The Planet Stealers

Chapter 1. An End; A Beginning

LEANING OVER THE ledge of my highly elevated office window I threw out the coin. Not just any coin but one of the new five-pound variety, which had recently been issued to replace the note. I chose this particular coin because I wanted to emphasise the new-found worthlessness of money. Everything was of course so different now.

My tearful eyes followed the coin tumbling down, the sun's rays reflecting every so often on its new golden shiny surface. When I could no longer maintain visual contact, my eyes followed the hypothetical descent, which I corrected every time I saw a flicker of reflected sunlight. I strained my ears against the walls of deeply entrenched silence coning to hear the sound of the coin chinking against the pavement. To my amazement, I was not to be disappointed even though I was approximately twenty feet off the ground level: If I had thrown the coin out earlier in the week I would have almost certainly injured someone, but, of course, now, the streets are empty.

I pulled myself from the window and made my way towards my office desk. As I walked, I realised, to my absolute astonishment, just now noisy the sound of shuffling feet against a plush carpet could be. I sat down at my office desk, the uncanny silence all around me. My eyebrows knotted as I attempted to think in my woeful circumstances. It was indescribably difficult to concentrate in the awesome noiseless atmosphere that swamped the room. I soon discovered that the environment was much harder to concentrate in, than the old noisy environment. My weakened powers of thought and overwhelming feelings of wretchedness, restricted my mind into suggesting only one thought, that of having a shave. I will shave away my dispiritedness, I thought defiantly, running my fingers over the rough surface of my unshaven skin.

I stared down solemnly at the right hand drawers of my new "Superlux" office desk, my hand making its way meticulously down towards the steel-rimmed handle of the lowest drawer. The drawer slid open effortlessly (something its ancestral counterpart had often failed to do) revealing, amongst other things, my dependable battery operated electric shaver. I gazed down thoughtfully at the handy little device, it had been so essential to me in the not too distant past, when my powers as Personnel Officer necessitated a smart clean-shaven appearance. I had often used it on many prior occasions when, I had either ran out of time to shave in the morning at home, or had simply forgotten. However, this was not one of those occasions. In fact, I no longer had a professional reason to be clean-shaven, because my profession, as I knew it, had become extinct. The catastrophe had seen to that. Nevertheless, I was determined to shave, for although I had lost almost everything, I still possessed a deep sense of dignity.

So I took hold of the shaver and placed it in front of me on the middle of the desk. I reached over to my left and slid a small down-turned mirror across the desk, bringing it to a halt behind the shaver. As I turned the mirror upright, I discovered it was slightly shattered, which was almost certainly due to the effects of the citywide detonation. The damaged mirror displayed a small number of discontinuous reflections. Repeated images of the shaver filled my eyes. I adjusted the mirror so that the repeated reflections were those of my worried face. The unusual effect seemed only multiply my feelings of languishment. The mirror was barely useable; but as I have already mentioned, I was determined to shave.

The buzzing sound of the shaver's rotors relievingly broke the eerie silence that had filled the office ever since the catastrophe had occurred. I ran the buzzing appliance in a series of rapid circular movements across the surface of my face, which boasted a two-day-old growth. The buzzing noise wavered as the rotary blades of the shaver gnawed into my stubborn prickly growth; the fluctuating drone giving melody to my silent world. As I shaved, I began to feel a little better, as if with each stubble that fell, my burden of insufferable disconsolateness was lightened.

When I had finally convinced myself that I had removed my last stubble, I turned off my shaver. I was instantly greeted with that oh so soulless and uncanny silence. In a strange paradoxical sort of way, the silence seemed very noisy. I started to listen with great intensity...

Nothing. No external sound would come.

A few seconds later, I turned my shaver on and off...and I listened once more, half expecting to trick the world into yielding a familiar sound.

Still the lonely silence.

I repeated this pathetically hopeful on-off exhibition with the shaver a few more times. Once I almost convinced myself into thinking that I had heard a voice in the streets below, shouting, "Taxi! Taxi!" But that was no doubt wishful thinking.

A feeling of complete and utter desolation crept slowly upon me. It dressed me up and suffocated me. How I yearned to hear the sound the city; of people milling about the streets; of impatient traffic crawling noisily around the roads; of urbanised birds squawking, warbling, and cooing about their everyday business; of infrequent emergency sirens approaching and receding as they rushed to the scene of the usual minor disasters that a large metropolis always incorporates. Silence. If I did not hear a sound soon, I felt I would surely go mad.

I put my shaver back into its bottom drawer. The mirror, I left displaying a myriad of downcast faces; all my own. My eyes followed the journey of a teardrop as it slowly traversed down the portions of the broken mirror. It was blatantly obvious—I had lost too much. My family: definitely dead. Their house being in one of the residential areas of the city must certainly have been saturated with radiation after the blast. My friends: probably dead. Unless of course they too had crafted a miraculous escape. My girlfriend, Anna, I tried to convince myself, might just, possibly, have survived. She worked for the Central Bank and had once told me that they had contingency plans for the half-expected catastrophe. Unfortunately, these plans required reasonable warning to be guaranteed to work, and there was hardly any warning at all. Also, I knew that the Ministry of Defence, for whom a few of my friends worked, had recently completed their massive anti-nuclear underground shelter, which lay miles below the surface. They too had contingency plans, but I wondered whether they had worked and were still working. Perhaps a new government was already ruling— but ruling exactly what? For all I knew I could be the only person who had survived in the city. And what if the whole country had suffered the same fate? Perhaps I'm the only human left alive in the whole country—or maybe in the whole damn world!

My loneliness grew to intolerable proportions with only an eerie silence to console me. Even my dear friend the pigeon, who had regularly attended my window ledge, could not entertain me. As I looked over towards the window ledge, I conjured up in my mind the pigeon, and said aloud, "My dear lovable, furry fine-feathered friend. How, oh how, I'll miss you! Your comical walk and cooing performance well deserved its share of my sandwich box. Goodbye my affectionate and loyal friend." Sounds corny. Sounds crazy. I know. But anyway, the imaginary pigeon faded slowly away in my tortured mind. The feeling of ultimate loss and loneliness swamped my mind once more. I felt I was going insane. Well, they do say talking to yourself is the first sign of madness. Whoever the hell "they" are. Oh, my God. I am here, but I am nowhere. Ultimate disconsolation. I lowered my head onto the desk, pushing aside the impaired mirror. Then with my elbows on the desk and my hands feeling through the hair on the back of my head, I started to recall with vivid clarity, the tragic events which had led me to my present insufferable situation.

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I hope you enjoyed this Chapter. I welcome any votes, comments or constructive criticisms (style, spelling, grammar and punctuation errors).

T. J. P. CAMPBELL.