They’d 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 bloated cheeks and sockets for eyes. Somebody said it was the face of the devil.
In the evening a deluge of rain fell, ripping into the town and onto the sea in bulletlike torrents. The tide battered the sea wall, and then the full moon picked out a towering wave on the horizon, the width of the whole bay. It advanced slowly, seventy feet or more high. It smashed into every building and road around the lower part of the bay, pulverising them into rubble which quickly disappeared under water. The high-rise apartment blocks, the hospital and university, the shopping area, the hotels and houses, the refinery on the far side of the bay: all were gone. The sea was full of dead bodies, tiny flecks in the seething current, illuminated by the moon.
The suburbs higher up the bay saw the rush of water towards them. It levelled some feet below, and they thanked their stars they were safe. But then in the night there was a terrible cracking noise, like bones breaking. The ground beneath them was sinking. Slowly, street by street, terraces of houses crumbled, as foundations gave way, and by morning there was only water to be seen, with just bare brick foundations left at the top of the bay. Nothing else remained of the town.
The news filtered through eventually to the hillside community. The city below had been destroyed, its population wiped out, the sea had risen permanently, and was now at the foot of their hills. The community decided to go back to old ways, reverting to the half-abandoned indigenous language, and worshipping pagan gods. Their cars rusted in the streets. Petrol was unavailable, but then petrol was the devil’s currency.
They became rural again, self-sufficient, half-turning their backs on the world. They knew about the Amazon rainforest destruction, about the poles melting, and the ice caps on the Himalayas depositing billions of gallons of water onto the flat lands below. Bangladesh, parts of India, China, Pakistan, the U.S. eastern sea-board, coastal Europe were submerged, and huge numbers had drowned or starved.
They couldn’t ignore the future. At the end of every working day they would gather ceremonially at a viewing point to look down at the seawater, listening to it. Their demise was inevitable, along with that of the remainder of global civilisation. But they would face death, when it came, respecting the planet and with whatever dignity murdering humankind had left. Their druid gave thanks for another day with life, and they returned to their darkened houses to sleep.
The water levels continued to rise up the slopes, as they toiled, whispering to them in their dreams.
