Day 50 - Babel - Chapter 12 (1115 words)

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BABEL

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 12

George watched maybe a hundred people drown, there was no way to get to them in time, no boats were where they were and it would have been impossible to drive to the bridge, cross through the hundreds if not thousands of people in the, and then get down to the water twenty or thirty feet below that. The explosion had been set on the struts, supporting beams or whatever those things were, George could not name. Near to the St Mary's bay landing end, where the bridge sloped down dramatically towards the jutting piece of land where the road turned towards the city again.

The explosions had taken out the first set of supporting infrastructure over the water, maybe fifty feet from the lands edge. The initial blast destroyed the supporting beams, cracked the road surface and jolted it enough to collapse the hold it had on the road, pushing down all it's weight onto the weakened grip, snapping, twisting and eventually crumbling down to the water with a splash.

The bodies of the people nearest the blast had been thrown clear and badly hurt, but not as badly as those who fell without the wits to swim for their lives. A minute or so passed where the walkers, slowly progressing in the fashion the Few watching had seen all the way to the City, walked off the edge and into the water. From where they were they could see no thrashing or splashing, no signs of saving themselves or others until as a unit everyone stopped in their tracks.

Barbara (Water) began to cry, George (Fire) could hear her behind him and thought that she was alone in her need, it was too unbelievable, all of this, to pass it off with a hug or a comforting embrace. This made no sense and it was unconscionable a thing to do, and it had to be someone doing it, right.

“It has to be someone.” George spoke his mind out loud, something he was not fond of doing, something he took great pains to avoid usually.

“What has to be someone?” Mountain was hugging Tree, who was now also crying, yet he was looking over at George, who was still staring at the bridge.

“I don't quite understand it.” He was shaking his head.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if they...” George (Fire) looked around at the other three, only Water and Mountain looked back at him, Tree still had her face buried in Mountain's shoulder, “... the Aliens, right?”

George looked back to the bridge “If they can control people, I mean really control people, which we have to assume its them... right?”

The others nodded, which George felt more than saw.

“Then it has to be someone else. I don't understand why anyone would blow up the bridge. Why anyone would kill all those people?”

“Who knows why they would do anything? They're not like us, they're aliens, remember?” Barbara (Water) had a very scared, angry scowl on her face.

“Weren't you the one all open arms and ...” This was the longest conversation, unplanned, that they had ever had, and the idea that they could spontaneously banter a conversation between them that was not about solving problems or educating through minimal means, was somehow out of reach.

“Until now. Until. This.” She looked away and then Mountain caught George's eye and rolled his skyward.

“No, he means that this can't have been the Aliens, this must have been us.”

“But we...:”

“Not US, US. US – humans US.”

“No, why would we …?” And then she caught George's original meaning, and his reasoning. “Oh, but we do don't we?”

The three of them said no more for a long while before Tree broke the silence.

“What if they were trying to save them?”

“Save them by killing them?” Barbara (Water) was less than impressed with Tree's eventual contribution to the discussion. “Funny way to save them.”

“Unless what they were going to is a fate worse than death.” Tree realised the cliché of that and followed it up quickly. “Or they thought it was, I mean we can do some stupid things when we are scared. We fight wars over nothing all the time, right? Over less.”

Silence fell again and all four of them, no one shedding tears any longer, stared at the bridge and the thousands of people lined up, spread out backwards down the motorway and up towards Lake Road, immobile and passive.

“There's a supermarket near here, I think it's just beyond the parking bays.” Mountain pointed behind them and they could see a parking lot with trolleys scattered helter skelter amongst the faded white lines. “Let's see if there's anything there, something to settle us maybe?”

The Few walked to the parking lot and found the partially burned supermaket, it looked like it had been fire-bombed but that only the front section had burned. George (Fire) picked his way in through the glass and aluminium framework and inside the market.

The inside was burned extensively for about twenty feet and then it had stopped, like someone had spayed soot and black paint over a section and left the remainder alone. By the look of the charred parts it had happened some time ago, and there were places, where there were burned outlines of things that had been removed. Most of the market had been gutted, but as they picked their way through the empty aisles, they found the rear of the market had a section that had collapsed in on itself, the sunshine pouring in through a hole above the tipped over shelves and amongst the plaster chunks and tiles.

When they pulled pieces out they found cans of fruit and soups, some baking goods, burst open mostly and rained on or mixed with other debris, but enough untouched food to make a meal for now and still have plenty left to take some supplies back to the Community.

“We can take this back, let's load it into the car.” George said to the others as he searched hoping for a can opener maybe hanging on one of the shelves as a helpful “also buy” item.

“Why?” Barbara was sounding morose.

“For the Community, I doubt that anyone has had...” And then he caught up with Barbara's reasoning in his own time. There was no one to take supplies back to.

They ate fruit salad from the plastic plates they found, opening the cans with a swiss army knife that Mountain had brought with him.