Майя Лунде - The End of the Ocean

He laughed about such things. He laughed about a lot of things. Even when we put too much pressure on the machinery and blew the fuses, he laughed. It’s just as worn out as I am, he said and chuckled.

But Anna wasn’t laughing any longer. She cried when I came home from work. She was startled by the tiniest noises. She just sat on the tiny balcony in our apartment. Vigilant. It was as if she knew something was going to happen.

Both of us knew that something was going to happen.

I had just eaten lunch that day. A chewy croissant I had taken out of the freezer in the break room. The last one. I turned off the freezer but didn’t unplug it.

The croissant had tasted like mold. I had nothing to put on it. The taste of mold was still in my mouth.

I was on my way out with the trash, it was my turn to take it out. We had to take turns. The cleaner, an Algerian refugee who had lived in Argelès since long before the five-year drought, had quit many weeks ago. He didn’t understand how we dared to stay. He had already fled from another drought many years ago.

The trash bag was half full. There weren’t many leftovers any longer, we ate every last crumb. The garbage cans were located a short walk away from the plant. I had to go all the way out onto the main road. They stunk in the heat. Nobody had emptied them for months.

The bag of trash in my left hand, clutched tightly between my fingers, white plastic against my palm, a knot. And then I noticed the smell.

I turned around. At first I saw only whitish smoke rising into the sky. Like a fog.

But it quickly grew darker.

Then the flames came. Small tongues over the buildings.

It was only then that I moved. Thomas, I thought.

He hadn’t had lunch with me. He ate on his feet, not taking breaks.

The last time I had seen him he was standing by the control and monitoring panel. There was something that wasn’t working, he said, something that had broken down again, yet another overloaded mechanism, another broken part. But he would figure it out, the way he always did.

I started running towards the building. Smoke rose towards the sky, towards me. More and more smoke billowed out all the time. Toxic smoke. And Thomas was inside.

It was only then that I dropped the bag of trash.

I ran, but the fire was spreading quickly. The flames blocked the main entrance.

I ran around the building to the rear. But the door was locked.

Back to the front. Spun around. Time passed.

The flames took hold. Ashes were already falling to the ground like snow. On me.

Water. Water. I needed water. A hose.

At that moment I heard someone calling from behind me.

“David?”

I turned around. It was Anna. She was holding August on her hip and Lou was running just behind them. They must have run out of the house the minute she noticed the smell of smoke.

Tears were running down her face and she screamed.

“David! Wait!”

“I have to go inside,” I called. “I have to find Thomas!”

“No,” she said. “No!”

With one bound she was at my side.

“You’re not going in there!”

“I have to!” I said. “Thomas is in there.”

But then she handed me August. She lifted him towards me and forced me to take him.

Then she lifted Lou onto her hip and Lou hid her face against her shoulder. I could hear her crying.

“Now we have to run,” Anna said. “You see that. Now we have to get out of here!”

I stood there holding August. He smiled at me, understanding nothing. A smile with four white teeth. I don’t understand a thing either, I thought.

“David!” Anna said.

“It’s growing,” Lou said.

I turned towards the plant.

The fire was a raging beast that ate everything.

The sparks spread, setting the dry grass on the dunes and the bone-dry trees behind them on fire.

The flames devoured everything in their path, they were a beast growing with everything it swallowed, growing ever larger and more powerful and at an ever-increasing pace.

Then finally I managed to run. August thudded against my hip. He laughed, thinking it was a game.

“Will we make it to the apartment?” I asked.

“Yes,” Anna said. “We have to make it. Our passports are there. Everything is there.”

We ran towards the city. Our breath tore at our throats, our eyes were stinging. We rushed down the esplanade where the old summer villas were, locked up and covered in dust.

We were faster than the fire.

“We’re going to make it,” I said. “It will be fine. We will make it. It will be fine.”

Again and again I spoke exactly those words, like they were a jingle.

Through deserted streets, past boarded-up stores. Up the stairs towards our apartment. It smelled so good, I thought. Home, I loved that smell.

Then I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror. A white man, covered in ashes.

“Here.”

Anna moistened a towel with water from a barrel and tossed it to me. I wiped the worst of it off me. At the same time she stuffed some clothing and a little food into a bag.

“And the passports,” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “I already packed them.”

“Good job,” I said.

Actually I wanted to say more. Ask her for forgiveness. I should have apologized.

Apologized for making us stay. For not listening to her. For our still being here. For having to leave our home like this, without anything.

But I didn’t have a chance to say anything, because now a sound could be heard outside. A buzzing—no, a faint roar that grew louder all the time.

“It’s coming,” Anna said.

“But it can’t come here, can it?” Lou asked.

We didn’t reply. I picked up the bag. Lifted August. Anna took Lou’s hand. We ran outside.

“Mommy, don’t you have to lock up?” Lou asked.

But she received no reply to that question either.

We continued into the town, away from the beach, away from the plant.

I turned around. I couldn’t see the flames, only the smoke. There was a light breeze and a black wall rolled into the town on the wind.

My heart in my throat, breathing hard, August in my arms. He wasn’t laughing any longer.

Anna pulled Lou behind her but they weren’t moving quickly enough. She picked her up.

She balanced her on her hip. But that slowed her down even more. Lou was too heavy.

“Here,” I said and held August out to her. “You take him.”

We swapped children. That was when it happened. It was Anna and August. Lou and me.

Then we continued running.

We approached the downtown area. The bike rental. Ran past the smiling plastic figurines in the small amusement park on the corner. Past the pharmacy. All the ice-cream parlors. The hamburger restaurant that had once been the most popular place in Argelès. Engulfed in smoke so thick I could barely breathe.

Lou kept her face hidden against my shoulder. I could hear her crying. But I couldn’t console her. I just ran.

And forgot to turn around.

“Mommy?” Lou said suddenly.

It was only then that I noticed that Anna was no longer behind me.

I called for her in the smoke. Screamed. Yelled.

Lou screamed even louder than me, her voice high-pitched against the deepness of my own.

“Mommy?”

“Anna?”

“Mommy!”

But Anna didn’t come.

Then I turned around, ran back, towards the fire, towards the roaring.

They had to be here somewhere.

She had stumbled, I would find her.

“August? Anna? August?!”

No sign of her and no sound of him crying.

Soon there was only the sound of crackling flames. They spread with a swiftness that I wouldn’t have believed possible.

Spread through the dry landscape, which had scarcely seen rain in five years.