The Pole Shift

Mnemosyne

Mnem walked the streets of Melbourne. Flinders Lane, up to Exhibition street, to La Trobe, Queen, then Market and home. She walked the gridded streets  as a square, once it had been for curiosity,  and now habit. She walked whilst deeply in her own thoughts. The people she passed were like ghosts,  opaque, nearly invisible. Some words uttered by the ghosts registered with her:

                "And now I have three sisters in law!"

                "Next I want that one!"

                "The Tram is coming."

                She would remember the snippets later, and wonder about the people she overheard, making up stories and fantasizing about their lives as she lay in bed, It was a kind of ritual for sleep that always worked.

                Mnem was excited.  A sparrow had built a snug nest on her window sill. The sparrow had come to know her. Four speckled eggs had been laid, and it had been nearly ten days. They might have hatched whilst she walked the square.

                 The nesting had become a chief pleasures of hers. Her boss's face sprang into her mind, chiding her, "You're a dreamer Mnem! Dreamers don't know what they want!" She had told him she wanted to rent the chic apartment in Market Street herself, the one her boss had wanted to put up for top bucks. She at least wanted that she pointed out. The boss liked her, people did, she was an easy person.  He shook his head at her as he often did, muttering , 'pluck a cherry why don't you.'

                The hen was sitting the eggs, occasionally shuffling, as if something was going on underneath . Mnem made coffee and sat with the European Sparrow. On the TV news had broken, a 'Pole Shift' was  likely to occur at any moment. There had been seismic activity across the world and the Earth was going to displace its crust and spin on the mantle, or at least grind to new positions, perhaps about face, what was up would be down. She turned her head to the TV smiling at the imagery,  people were demonstrating, wanting facts and figures, where could they go that was safe? Is it a conspiracy? Was a New World Order using the story as a cover up for change? There was panic on the streets and in homes. Mnem turned her head away from the news, the Sparrow had flitted off and there in the nest were two chicks, blind and helpless, trying to lift their heads. She grinned enormously at them, displaying large pearly teeth. If the chicks could see they would have been horrified.

                 Mnem material world changed that weekend. Melbourne was not immune to the news that a catastrophe, an extinction event,  was about to take place. She walked the streets, the ghost people hurling conversation and alarm into the air.

                "We should find high ground, will Mt Dandenong be high enough?"

                "Wait and see, wait and see, I smell a rat."

                "I think we should do what they say."

                Television programs had been taken over by the news, and into the news came geological facts and figures.  Suddenly the internet was old. The Powers That Be had their platform back, and the bloggers had to regurgitate what was broadcast by scientists. There wasn't much room to conspiracy theorize the information when the cracks in the earth opened and oozed magma.  Models showed what was happening to the Earth's crust, it was all so feasible. Enormous earthquakes were occurring around the Pacific Rim, everyone was watching San Francisco as if it would be the utter proof of impending disaster, but the San Andreas fault held.

                The unfolding mania swept over Mnem, as if the tidal wave that was predicted to sweep the world had already struck her, and she was toppling around and around, keeping an eye on the hatched sparrows. The city became something else to what it once was, and she had to pay attention. Her boss explained to her that it was hard to know what future the real estate business held. Mnem listened.  On the street a protest march asking for truth ploughed its way along Flinders Street. The boss looked down on them, 'Idiots, we have been told the truth, the fucking world is gonna spin, don't you feel it's true?  All those earthquakes, the lithosphere is breaking itself free!" He was quoting the documentary, Mnem had barely seen it, her sparrow chicks had opened their eyes and she wanted to feed them. If something happens to your mummy I could be a mummy, she thought darkly. Her Boss went on to quote more snippets from the documentaries that now dominated all media, he sounded like a priest, advising her to get out of the city, get up into the hills, if she wanted to have ago at surviving the cataclysm.

                "You are effectively sacked Mnem." She snapped alert from her hundred mile stare.

                "Sacked?" She became the child, and her boss sighed. He had taken Mnem as a favour for a mate.  Secretarial duties were difficult for her, she let the phone ring, she stared out the window, she got most things wrong yet everyone adored her. There was the child in the twenty seven year old woman. Instead of fathering her as he tended to he went on with his sermon, he wanted to get his family together and get to high country, to the ski lodge. He had no intention of keeping the office open.

                 Mnem garnered enough from what he was telling her that things really had changed and that she should hunker down and await developments. That suited her fine, she would move her bed to the window and sleep next to her sparrow chicks. He looked at her, bewildered at her content expression.

                "Perhaps you could head home-home? Your Dad's still in Adelaide isn't he? Might be a good time for family." Mnem smiled as if things were looking up.

                "Maybe. Am I allowed to go home now?"

                "Yes Mnem, go home. Buy some canned food and lots of water and go home." Her boss shook his head and kindly waved her away.

                                The streets were manic. She didn't do the square, but she did visit the supermarket on Elizabeth Street, it was very busy.  Most of the canned goods were gone, and the bottled water. The people were rude and urgent. She bought a hot chicken, carrots, potatoes, and a bag of sunflower seed.  When she got home she went to the window sill, the two chicks opened there beaks as she tapped. She recoiled slightly as the Hen appeared, then smiled as one of the chicks gobbled at a butterfly.

                The city writhed  with strong emotions throughout the weekend. Fear, anger, excitement.  By Monday the people had expended much of their energies. The hoarders that had got what they wanted closed their front doors. The hoarders that had not still roamed the streets looking for non perishable food. A market for cans sprung up, baked beans and tuna heading the list of the 'must have'.

                Another set of people staggered home on Monday with sore heads. There had been plenty of partying, the shrug of the shoulders at an undeniable cataclysm loosened  virtues,  allowing sticky hedonism on the streets. By the next weekend, and still no cataclysm some of the hedonists wondered if they had raped or been raped.

                Mnem had been asked several times to join a friend on St Kilda beach.

                "Come on Mnem! it's fucking great, it's a hell of party, why worry? They boys will love you!" Mnem's frown depended her blameless beauty.

                "No I have responsibilities." It was a standard answer of hers, but this time she felt she was truthful as she peered at the feathering sparrows.

                "You are such a fucking Nana! We could be washed off the face of the earth in a min', come on!" Mnem hung up.

                 Apart from Earth tremors, and the now constant coverage of the Pole Shift, life went on. Some people returned to work. The police returned to the streets, where they had been over the 'mad weekend' no one knew.  They acted differently, they were nicknames the 'Pole Police'. When the supermarkets restocked they walked the isles and lingered at the entrances. A new law was passed, no hoarding. You couldn't buy more than a few days food, and non perishable foods began to fade from the supply chain. The developing law compensated by decreasing the price of fresh food, and filling the supermarkets with delicacies. Within a month there was not a can to be seen, and those that hadn't handed in any excess cans were now criminals.

                  The sparrows under Mnem's window  went on as the laws of nature demanded.  They began to hop about the nest and flap their developing wings. The chicks had got use to her, and accepted offerings. It wasn't hard for her to take one in her hand and withdraw into her apartment. With the fledgling on her finger she said, "I care for you." The little one peered back at her. She drew the curtains, her childlike smile bared her teeth,  fairie in the late light.