Grace McCleen - The Land of Decoration

That night I cooked spaghetti Bolognese for dinner and fried the onions and mince and boiled the spaghetti, and all Father did was stir it. I asked if we could pretend the sauce wasn’t from a jar, and we did, and while we were eating, Mike said: “Can I borrow the chef?” and Father said he would have to think about it, and I couldn’t remember feeling so happy for a long time.

LATER, WHEN MIKE had gone and we were washing up, I said: “Can we invite May and Elsie and Gordon over?”

“Not now,” Father said.

I waited a minute, then said: “Are you going to go to the meetings again?”

And he said: “Judith, I don’t want to talk about this.” So we didn’t.

But later, when I was in my room, I said to God: “Please help Father.”

God said: “I can’t help him. He has to help himself.”

“He’s trying.”

“Then tell him to try harder.”

I took my journal into bed with me and turned over three pages and wrote: Is Father better yet? Then I turned over another three and wrote: What about now? I kept turning over and writing and I fell asleep with it beside me.

The last day I marked was a Wednesday. But, as it turned out, we didn’t get that far because the very next night something happened that ended all of that. It ended pretty much everything, and I didn’t even see it coming.

D. S. Michaels

The Flat

The Old Fire Station

Milton Keynes

MK2 3PB

Dear Judith,

How nice to hear from you. Of course I remember you: and our conversation that Sunday and am very sorry to hear that recently things have been so difficult for you and your father. As this world nears its end, we must expect Satan to try our integrity. I’m sure that whatever happens, God won’t forget the love your father showed for His name and will accept him back into the fold with open arms when he is ready to return. I am sure your own faithful example is an encouragement to your father. I am afraid I’m pretty busy and won’t be coming to your congregation for some time, but I will pray for both of you.

As for the mustard seeds, I didn’t know you wanted to grow them. I’m not sure how you’d go about it. I think most people just grind them up. If you want to try with some more, I got them in Tesco. Failing that, you could try a health-food shop or a gardening store.

I look forward to seeing you again when I am next visiting your congregation.

I CAME HOME on Friday, and turned my key in the front door but it didn’t click. I thought I must have forgotten to lock it when I left for school that morning and was very glad Father was still at work and didn’t know. I went into the kitchen and made a sandwich and a drink and then went upstairs.

I turned along the landing and was concentrating so hard on balancing the sandwich and my drink and thinking about the balloon ride Father and I were going on so I didn’t see that my door was ajar. When I did, my stomach dipped. I pushed it open and I saw two things.

The first thing was Father sitting on the bed. He didn’t look up and his face was red and crumpled as if he had been sleeping and he smelled of beer. The second thing was that he was holding my journal. Then the room shot backward and Father and the journal shot forward. I heard myself say: “Why aren’t you at work?”

“There isn’t any,” he said, and when he looked up I saw that his eyes were glassy and half closed. “Two thousand laid off.”

“What?”

“It’s shut down,” he said.

I blinked. “But you only just started back.”

“The strike finished us. We’ve lost half our customers.”

“It’ll open again.”

“I don’t know,” Father said. “You tell me. After all, you’re the one with the magic powers, aren’t you?”

I felt dizzy.

He laughed. “I expect you knew anyway! Perhaps you closed the factory! That’s what you do, isn’t it? You make things happen. And then write about them in your bloody diary! ” As he said the last words he stood up, hitting his head on the hot-air balloon, and the room swung to and fro.

“And there was me thinking Doug had it in for me because I was working!” he shouted. “That the trouble we had at the house was because of the strike! That it was boys being boys! You told me you would drop this miracle business, Judith! YOU GAVE ME YOUR WORD!”

He came close and I saw the veins in his eyes.

I put down my plate and cup and I couldn’t look at him, just kept looking down at my sandwich.

He said: “I told you, Judith! I told you and told you to drop it—” Then his voice broke, and he sat on the bed and his shoulders shook.

I said: “All I did was have faith,” and my voice was just air. “God did the rest.”

“DAMN GOD!” he shouted.

“I was trying to help,” I said.

He stood up. He looked like a madman. He said: “This is what I think of your help.” He picked up my journal and tore the cover away. He tried to tear it down the middle, but the spine was too strong and it bent this way and that. It made him even madder. He began tearing out handfuls of pages, and his hands were juddering and shaking. When there were just a few pages left, he threw the journal on the floor and looked around him.

I saw what was going to happen a second before it did but I was still too slow. I screamed and ran at him, but he had grabbed a field in the Land of Decoration, and houses and trees and cattle rained down on us. I clawed at his arms, but he pushed me back and began sweeping rivers and castles and palaces and cities up into the air. He uprooted trees, he flattened mountains, he crushed houses under his shoes.

I hung on to his arms, I hung on to his legs, we fell over, he got up again, he hurled the stars down, he broke up the moon, he toppled the planets. He tore at the sun, and the cage broke apart. The sea cracked with a sound like a plate, and the boats were cast up. The sky fell to earth and the earth broke apart. Beds and chairs, teapots and bushes, rose trees and washing lines, windmills, pitchforks, plum pies, and candlesticks came raining around us. Felt dogs howled, beaded fish flopped up and down, zebras whinnied, lions roared, fire-breathing dragons had their fire put out, scorpions ran in circles. I tried to save them but as many as I held I dropped again and all around us, the air was full of feathers and clay and wires and beads and heads and arms and legs and hair and fur and stones and sand and wings. And pretty soon there was nothing left but a heap of old rubbish.

Father stood panting and swaying. He was panting a little. He looked around, then lurched toward the door. It crashed behind him and I heard him stumble on the stairs. Then I fell down too, but I don’t know where because there were no more places, and I don’t know how long I fell because there was no more time. Dark filled my eyes because there was no more light, and there was no point in ever getting up again because what had been done could never be put right.

I WAS IN the dark when I heard a voice. The voice was saying: “Wake up.”

“Leave me alone,” I said.

“Wake up,” said the voice.

“Go away,” I said.

“You have to wake up,” said the voice.

“Why should I?”

“You have to wake up,” said the voice. “Because the world is ending.”

I OPENED ONE eye.

In front of me was what looked like a forest. There were fibers sticking up and the fibers were green.