Йен Райт - The Final Winter

Wednesday

Today will be my last. I can feel it. My lower legs snapped today when I got out of bed, too rotten and malformed to bear what little weight my frail body has left. It is of no importance however, as I awakened to something wonderful: You have mail.

I am about to drag my withered limbs over to the computer right now, to see what my trusted associate has for me. I will record the email, and my response, for you right here, as I feel it will be important.

Dear Prime Minister.

I sincerely hope that you are keeping well in this time of dire need. Great Britain is within the talons of great turmoil and despair, but I trust that your inspired leadership will see us through as ever. This shall not be the end of our endless empire and the good people of this nation will go on stronger than before. That is our way and always will be. May Angels sit on our shoulders as God guides our souls through the times ahead. Long live Great Britain.

But without further ado, Prime Minister, I will provide you with the Intel you require. It was discovered at 0300 GMT today that the disease is not contained to western nations as first assumed. In fact we now have reliable information that the infection, commonly referred to as ‘The Peeling’, was contracted in Turkey and has quickly spread as far east as Japan. I’m sure you can appreciate, that with the USA also affected, it effectively means the disease has travelled the entire circumference of the world… Yet there is one country that has shown no effects of the illness, despite being surrounded by it on all borders. We have tried to contact that nation’s Government but they have declined all opportunities to reply. It now seems a reasonable assumption that the country in question is responsible for this worldwide plague.

That country is North Korea.

As always, I await you orders on how to proceed, but I implore you to act wisely.

Dear Harvey

I was certain it was the Arabs! Guess we can all be wrong sometimes…

Regardless, since my dear Martha and the children were taken from me by this wretched sickness, I have had no time to mourn them, so I regret to inform you that this will be my final act as leader of this nation. I hope that you and your family are well, and remain so. I wish the same for Great Britain.

Without continued procrastination, my orders, in regards to the Godless entity of North Korea, are as follows:

Send the Nukes.

Send them all…

They will not take this world as their own.

Joe pulled tight his jacket around him, the biting chill of the autumn air creeping into every crevice of his body and making him shiver. The cold grey of the sky seemed to drizzle down to earth and coat everything with its dullness to the point where it seemed that colour no longer existed in the world. But the dreary weather was not enough to dampen Joe’s spirits. Today was a good day. He was spending the day with his son.

Danny was standing nearby, peering through a set of bars at what looked to be the zoo’s famous Silverback gorilla exhibit – but the leafy enclosure was empty, vacant of its illustrious inhabitant.

Must be getting fed, Joe thought as he watched his son’s disappointed face. Danny loved animals and would be disappointed that such a rare and magnificent creature was not available for him to see. But, like most eight-year old boys, his attention span soon reset itself, and it wasn’t long before he was running off in a separate direction entirely.

“Dad! That man over there is being attacked by a snake.”

Joe stared down at his son, amazed, as always, that his watery-blue eyes could look so much like his own. “Don’t be silly, Danny,” he said, his warm breath turning to steam in the crisp October air around him. “That’s just the zoo’s snake handler. He’s about to do a show, I think.”

“I wanna go see!” Danny tugged at his father’s arm, deceptively strong for such a slender child wearing a Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart t-shirt and Velcro trainers. “Hurry, before we miss anything.”

Joe allowed himself to be dragged toward a three-sided lean-to shelter erected besides the zoo’s moss-covered WORLD OF VENOM building. It had been designed to look as if it were made of bamboo reeds. A uniformed man entered the structure from a rear access and began positioning plastic crates onto a wooden table – all of them containing reptiles of various sizes and descriptions. The man’s tanned-leather skin matched his khaki clothing and was weathered, brown and loose. He had a boa constrictor the length of a scaffold pole wrapped around his bony shoulders.

Danny jumped up and down excitedly. “Sweet! I bet that thing could squish him to death, real easy!”

Joe frowned at his son. “Don’t be so morbid!”

“Sorry, Dad. I just think it’s cool.”

“It’s okay. I just want you to think nice things. Come on, let’s get closer.” Joe took his Danny’s hand – half the size of his own – and pushed through the gathering crowd of adults and their children. It wasn’t difficult to get to the front when you were as freakishly tall as Joe. People tended to get out of his way long before he had to ask them.

“Look at the size of that thing, Dad!” At the front of the growing audience – now close to a dozen people – Danny started jumping up and down again, his wispy, blond hair flopping around in the must-smelling breeze. Childish glee oozed off him in ribbons.

The snake handler turned his attention to them both and Joe cringed, waiting for his son to get a reprimand. A noisy nuisance . Fortunately, the uniformed man smiled at them instead.

“Hey there, young un. You like snakes?”

Danny nodded. “Jake the Snake used to have one called Damien.”

The snake handler wrinkled his forehead, readjusted the slithering reptile in his arms, and then said, “Isn’t that a wrestler from years back?”

Danny nodded enthusiastically. “My dad has lots of old tapes and I watch ’em every weekend when I stay over. My bestest favourite is The Undertaker. Check it out!” He spun around to show the man the design on his backpack.

“Undertaker rip?” said the handler, confused.

Danny spun back around and giggled. “No, silly! Rest in peace . It’s what The Undertaker says to everyone right before he beats them up with his tombstone.” He rolled his eyes back into his head, so that only the whites were showing, and repeated the words in his best attempt at a gravelly, adult voice.

“Rest… In… Peeeaaaace.”

The crowd laughed. So did the snake handler, struggling with his giant brown reptile between each chuckle. He pulled the animal down, away from his face, and then smiled over at Joe. “Fine little lad you have, sir.”

Joe smiled back. “Thanks. He’s a handful though. Just like your snake.”

“You can say that again! She’s really unsettled today. Won’t keep still for a minute, bless her.”

“Sounds just like my son.”

Danny bopped him on the arm. “Hey! I’m nothing like a snake. I’m gonna tell Mum on you.”

The crowd laughed again, this time giving a collective “Oooooooo!” Joe knew his son was just showing off, but it was nice to see him come out of his shell. After the last few years, with the divorce and everything else, it was good to see that Danny had any confidence at all.

Joe rustled Danny’s hair, messing it up more than it already was. “We best be moving on, little dude, or we won’t fit everything in. Say goodbye to the nice man and his snake.”