The Pole Shift

Jimmy coins 'The Old World'

Endure they did. For what seemed like days there was little light, they passed through dirty waters textured with the remains of humanity and of nature. At times they seemed to be travelling at such a pace that it was hard to sit properly, the straps that kept them in place chaffing skin depending on direction. Usually the pod's design had it porposing forward, and when they did get snagged it came as a relief for they could tend wounds and clean up vomit. At these times they would look through the windows in silence. A conveyer belt of objects would wash by and Helen said:

                "It's like in the Wizard of Oz, when the house gets caught by the tornado." It's was very strange to watch, hypnotic. Then the pod would begin to wiggle, they all thought it was meant to, so animal like was the movement.  They would strap in again and brace. Eventually they floated on the surface, amongst enormous blooms of human rubbish. Bottles, plastics, shipping containers. Anything that could float seemed to be travelling with them. They felt safe enough to open the hatch, and breath air that smelt oily.  Daniel was subdued, he looked at the containers saying:

                "There could be useful stuff in there." Jimmy nodded.

                "Shipping containers will be like enormous treasure chests I suppose, we can't do much about them now." He did a three sixty, his brown eyes flicking from object to object.  "No sign of the others."

        They all scanned around them, the horizon was bulging and unusual, "No land either." Said Miss Wright. They were hungry. The health kits had tubes of paste, a pale peanut butter, they ate it like toothpaste.

                Days passed. the waters cleared a little and there came a shout from Tanya.

                "There's people! There's people."  They all struggled to find a place through the hatch, and Daniel clambered out, rocking the pod and drawing the ire from the other seven. They soon fell silent, for a hundred meters away was a meshed raft the size of a tennis court. It was made up of wheelie bins and a shipping container, logs circled one side, and plastics the other, giving it a lopsided appearance. Upon the raft were terrible people. They were near the end. If Jimmy had thought facing a zombie apocalypse would be awful, this was worse. The people sat dumb, a few dozen it seemed, they did not move or notice the pod.  There was a fire somewhere, for a thin column of smoke rose amongst the grey of everything.

                "Should we help them?" Said George, his face still crusted with dried blood. He looked deeply concerned.

                "No way!" A few objected, Miss Wright looked at Jimmy, and so did Helen. As they struggled with their impulses, the people on the raft had noticed them. There was muffled shouting, a flag began to wave, there seemed to be fighting.

                "We can't." Was all Jimmy said, not bothering to ask Prophet. They watched the turbulent sea snake away a remnant of humanity, watched the flag stop waving as the gap widened. They closed the hatch and wondered what it would be like to be on the raft, how the people had got there, and what luck had blessed or possibly cursed them.

                "Shut the hatch." Said Jimmy. "We wouldn't have been able to help them even if we could get to them. They are from the Old World."