The glass shatters first of course—brittle, fragile, twisting under pressure. A rain that cuts sharper than acid. Super-reinforced steel, concrete and Permaplas give a collective groan as they fail. A woman in battleship grey overalls, with cloud grey hair and corpse grey skin, draws cement dust like a magnet. We stink of old perspiration, sour coffee grounds, and communal fear, though we are already dead.

 

    We died a little when the summits and conventions were attended by men in starched charcoal suits who insisted there was no reason to panic. When the rallies and protests were banned. When the outcry on social media was greyed out. 

 

    We died a little when the blues and greens disappeared, and the chlorophyll-leeched land matched the vomit-coloured sky. When we couldn't quite remember rainbows. 

When the crepuscular light was split by flashing vermillion warnings, and the treacling fuscous air was stirred by screeching sirens, when the fissured, ashen earth was splashed with the crimson of shattered humans.

 

    When the last red cardinal fell without a prayer. 

 

    When the North star winked out.

 

    We swallowed gulps of recycled air, forced down lumps of flavourless petri-grown food, and took our turn at pedalling to keep the generators running, the water purified, and the lamps from flickering their last. 

 

    Do you ever remember the little wheels our pet rats ran around and around and around in? Do you miss their twitching pink noses as they sniffed and scurried? Do you ever wonder if the cats ate the rats and the dogs ate—no, it is best not to consider such things.

 

    As we huddle together shedding tears—silent and noisy, as urine leaks down the leg of a tall thin boy and hysterical laughter from the plump-mouthed woman, as the old man in a frayed jumper looks for someone to hug, and the chaplain chants his prayers of salvation, as some of us huddle closer still like night-terrored children, while others push through the crowds desperate to run to nowhere, as the bald man implores the woman beside him for forgiveness, and she tells him to rot in hell—it won't be long.  

    As we beg another anonymous face rushing through, this one wearing twisted wire-rimmed spectacles, for an update and are met with a breathless high pitched, “Sorry. I…haven't got…the time.”

    As the last safety monitor explodes and we share a stunned breath, as mothers clasp babies to their breasts and fathers' arms encircle monkey-clinging toddlers, we die some more.

 

    To the percussion of crumbling masonry and splintering wood, a lone voice, reedy in the thinning air, sings one more song. Not a hymn, not an anthem of strength, but what a wonderful world.