Maggie Gee: The Ice People

The author would like to thank the Society of Authors for their support and Christine Casley for meticulous editing. Grateful thanks also to E. J. Scovell (Joy Elton), Barbara Goodwin, Roger Pemberton, Fatima Bellacosa, Caroline Winterburn, and Moris and Nina Farhi.

I, Saul, Teller of Tales, Keeper of Doves, Slayer of Wolves, shall tell the story of my times. Of the best of days, and the end of days. Of the new white world that has come upon us. For whoever will read it. For whoever can read.

I am sitting in the halfdark by the fire. A circle of eyes reflects the firelight. The wild children, surrounding me. Not a circle, really. Too regular. They crowd, and bulge outwards, and fight, and crow. Kit, and Jojo, and Fink, and Porker, and some who have roars and grunts for names …

They are eating something. That familiar smell. Delicious because all food is delicious, then fatty, sweetish, sickening.

They see I am writing. Their eyes flicker. Beyond them, it’s black to the horizon, where the afterglow of sunset is brighter than before. The unearthly radiance beyond is coming closer, like the deep new cold. A ring of fire from a ring of ice.

I’m an old man now — old for these times, over sixty. Not long ago, people lived more than twice as long, if they were rich and lucky enough not to be terminated. In the easy days, the long hot days when there were so many human beings …

I’m not afraid to die. This morning I saw it coming, or did I dream it? — the white bear with a cub beside it, lolloping, joyful, glassbright in the sunlight.

Why should I be afraid? I have lived through interesting times. I have been loved, by a woman and a child. I have seen the world change utterly, perhaps for ever. I have had a son, who is now a god. I have lived through great adventures. I have crossed the Pyrenees in deep snow, fought off the wolves side by side with my son; I rode across Spain on the waves of blossom, from north to south, from winter to spring. I have seen almond blossom, cherry blossom, orange blossom, whitening the blazing skies. Following the seasons down to the sea.

No, I’m not afraid to go. Yet I shiver a little when their eyes turn on me. Writing fascinates them, and makes them jealous. Sometimes they pretend to copy me. A few of them can do it, clumsily. Jojo can do it, and speak in sentences, he lived Inside till he was twelve. More of them can read, perhaps six, a dozen, though I doubt if they’ve ever read a book, they wouldn’t even know the word. They look at me expectantly, waiting for me to tell my story. They like stories about love and adventure, and my story’s full of love and adventure …

But how can they ever understand?

I shall tell this story for myself. And for Luke, perhaps, should he survive. If these packs of wolves let their gods survive.

For Sarah; yes, dead or alive.

I tell this story because I must.

— The wild boys dance between me and the fire, and the cold increases, suddenly. I am an ancestor, to them. Quite soon now they will — celebrate me.

But perhaps my story will keep me alive. Perhaps they will let me finish my story.

They want me to tell them about the future. I tell them I’d better stick to the past. Human beings have always foretold the future. Self-deluders. Wishful thinkers. I used to do it all the time, obscenely self-confident, a tech teacher … I told my pupils about global warming. I told them why we were so hot, why despite all our efforts it could only get hotter –

Well, as I say, let’s stick to the past. Let’s hear how the old world turned into this. Me and the wild boys shivering here in the shell of an abandoned airport. The fires that keep us warm are steadily burning their way through the airline’s abandoned fixtures. Old desks and partitions collapsing like foam, carpets unravelling in thick black fumes.

By day we don’t need them. By day we keep busy. If you’re not busy, these days, you die.

We share this airport with hundreds of Doves. Maybe no one in the future will know what they are.

Our mechanical friends. Our robot loves.

My Doves, my dears. How you once obsessed me. My love of machines drove poor Sarah wild. Once I thought their descendants would outnumber ours … and who knows? They might do, one day, in Euro. We know how many Doves escaped, and some of the escapees must have survived.

Mutating, as they were designed to do. Maybe the Doves will have the last laugh yet, out in this strange new frozen world. But I don’t think so. They … have their limits.

And here in the airport they don’t look good. They crouch in rows, looking dull and lifeless, so the wild boys grow bored with them, and I am too tired to maintain them all.