Ade Grant - The Mariner

Resigned, and with a heavy heart, he looked back up and out to his audience. “I’m sorry. But before I go, there is something you should hear.”

I’m sorry Heidi. I’m sorry McConnell. But I’m afraid to die. I’m so terribly afraid. And this is my only chance.

And so the Mariner spoke. He told them of the Shattering. He told them of the Wasp. He told them what each and every one had forgot.

Elli Heidegger sat upon the wooden bench, enjoying the warm sun upon her face. Not far away, the people of London continued to drive the cogs of the city with their ceaseless endeavours. Streets hummed and roads roared, but this little patch of greenery proved an oasis, a tiny square of life in the great grey desert. She was determined to make the most of it.

Not that she would lower her guard though, she was still in a major city and there were plenty of undesirables about. The clement weather may try to lull her into submission, but she would not falter. Not when there was a little one to care for.

The toddler ran up to her knees, holding three daisies that had been identified and picked for her mother’s approval. The tiny hand was held aloft, small granules of dirt peppered about the fingernails.

“They’re lovely darling! Are they for me?” Heidi asked, bending towards the small girl.

Grace nodded and passed the small flowers to her mother, giggling a tiny response before returning to the grass. Heidi supposed she should get the child more interested in the swings and see-saw, but for now saw no harm in her playing on the green. The patch of land had already been scouted for needles and dog-shit. As far as she could tell, it was safe.

“Elli?” a voice behind made her jump.

Oh no, not him! Not today!

“Elli Heidegger! It is you!”

Oh fuck off Harold!

The man leaned over the back of her bench, a grin broad beneath his bald head. “I knew it was you!” He wiggled a finger in the air as if it were a wand. “I saw you across the street and said to myself, Harold, there’s an ex-employee I haven’t seen in an age!”

Heidi forced a smile. “I’m surprised you remember me.”

“Nonsense,” he quipped, skirting around the bench so to sit beside her. “Beautiful young ladies are unforgettable, whilst boring old farts like me are ten-a-penny, it is you who should be forgetting me!”

“How could I forget you, Harold? I see you every day.” She deliberately took the bait and flattered his ego, despite wanting to vomit inside. “Hardly a day goes by when a leaflet isn’t pushed through my door.”

Harold grinned, knowing full well how prominent his face had become throughout the city. “I know! Who would have thought it, eh? Your boring old boss, the next mayor of London?”

The votes aren’t in yet you conceited prick.

“You should come to the celebration party! Ground-breaking stuff, the people of London giving a huge fuck-you to the establishment! No more of these PPE educated toffs running the place. A truly independent mayor, sticking up for London!” His eyes glazed over with the imagined glory. “The party is going to be fabulous, a real celebration for the people. Of course, it’s strictly only for the elite movers and shakers, but with the right dress on I’m sure you could move and shake like a pro, hmm?”

He didn’t waste any time, did he? Heidi inwardly rolled her eyes at his advances and instead gave a polite, yet conservative smile. “I’m sorry, Harold, but I think I’ll be looking after Grace, babysitters are so hard to find.”

“But the night is still a long way off,” he protested, and then with a hint of malice behind a veneer of ignorance added, “Can’t the father help out?”

You shit.

“Harold,” she said calmly, despite the rage growing inside. “If you try, I’m sure you’ll remember the father’s gone and that was why I had to leave your company, to look after Grace. I needed flexible hours and your business didn’t offer it.”

And I should have sued you.

“Of course!” he said smoothly, as if his memory had simply lapsed. “I’d forgotten, and who could blame me for assuming a pretty young thing like you had simply gotten bored with the insurance industry?” Perhaps regretting his barbed comment, Harold retreated somewhat. “Well, if you do find a babysitter, I’d be happy to pay for them. Call my office any time to accept the invitation.”

“Thank you.”

“Is that your daughter?” Harold asked, pointing towards Grace. The toddler had approached a middle-aged gentleman, sat upon a bench and eating a sandwich, and was happily offering him a daisy.

“Yes, that’s her,” she replied, suddenly alarmed at the stranger conversing with her child. The initial rush of concern was soon neutralised though. The man looked safe, more like a doctor than a pervert, and besides, Grace had approached him .

Harold wasn’t so convinced. “Probably a paedo,” he sneered. “It’s something I’m going to crack down on once I’m elected. Tougher laws for lone men in parks.”

Strengthening laws and regulations was Harold Alcott’s central philosophy. Potent Policies, he called them, which was where he got his nickname, Harold ‘Absinth’ Alcott. He glared at the stranger whilst lighting up a cigarette.

“A lone man in a park is one on the prowl,” he growled, the white stick wiggling in his lips like a rising prick.

“You’re alone in a park,” Heidi pointed out.

“And indeed, I am on the prowl. But not for children,” his eyes darted to her breasts, none-too-subtly, and the compulsion to vomit was strong once more.

“Listen, Harold,” she protested, losing patience with his leering, when suddenly the nauseous urge became too much. She bent forward, bile rising in her throat.

A peculiar feeling was filling her head. It felt like a rush of blood, except the blood carried with it a multitude of thoughts and feelings, billions in number. They swirled around like angry — Wasp! — hornets infuriated at the disruption of their nest.

Yet in their astonishing number, all were united, driven by some greater hive understanding, their focus a man, someone she’d never met, yet for a brief moment understood. She saw within him, as did the billions of others. She felt what he felt, she tasted his self-loathing and disgust.

What the fuck was happening? Had her mind broken? Had that pervert Harold Alcott poisoned her with some date-rape drug? She forced an eye open and saw this was not so, for he too was clutching his head, screaming as the thoughts ran riot in his mind.

And if she listened closely, were there not his thoughts in her head too? One voice among billions?

But it was not Harold the multitude were concerned about; it was this other man, the one whose eyes they looked through, the one they desperately wanted to flee from.

A great tearing began, the community mind that had moments before been incomprehensible, now left, her psyche torn apart like dough. The thoughts departed as a frightened herd, and having lost them, she once again wailed in frustration and pain. Alone. She’d never truly understood such a feeling until this moment, when the voices lapsed into silence.

Heidi opened her eyes and looked around, trying to see her daughter. She opened her mouth to call out the girl’s name, but no words came out. The name of her only child had been removed from her head, along with countless other memories. All gone with the Wasp.

And like single particles drawn by gravity to the multitude, further parts of her were sucked away by the departed mass. One moment she was searching for a child, the next she was blinking, confused, motherly bond forgotten.