It was a brave new start. Eirwen told\nher friends, “You must come and see me. I’m 14 floors up and the views …\nhonestly! It’s like living on a cruise ship!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now she was confused. Very confused,\nher cheek pressed hard against the carpet. The sun fell in a sharp line across\nher face. She remembered a deafening sound. There had been a roll of thunder,\nexcept it wasn’t thunder, because it came from below … a helicopter, in\ntrouble, rapidly closing in, skimming the surface of the sea … But now,\neverything was strangely muffled and she was on the floor, paralysed. This must\nbe what a stroke is. Without moving her head, she could see the clock on the\nwall, in bright sunlight. It was 3 minutes past 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
***<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
She is standing at the window,\nlooking out across the bay. 2 days on. She hasn’t slept since. It wasn’t a\nhelicopter and it wasn’t a stroke. It was shock, from the fall. The clock still\nsays 3 minutes past 4. Nothing is working. The power for the whole flat is\ndown. Not just the flat. The whole building. At night, it is black –\neverything, black – except for the track of the moon across the sea. The sea\nisn’t where it is meant to be. It is slapping and glooping against the walls of\nthe tower, just 20 feet below her window, lullaby to a floe of broken boats and\njostling corpses. She is still in shock. She can’t take her eyes off the moon.\nIt is huge and ash-grey, prowling the Devon coast in broad daylight, barely off\nthe ground, its mountains standing out like varicose veins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once or twice, she thought she had\nheard sounds from inside the building. The first time, she went to the door to\nlisten. She doesn’t really know anybody, yet. The corridor was windowless and\npitch black. There was a cold draught and it was dank. She had knocked on her\nneighbours’ the day she moved in. A professional couple in their 30s. They had\nchatted in the doorway. They are out at work all day. She\nwouldn’t see much of them. It was the same for many people. There were holiday\nflats, too. She might find it quite quiet. An elderly gentleman lived on the\nfloor above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She has no water. The tap coughs,\nlike a diseased lung. She has been capturing the melting ice from the freezer.\nThat has kept her going, but not for much longer. She hasn’t been able to eat.\nShe has no appetite. Now the food is going off. She doesn’t quite know what to\ndo about the toilet. In the Middle Ages they just threw it out of the window.\nLet the sea deal with it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There have been more sounds. She is\nsure, this time. There was a muffled banging. It could have come from the floor\nabove. She listened through a crack in the door. Muffled banging, then raised\nvoices and then a yell. She was sure of it, but immediately doubted herself.\nHELP. She only heard it the once. She closed the door and slid the chain\nacross. She stood with her back against it and prayed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Outside nothing changes. Every day\nthe sun shines – out of boredom it seems – \nmorning to night. The sea is flat and couldn’t care less. The moon never\ngoes out of sight. Only the corpses are getting fatter. Every day now, she\nprays. There is no sign of life. Nothing of Mumbles and West Cross is visible,\nexcept a long, low-lying island. The streets of Swansea are 100ft under. She\nfeels that her past has been wiped out. She is left only with what she has,\nright here, right now. Boxes still waiting to be unpacked. A view to die for. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was a brave new start. Eirwen told her friends, “You must come and see me. I’m 14 floors up and the views … honestly! It’s like living on a cruise ship!” Now she was confused. Very confused, her cheek pressed hard against the carpet. The sun fell in a sharp line across her face. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,21],"tags":[22,23],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2","category-october","tag-act","tag-god"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-15","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions\/94"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}