Michael

Michael

Michael was in his sand pit, surrounded by coloured, wooden building blocks. He was assembling the blocks into towers of various heights and shapes. Michael was building London.

Michael liked to build all kinds of things; build them, then destroy them. Last week he had built a mountain then he had been a dinosaur smashing it down, breathing fire onto the mountainside, burning the villages and fields there. Before lunch he had dug into the sand to make a busy harbour with boats and cranes made from his building blocks. He had sent a sand tsunami raging through the harbour town, flattening and burying it just in time to run in for his sandwich (ham) and crisps (Salt and Vinegar).

Gradually the block city’s skyline loomed larger, casting shadows in the sand which seemed to stretch to the size of real buildings and monuments. Michael was intent on his building and did not realise he had failed to represent his own house, his parents house, amongst the scattered structures. Soon Michael would wreak his destruction, but for now he was The Creator.

A stream of voices drifted from an open window, the kitchen window, his mother was watching television. Michael liked television; the words meant nothing to him, even the subnormal dialogue of the afternoons’ idiocy was lost on him, but the images! Some of the bright, glowing pictures were held forever in his growing mind. They burned there as he built, burned brighter as he destroyed.

A fly weaved, buzzing, through the highest of the buildings. Michael watched it with his black eyes, seeing a television helicopter. Michael briefly left his city to gather beetles and other creatures to populate the sandy metropolis, beetles were cars, small spiders played people and ants portrayed children or dogs. The citizens congregated from all corners of the garden and soon the streets were crawling with life. There were giant snakes in Michael’s city (earthworms) along with aliens (grasshoppers) and a monster (a lizard he had caught dozing in the sun and had penned in between the buildings). None of these most cosmopolitan of residents was aware of the storm of chaos, sand and death about to break over their new home.

Michael admired his replica of London one last time. It shimmered in the afternoon heat; soon it would shake and fall, broken.

Where would the destruction begin? With the big clock tower beside the river! No, something bigger! Tower Bridge! Michael turned his head to look at the bridge; its two towers faced each other across the gritty, yellow Thames. Michael pushed gently at one of the towers; it swayed but did not fall. He took aim and pushed again; the South tower leaned, leaned and toppled, smashing into the North tower. Both towers became one as they fell through the air to crush the ants and beetles, who were strolling on the North Bank of the Thames, beneath an avalanche of blue, red and yellow. Michael let out a peal of giddy laughter.

Across the city people screamed as the great landmark that was Tower Bridge wobbled once, hesitated then crumbled and crashed into the river. The crowds ran screaming and aimless, from a helicopter high above they looked like insects.

Michael wheeled around ready for his next wave of attack. Where was it? There it was, a few feet from the rubble of the bridge, Buckingham Palace. Michael stamped a foot upon the roof, collapsing it and crushing the pair of caterpillars enthroned within. He laughed as he kicked down the walls of the gardens, spraying sand over the surrounding buildings.

Tourists watched in horror as some enormous, somehow human looking, object swooped from the skies and demolished the palace of Queen Elizabeth II. At least, she had been the Queen until her death; surely nothing could be living under the unrecognisable ruins. Charles had just been promoted, King Charles III.

Michael winced. The bricks must have been harder and heavier than he had thought, kicking them hurt his feet. He decided to take a different approach to the next wave of devastation. He made off towards the back of the house. In his absence, the monster continued a rampage of its own that had gone unnoticed by Michael. It had already beheaded a pair of aliens and consumed a considerable number of dog children. Some of the ants had turned looters and were attempting to make off with scattered crisp fragments and other detritus.

Michael returned with a wheel from a tricycle he had reduced to tangled wreckage in one of his angriest and most glorious moments. Nothing lasted long around Michael.

Suddenly the London Eye leapt free from its framework and barrelled along a nearby street smashing cars, buildings and people out of its path. Somehow it seemed to turn for another pass, as if some massive force were guiding it. It wheeled a crazy course through the city. Trees, schools, hospitals, houses, brothels, nothing was safe from the giant white spoked devil. It finally crashed down on The Houses of Parliament.

Now Michael was completely lost in his fury. Blind, charging, leaping, roaring he rampaged across the barren plain. Blocks jutted from the sand like crooked, bright painted tombstones.

The annihilation was complete. Silent, a serene smile on his lips, Michael surveyed his work.

Seeing him from the kitchen window his mother came outside. “What are you doing Michael? It’s time to come and watch the News.”

The News! The News was Michael’s favourite.

A steady rain began to fall on the debris; it left miniature meteor craters in the sand and cleaned the bodies of the fallen. A lizard, missing its tail, scurried over the blocks and crossed to a crack at the bottom of the garden wall.

THE END