The Last Magician

Contemplation

“What do we do now?”

Amanda regretted having to break the tranquillity, but they had lain together for a long time. Her head rested on his chest, rising and falling with his heavy breaths. There was a bliss in her head and her heart that had been missing for

(months?years?)

so long. It would not last though, not under the circumstances. They had been responding to a basic need in both of them, now it had passed and leaving a doubtful future behind.

Jack’s thoughts had returned to reality the instant their frantic sex had ended. Adding to the woes of the dismal existence around him, the guilt of the lust-fuelled act he partially instigated had decended upon him. It would have been easy to dismiss it out of hand, maybe to believe he had been provoked, but he knew the truth too well; he had wanted it.

Now the dark figure of guilt loomed over him. He was already feeling the spectres of the apocalypse’s Horsemen upon the world, and the new burden was most unwelcome.
There were too many questions he did not know the answer to, and the arrival of Amanda. She was a companion in the harsh world he had once known, but through his gratitude for finding her it only served to open up a new book of unanswered puzzles. He knew nothing about her. She probably knew very little about herself. Questions without any hint of closure. There was simply no end in sight.

Yet it seemed that the laws of time were distorted, he had as much as he needed to find the answers he needed. He saw little urgency to ask everything that remained unexplained, but his mind swam in turmoil regardless. He wanted to rush headlong into the unknown, into the waiting, destroyed world of desolation and despair. Casting his mind back to the green on which he had awakened, he sensed that answers would be elusive to say the least.

He wished, at that moment and for the first time in his life, that he had the proverbial after-sex cigarette in his mouth. Nicotine was meant to calm the system, and somehow the warnings of lung cancer no longer held stood as a threat. The calmness of the smoke would have been more important than any possible side-effects. A sense of serenity would have been just fine.

He did not assume that anyone was in the mood to grant insignificant hearts desires; he doubted there would be much call for wish-granting these days. A wish to die, perhaps.

Jack supposed some in his situation, virtually a sole survivor in a landscape of desolation, would gladly welcome death into their midst in order to escape the hell the baked earth offered. He was thankful he had never been a defeatist. Vague memory told him he had always been a fighter and he needed to be. He had the idea that a strong resolve could well be his greatest asset.

As if to prove his resolve had not deserted him as so much had, he finally answered Amanda’s query.

What do we do now? she had asked.

“We find out what happened here,” he said, rising slowly, giving her time to move her head from his chest. ”And how many others there are.”

”Do you think there is anyone?” Amanda asked, slipping off the edge of the bed and dropping to retrieve her clothes from the dusty floor.

“I’ll tell you in an hour or so, but the more I think about it, why would be the only two. There must be others somewhere. If they aren’t in the village, then they must be outside it. Somewhere.”

”How can you be so certain?” Amanda asked, easing her blouse over her breasts. “What if we find no-one?”

Jack had his clothes on, his hand hovered over the last button on his shirt. He paused, long enough for Amanda to repeat the latter part of her query.

”We can deal with that,” he said solidly, ”when and if we find it. If we don’t, then it doesn’t matter. Fair enough?”

“Fine,” Amanda said, her agreement less definite

”Okay,” Jack responded.

He needed the briefest moment to put some of the rogue thoughts in he head in order, and to check the words about to leave his mouth were the ones he wanted.

”Have you checked the house yet?” Jack asked.

”Not really,” Amanda replied. ”I didn’t know what I might find. To be honest I was frightened to think what I might find.”

”That’s one thing we need to get used to. Neither of us know what’s out there, other than what we’ve seen, which in my case is nothing much, but what I have seen…” Jack thought of the fungus, the small mouths eager to devour whatever they came into contact with. “…it doesn’t make mne feel we’re alone. That’s just as true about in here as out there. Is there anywhere at all you’ve searched?”

”Just in here a little.”

”Right,” Jack said. “We’ll do the rooms on this floor before going downstairs. You look in here, everywhere you didn’t before, I’ll try one of the other bedrooms”

”Ok,” Amanda said, then, ”Jack?”

”What?”

”Do you remember anything about the house?”

”Not yet. Perhaps when I take a good look around something more will come back to me.”

She nodded, and turned to begin her search. Jack hovered a second by the door, then stepped out into the cool darkness of the hallway.