame this scenario on any God is unjust in the extreme. This is man’s doing and is man’s doing alone.

I sip my wine, watching a storm battered gull struggle its way towards its roost away up high on the cliff side. Somewhere unseen it will tend to its family, oblivious of all knowledge of that which is to come.

Gabby stirs, mumbles some message from the sleepy world in which her fears take shape and then settles once more. I vow silently to be with her, to care for her and to love her until such time as the days and nights mingle when time itself, finally, halts.

I glance across at her restless form and smile, recalling the moment that we first met. She had been dressed in a printed summer frock of vivid orange and gold. Her long blond, slightly curled hair tumbled down across her shoulders and was bouncing lightly as she’d walked. Her blue eyes had sparkled, true jewels of heavenly origin which were only outstripped by her smile. A smile that had fallen long since absent of late.

In the corner of the room, a radio announcer is reading another portentous diatribe. Through reams of static he tells us that Brother Lead and Sister Steel are playing out - live to the waiting world - their final acts; the final scenes.

When we have lain together quietly at night, I have often looked across and listened to Gabby’s breathing. Lately, I have taken to going a step further and have placed my hand upon her tightening belly, in the hope of feeling that second heartbeat within.

We have named the child Adam.

The radio announcer reels off the names of those dignitaries who are still, even at this late hour, trying to prevent the inevitable. Like Canute demanding that the sea return to its borders, they will fail and they will drown in the ignorance of the power that is being made ready.

Our Leaders, says the Announcer, will be making broadcasts in the next few moments, and I can feel the expectancy of hope and the resentments of disappointment mingle in my gut. Hope that a solution has been found and resentment born of the knowledge that this broadcast will be our ‘great leaders’ swansong.

I wonder whom they imagine that they will have left to govern from their sanctuaries up there on Space Station Nebulous? The saved ministers will grow resentful of the fact that they have had to leave behind their own families so as to serve the ‘greater good’ of the world.

Resentment, they will discover, turns rapidly into hatred and so the whole cycle will begin once more, a thousand or more miles above this dying planet. Maybe not today nor tomorrow, but the destructive ambition of man will turn to bring the wheel around once again, to this point.

Will we ever learn?

Will they never learn?

Until the final act is over though, I will stay with my sweet Gabrielle.

News of baby was the happiest of our time together. Plans were made and rooms were decorated. Cots bought, jumpers knitted and names - frivolous and jokey - were bandied about. Then came the invasion and then came the response and from that time to this, darkness descended in our lives.

The rain has stopped now and the clouds seem to have lifted a little. The thunder is turning off its beat machine; the lightning is saving its energy. I wonder how this scene appears from above? I wonder whether anybody knows what exactly he or she are doing at this moment, or why?

I sip my wine.

The Announcer presents our first Leader and he stumbles and stutters some words through the static. His insincerity is even more magnified than usual. The crack in his voice is just poignant enough to make one pause to think that he may be acting genuinely. But then I remember how we have arrived at this junction of world affairs and discount the idea. The man is merely acting out his own part, with cool, practiced, heartless efficiency.

The Announcer then introduces Mister President. His voice is cold and assured. He promises that what is about to take place, is for the benefit of those have been chosen, and so have secured their place of safety aboard the space station, have been for the continuance of mankind’s future.

Selection was undertaken, it was said, so that they might recreate a safer and more harmonious world elsewhere and so that humanity could prosper without fear and without hatred. In order to meet this end, sacrifices have had to have been made.

So says ‘Mister’ President.

Does he not understand, even now, that by carefully selecting those who are to survive this night and those who are to perish, he is merely extending the experiment? Does he not understand that he is trying to play the role of God in recreating man and placing him in own vision of Eden?

‘May God bless us all’ he says and signs off through a burst of static and I notice that Gabby’s eyes have opened. She turns towards me and motions that I move away from the window and lay down beside her on the bed.

I drain my wine glass, place it down on the window ledge and cross the room.

I will always be with you, I swear silently, right up until the very final moment and then find myself praying for this moment not to come to pass.

The time is near.

The radio announcer is speaking once more and, as he says his farewells, I turn one last time towards the window and the horizon.

I see that a shooting star has scythed its way through the lifting clouds.

‘This is Station Planet Earth,’ the human voice radio voice has given way to that of a machine and utters its final words; ‘we are closing down.’

I move to the bed, lay down next to my wife, hold her close, whisper to my unborn child that grows inside her and watch the artificial sun rise in Gabrielle’s eyes.