Dystopolis: 2.1

lowing coals were all that was left of the night's fire, but Adam didn't move. He sat and stared at the ash gathering on each ember and thought of nothing. Smoke seeped into the room and up the chimney. Adam didn't notice.

The only light in the study seemed like orange eyes, only closing as they burned themselves to death, suffocating in their own flesh.

Three books lay next to him, one open. He had tried to read by firelight, like he'd always done, but what the triumvirate had to say Adam didn't want to hear. In succession he picked them up expecting the fullness he'd had before. He ended up watching the fire die. And now that only coals remained, he rose and walked to his desk. He poured himself a drink, then another.

On the couch, the open book still spoke, though no one listened:

She crawled over the bodies of the dead. His blood spurted over her hands.
'Quicker,' he gasped, 'I am dying  - but we touch, we talk, not through the Machine.'
He kissed her.

The ice cubes in Adam's glass clinked, and he dumped them out onto the floor. He poured again, then again. He saw the last eye shut from where he stood; he threw his glass and it shattered, the remaining liquid hissed in the heat.

'We have come back to our own. We die, but we have recaptured life, as it was in Wessex, when Aelfrid overthrew the Danes. We know what they know outside, they who dwelt in the cloud that is the colour of a pearl.'

Adam built the fire up. He sneered at the books on the couch and added them to the flames. As he watched the pages curl and explode, he couldn't contain his laughter. The black spine with the numerals 451 burned so brightly!

Adam watched again as the fire raged through the night, his sleepless eyes waiting for the orange glow to return.

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Check out the rest of the A-Z crew here! And come by tomorrow for 2.2 of "Dystopolis."

Jump to 1.6, or start at the beginning!

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