They\u2019d put the timber barriers in the few places where\nthere was no sea wall. A high tide was due that night and they were prepared;\nthe sea road would remain dry. In late afternoon the sky turned grey, and the\nclouds became worryingly dark. One large black cloud over the city appeared to\nhave bloated cheeks and sockets for eyes. Somebody said it was the face of the\ndevil. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
In the\nevening a deluge of rain fell, ripping into the town and onto the sea in\nbulletlike torrents. The tide battered the sea wall, and then the full moon\npicked out a towering wave on the horizon, the width of the whole bay. It\nadvanced slowly, seventy feet or more high. It smashed into every building and\nroad around the lower part of the bay, pulverising them into rubble which quickly\ndisappeared under water. The high-rise apartment blocks, the hospital and\nuniversity, the shopping area, the hotels and houses, the refinery on the far\nside of the bay: all were gone. The sea was full of dead bodies, tiny flecks in\nthe seething current, illuminated by the moon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The suburbs higher up the bay\nsaw the rush of water towards them. It levelled some feet below, and they\nthanked their stars they were safe. But then in the night there was a terrible\ncracking noise, like bones breaking. The ground beneath them was sinking. Slowly,\nstreet by street, terraces of houses crumbled, as foundations gave way, and by\nmorning there was only water to be seen, with just bare brick foundations left at\nthe top of the bay. Nothing else remained of the town. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The news\nfiltered through eventually to the hillside community. The city below had been\ndestroyed, its population wiped out, the sea had risen permanently, and was now\nat the foot of their hills. The community decided to go back to old ways, reverting\nto the half-abandoned indigenous language, and worshipping pagan gods. Their\ncars rusted in the streets. Petrol was unavailable, but then petrol was the\ndevil\u2019s currency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They\nbecame rural again, self-sufficient, half-turning their backs on the world.\nThey knew about the Amazon rainforest destruction, about the poles melting, and\nthe ice caps on the Himalayas depositing billions of gallons of water onto the\nflat lands below. Bangladesh, parts of India, China, Pakistan, the U.S. eastern\nsea-board, coastal Europe were submerged, and huge numbers had drowned or\nstarved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They\ncouldn\u2019t ignore the future. At the end of every working day they would gather\nceremonially at a viewing point to look down at the seawater, listening to it.\nTheir demise was inevitable, along with that of the remainder of global\ncivilisation. But they would face death, when it came, respecting the planet\nand with whatever dignity murdering humankind had left. Their druid gave thanks\nfor another day with life, and they returned to their darkened houses to sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The water\nlevels continued to rise up the slopes, as they toiled, whispering to them in\ntheir dreams. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
They\u2019d put the timber barriers in the few places where there was no sea wall. A high tide was due that night and they were prepared; the sea road would remain dry. In late afternoon the sky turned grey, and the clouds became worryingly dark. One large black cloud over the city appeared to have […]<\/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_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,21],"tags":[40],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2","category-october","tag-remains"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sbrNJE-remains","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\/79","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=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions\/100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}