Rob Ewing - The Last of Us

The boom is at the back of the house. Then I’m lying down: there’s a flash of light racing over—

Then I’m not hearing.

That’s fire: big fire. I can’t hear any sound of it.

Dogs run past. Their mouths go big, shut, big.

I run away to the fence, to the back of the next house, to behind the neighbour’s bins.

It’s like the sun came up again. Light that makes the sky seem dark everywhere else.

Now I start to hear again. My one ear hurts. The dogs, barking. The roar of an angry giant.

All the sound turned up again. A roar of fire, twisting up above the roof of their house into the sky.

Arm wet. Face wet?

Glass in my arm. It makes me gasp for seeing it.

The whole street catches fire. Sparks go up in the wind making islands of fire in the gardens and houses.

I go away, far away to my street. Far away from where their burning street looks like a volcano. Sparks go up in a curtain, along with smoke which rubs out the sea, the big hill, even the top of the sky.

Next morning there’s still smoke. There are birds? No: silver flakes going up and up in the air. It’s ash.

The smoke goes up; the ash sideways.

I go and sit on the wall. I can hear the wind, the birds, with one ear only. My other ear doesn’t work.

The street looks like when someone runs a black pen over your drawing: there’s squares of blackness where the houses of Righ a Tuath used to be.

Calum Ian and Duncan’s house is the worst. It’s burnt down to ribs, rafters.

There’s still some flakes of burning ash. I watch one single flake singe a patch of grass, then go out.

It’s when I get off the wall that I feel how my arm is sore. My sleeve feels thick, heavy. It’s stuck like glue to the skin just beside my wrist.

I try to peel it away, but it hurts the worst.

One of the cars exploded. I remember. The glass came from there, or from one of the houses? I never knew that glass got smashed when there was fire.

There’s still a proper fire in one of the faraway houses along the street, so I don’t go there.

Ash dropping around. It goes up in swirls along the road, collecting in piles in the gutters.

Elizabeth sits beside me. I show her all the ways of moving my arm which hurt.

‘Never meant to do it so big. The fire.’

She raps the top of my head: ‘Killed your brain cells.’

‘Stop doing that, please ! Would you be really mad at me this time?’

Elizabeth: ‘Don’t be a stress-cadet. Seriously, you shouldn’t be worrying about things you can’t mend.’

‘Mum used to say Hell mend them. Or was it Heaven mend them? I forget.’

Elizabeth: ‘You can only be mended by God.’

Me: ‘I don’t believe in God.’

Elizabeth: ‘Hell mend him, then!’

Then she skips away, singing a happy tune.

When the soreness comes it’s like a person breathing: or a drum going bang-bang-bang.

Elsa comes with me to the hospital. For some reason I can’t get my balance on the bike, so it ends up I leave it at the fence beside the playpark on my way.

Elsa trots beside, my sidekick. I don’t even have to give her biscuits or sweets now to keep the bribe going.

‘ A bheil on t-acras ort? ’ I ask.

She closes her mouth for attention, also to tell me she understands, she’s a Gaelic dog.

We walk from the road, up to the grassy sticking-out land. Everything got further than I remember. My arm is bigger, or maybe feels bigger? Elsa waits while I get comfier by putting my fingers, my arm inside my jumper.

‘ Tapadh leat ,’ I say to her. ‘Stay patient.’

We get to the door for the link corridor between the old folks’ home and the hospital. There’s the same old smell as before. Dust, dried-out floor, unused air.

‘ Dè thuirt thu? ’ I ask Elsa.

Elsa waits. She doesn’t want to come in, not even for a biscuit, not even after a pat or any friendliness.

‘Stay on lookout,’ I tell her.

The white room is still a big mess. Maybe even more so, which makes me wonder if Elizabeth or Calum Ian came back when I wasn’t there. It looks like an animal got in – there’s splodges of cat shit in trails – though where a cat came and went in by I don’t know.

I find about six different packets. I line them up. I try my absolute hardest to remember which ones were medicine, and which ones were poison. The best attempt comes with closing my eyes: to remember the day me and Elizabeth came here. Her words, her instruction. What she did. What I did while she was being the adult.

I look for the medicine book she used, but it isn’t here. With no better ideas I line the tablets up in alphabetical order: AMIODARONE. ATENOLOL. DIGOXIN. FUROSEMIDE. GLIPIZIDE. HEPARIN. IMDUR. OMEPRAZOLE. TRIMETHOPRIM. WARFARIN.

Still, it doesn’t make the memory of things clearer, so I read the packets. They all have long lists of side effects and actions and characteristics, but nothing that gives any clues as to whether they could be poison or not.

I look at my arm. The bit showing beside my sleeve is red, like Duncan’s face was. The red bit hurts when I don’t even press, though especially when I do.

‘Colour in the edges. Did you not see Elizabeth do it with the cut on her leg? Good remembering. Are you going to do it now? Don’t force – I will!’

But I’m too much of a coward. Plus the pen hurts, even over the skin that’s meant to be normal.

In the end I collect up all the tablets, poison or not, so I can check them in the dictionary later.

Elsa is waiting for me outside. She wags her tail like crazy, like I was gone her whole entire life.

‘Wouldn’t leave you,’ I say, to soothe her. ‘We’re buddies, sidekicks. Remember? What’s going to work?’

Elsa’s eyes flash at me: Teamwork.

The air got hot, or is it me? Either way Elsa’s the best at patience with the time it takes me getting home.

I try to push the bike, but it gets too heavy, so we dump it beside a paint-peeling boat.

Elsa leaves me at the gate. Some big dogs go past, making small yelps and running – then she’s gone.

I shout and shout on her – but I guess dogs are her true world, better than being a sidekick.

I look at the islands: past the trawler, past Snuasamul. The islands where the sun goes down in winter. Nobody lived on them when I was little. Not even before I was true. But hundreds of years ago, people lived there.

So there must’ve been a last person there too. Maybe a girl, like me? So if there was then it’s a shame we never lived in the same time. Because if we did, we could’ve been sidekicks. We could’ve helped each other, with the teamwork you get in humans.

Back home. I don’t like cold hands. Or cold feet. Mouth dry: lips too. I put down all my shopping, which is really just the tablets. Then get wrapped up in my duvet.

How can you feel cold when it’s sunny outside?

I hold the picture frames, with Mum’s picture and her letter in them. For seeing better I take down the cereal packets that Elizabeth stuck to the skylight.

Mum has a good smile. Her photo got faded, but not her smile. In fact this makes it better. Brighter.

Her letter is losing its tape-creases. And now I think I know what be bright in the world means. It doesn’t mean make a fire, or noise, or act to reach people. All it means is: just be a part of all the stars you can see in the sky.

Because the world is just another part of the sky.

I could take just one tablet for safety – then wait. Duncan couldn’t wait when he needed his. But it doesn’t matter, because I know which one’s the poison. It’s the one called WARFARIN. I remember Elizabeth saying that now.