Beyond Carousel

by Ritchie, Brendan

  I held onto this and found the strength in it to take me to sleep.

  Late into the night Georgia woke me and we tiptoed into a classroom to fool around like teenagers on a school camp. For those few, suspended hours we built a bubble that the world couldn’t penetrate. A glimmer of infrared heat in a desert of space and darkness. More than anything I remembered the brush of her hair across my forehead. The echo of her whisper. The flicker in her eyes before each smile.

  42

  I rode southwards beneath a patchy, broken sky. It was early and the suburbs were static like paintings in a lobby. I had a direction and a destination, but hadn’t yet considered my route. Eventually there would be a bridge, then some roads and a highway. The road back to Carousel felt sure and inevitable.

  I pulled up at a hill on the fringes of Mount Lawley. I was sweating and shed a couple of layers into my bag. The weather was shifting and humid. Where I stood was in sunshine but storm clouds roamed the city just ahead. There was the blink of lightning and washes of rain down there too. I finished my water and circled around towards it.

  I was just a suburb away in Northbridge when lightning struck gas and the entire city erupted.

  There was no escalation or warning. Just the hint of a light in the sky, then a chilling and immense boom. I veered into a shopfront and cowered from the noise more than anything. Waves of it saturated the air in a way I didn’t think possible. My eardrums bulged inward. I covered them with my hands and cowered even lower. I felt the heat then too. The street tunnelled with a scorching desert wind. I edged out and peered down its length.

  The city was gone. Replaced with a heaving black netherworld. Fizzing red embers danced like insects by a thousand light bulbs. Smoke eked from the darkness and dripped with a sickly yellow. I was both awestruck and terrified.

  There were more explosions. First distant, then one that felt right on top of me. I flinched and kicked at the door of the shop where I sheltered. The lock buckled, then snapped. I pushed my bike and bag inside, then rammed the door shut. It dangled loosely on its hinge. I shoved a trolley of dried noodles up against it and a box of something else against that. Through the glass I watched as the street was lost to smoke and embers.

  My ears didn’t ring, rather delivered everything to my brain on a sloppy delay. The whistle of wind beneath the door. Droning smoke alarms. The rattle of windows at the back of the store as I raced around to seal myself inside.

  I was in a leaky Asian mini-mart. There were aisles of dried goods, sauces and spices, a counter by the entrance and a storeroom and kitchenette at the back. The store was untouched and heavy with dust.

  I sniffed at the air.

  Smoke was drifting inside. I jittered about from front door to back, wondering if I should stay put or get the hell out of there. The plumbing was long gone and the only water I could find was a half row of Mount Franklin in the Coke fridge. I found a rusty old fire extinguisher on a wall in the storeroom and sat by the back door reading the instructions over and over again. The words were shaky and blurred. I was shivering in spite of the warmth outside. I put the extinguisher aside and took a bunch of long, slow breaths. The air didn’t taste great, but at least it calmed me a fraction.

  From what I could see, the smoke was still thick outside. I would have to stay put for a while. If a fire started I could use the extinguisher and some water bottles to put it out. If these didn’t work I could take one of two exits and try my luck outside.

  Although it had happened right in front of me I still couldn’t process the fact that the city had exploded. Month on month of seeping gas had finally been ignited. If it had happened last summer we would have watched it curiously from the safety of the hills. Or the summer before and we might have shrugged it off as just another noise outside the walls of Carousel. But now, just days out from the portals reopening, it had caught me dangling and exposed. Others too, probably. A blast like that could have easily taken out the freeway or surrounding bridges.

  I thought of Sophie and the Finns, screeching to a halt in the suburbs and staring northward at the carnage. Of Georgia and Claudia who I left just that morning. Wishing they had asked me of my route so they knew how much to worry. And then Cara Winters. Holy shit. She was probably still living in that basement. Was it low enough to withstand an explosion like that? Would she have air to breathe until the portals opened?

  Perth was crumbling at the final hurdle and it felt like the proper apocalypse had begun. I realised then that my life after the portals would be as much about physical survival as it would anything else. It was lonely and daunting. Again I saw Luke Skywalker dangling alone in the universe. I slunk down low and held the extinguisher in my arms like a pillow.

  I knew it was dark outside when the smoke took a hue of red.

  I had sat through the entire day watching the same blanket of grey out the window. A layer of it rested on the ceiling inside now, despite my efforts with a roll of packing tape. Low to the ground it was still fine. But I had little idea of what was happening outside. The city was on fire, I could tell that much. The temperature was well above normal and there was a rumbling noise that was akin to the hills burning. Thankfully it didn’t seem like it had jumped the train lines that separated the city from Northbridge. The glow I saw in the smoke now was dull and from the left, rather than all over.

  Still, I was stuck. There was no way I could find my way through that level of smoke. Plus I didn’t know how far I would need to travel to be clear of it. If there was a breeze outside I could try to head upwind until I found clean air. But, from what I could see, the smoke was fat and static.

  I was too wired for sleep but needed something to take my attention from the minutes ticking by on the barman’s watch. As well as food, the shelves had some random stuff like cooking utensils, ornaments and party supplies. I dug around and found some receipt books and a pen. I didn’t feel like it – at all – but sat down and started rewriting the novel I had begun at the Collective. It felt mechanical and soulless, but kept me busy through the night until eventually I slept.

  Waking was disorientating. Hours had passed yet the shop looked the same. Smoke still covered the windows. A red glow still emanated from the city. There should have been daylight, but the sun had been blotted. I stood and stretched, then paced about the store. Right now there was still time to get back to Carousel, but eventually, inevitably, there wouldn’t be. For the first time since the casino it seemed possible that I might not see the Finns again.

  I grabbed some waters and the writing pad and pushed the thought right out of my mind. Instead I concentrated on the writing. I tried to remember what I had already written, but also free myself up within the process. The writing had worked before because I found a tone I could pull off and a character that felt honest and real. I focused on rediscovering these things first and foremost.

  As the city burnt to stumps and ash beside me, my novel grudgingly came to life. I wrote hunched over on the cold concrete floor. Standing like a cashier at the shopfront counter. On a milk crate with a box of soy sauce for a desk. I took breaks every hour to survey the smoke and find food on the shelves.

  Night came, again. Still my view didn’t change. I was getting quietly desperate, but the writing was helping. I spiralled eagerly into its oblivion. The pages held warmth and safety, but also control. I set an alarm on the barman’s watch and slept for just two hours. When I awoke the date on the watch had changed to September.

  ‘Screw it,’ I said.

  I packed the notepad safely into my bag, took a long drink of water and got ready to leave. There were disposable face masks in aisle two. I taped two of them together and wrapped them tightly over my mouth and nose. Sophie had given me two torches along with the radio. I strapped them both to the handlebars and switched them on. The radio was on already. So far it hadn’t picked anything up, but I clipped it to my belt regardless. Lastly I took a packet of battery-powered party lights from a tub near the counter. They were
kitschy and ridiculous, but offered additional light and I couldn’t be fussy. I coiled the globes around the frame of the bike and plugged in a battery from the dwindling stash in my bag. Suddenly my bike pulsed like a Christmas tree. I was about to leave when I remembered something I had seen on the shelves.

  Hacky sacks. There was a small array of them on a shelf amid the party supplies. I raced back over and picked one out for Rocky. With this packed safely into my bag I pushed my way out of the mini-mart.

  The smoke enveloped me almost immediately. It had a sharp, metallic smell that hung in the back of my throat. I walked the bike down and out of the store, then took a moment to assess how much I could see.

  Next to nothing.

  Just smoke and the giant red glow of the burning city. This would have to be my guide. If I could keep it on my right side I should eventually make it through to the river. There were bridges there that would take me into the suburbs where the smoke might lift or maybe even disappear.

  I set off slowly, walking the bike rather than riding. My torches cut a swathe through the immediate smoke, but simply found more and more ahead of it. Without proper sight I ran the front tyre along the side of a kerb to keep my bearings. It was slow and clunky. Often the kerb disappeared into a side street or driveway. Sometimes there were cars in the way. At one point I lost the kerb completely and fanned out until I hit the other side of the road.

  As daylight approached I encountered a different problem. The glow of the fires was diminishing with the rising sun. All around me the smoke took on a yellowy orange. I had to squint through stinging eyes to make out the red of the city, until eventually I lost it altogether.

  I stopped and stood on the road like a flashing neon loser. Without the city to guide me I was screwed. I turned in a circle and tried to find the red. There were two directions in which the light seemed brighter. One was the city, the other was the sunrise. But I couldn’t tell them apart. Heading east towards the sun was what I wanted. That was where the river lay. But if I chose wrong I could end up heading straight for the fire. I lingered for a moment. My head was thumping and it was hard to concentrate. Suddenly I thought I could see a third light from behind me and got totally disorientated.

  But it was definitely there. A beam of soft, steady light that was coming towards me. I felt all warm and drowsy – as if I was in some cliché death scene. There was a noise then too. A horn, long and hypnotic. When the light was too bright to keep looking I turned away and waited.

  Abruptly the horn stopped. Instead I heard a door open and felt the lights dim down. There was a familiar ute idling in front of me.

  ‘Ed?’ I asked.

  The door shut and there were footsteps.

  ‘Nox?’ said a voice that wasn’t Ed’s.

  ‘Oh wow, it is you. Are you having a disco out here or something?’

  A face appeared in front of me. Tanned and boyish. I recognised the smile, but it was made unfamiliar by smoke and a large pair of swimming goggles.

  ‘Tommy?’ I asked, confused.

  ‘Oh sorry. Yeah it’s me. Just with goggles for the smoke,’ said Tommy.

  ‘Isn’t that Ed’s car?’ I asked.

  ‘Man, good call. Yeah he lent it to me yesterday so I could drive up and film the city,’ said Tommy.

  ‘You found him?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yeah. It took me forever. But yeah. I found him,’ he replied. ‘Are you alone out here?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied.

  ‘Oh man. You should come in the car with me. This smoke will fuck you for sure,’ said Tommy.

  ‘I need to get back to Carousel.’

  ‘To your Residency. Of course. It’s the same for me. I need some time to edit this footage before tomorrow,’ said Tommy.

  ‘So can you take me in the car?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yeah of course, Nox. Man, I would be a major ass to leave you out here alone with your disco bike,’ said Tommy.

  I choked up with relief and realised how sick I felt from all of the smoke. Tommy loaded my bike and bag into the back and we shut ourselves inside the cab. Then we crossed the river and headed, finally, for Carousel.

  43

  Tommy and I cruised out of the city as if it were any old day. The blanket of smoke and chaos faded like a dream in our rear-view mirrors. Ahead of us there was sunshine, suburbs and hills tinged with the baby green of spring. We took a highway eastwards and Tommy chatted away about some of his many adventures.

  Fighting the bushfires alongside a drummer in the hills. Tracking Ed all the way south to the forests. Discovering a whole community down there and reuniting with Genna and the Aussie couple. Following Ed’s trail back north in a golf cart amid the worst of the winter storms. Almost giving up when a ute pulled up beside him at a lonely southern beach. The explosion in the city and his final day of filming.

  I could picture Tommy in all of it. The skinny kid with the smile. Out there alone against the elements. Like a figure cut from Tolkien or Hemingway, he was this world’s great adventurer.

  He asked me a bunch of questions about my own journey since the hills, and I did my best to answer. At the end of it all Tommy shook his head for a while.

  ‘Oh wow. That’s a crazy story, Nox,’ he said.

  I took a breath and looked at my watch. It was midmorning on the first of September. We would be back at Carousel within the hour.

  ‘Hey Tommy, do you remember our interviews in the hills?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yeah sure,’ said Tommy.

  ‘I was wondering if you ever came across the Artist we talked about. A guy named Stuart?’ I asked.

  Tommy broke into an even bigger smile than normal.

  ‘Man, I can’t believe I didn’t remember until just now. Stuart is living at this awesome beach house. I spent a night there on my way back to the city. He works on illustrations mostly,’ said Tommy.

  ‘Do you think it’s the same guy?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s what I was wondering when I met this guy. So I asked him all kinds of questions about the Disappearance. He said he was at a bus stop, just like you were, when he got picked up. I think that maybe there was a double up with the taxis or something.’

  I exhaled. It was a relief to hear that Stuart had made it through. His story had weighed heavily on me for a while now. I liked the idea that he was by the beach somewhere, alone with his art as this whole thing intended. Tommy seemed chuffed to tell me too, but I don’t know how much it really changed about my situation. My place in the Residency was still an accident.

  ‘You’re going home with us, man,’ said Tommy.

  ‘I don’t know, Tommy,’ I replied. ‘I don’t really have anything to present.’

  ‘Oh come on. You told me all about your writing. It sounds cool I think,’ said Tommy.

  ‘Thanks,’ I replied.

  I was trying hard to stay positive. A lot of stuff had gone right since I left the casino. I had found the Finns and Georgia. Got them on the way back to their Residencies, along with a bunch of other Artists. And now, thanks to Tommy, I was just minutes away from making it back to Carousel myself. But I couldn’t shake the Skywalker vision from my head. And now it came in conjunction with another. I am alone in Carousel. At first I’m fine. Chilled even. I wonder what the Finns are up to and think about some dinner. Then I look down at the barman’s watch. The numbers are cold and certain. It’s September third and my entire life stretches out before me into nothingness.

  Tommy looked at me.

  ‘It’s okay to freak out I think,’ he said. ‘Most of the Artists I have met have freaked out. Some of them big time.’

  ‘You never seem to freak out, Tommy,’ I said.

  ‘Oh yeah, sometimes I do. Like when I got all the way to the forests and Ed had already gone. I lost my shit on my bike man. That’s why I ended up driving a stupid golf cart,’ he said.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. Tommy joined me and barely missed a stranded bus.

  ‘You know you’
re driving on the wrong side of the road, yeah?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah but fuck it. In Denmark we drive on the right,’ he replied.

  I laughed again.

  ‘So you think the Residencies will end tomorrow?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ he replied.

  ‘How come?’ I asked.

  ‘I think because of what happened when I met with Ed,’ said Tommy.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  ‘The whole time I was looking for Ed I thought he would be like a superhero. Or at least a wizard with some magic or something. But when I finally met him at that beach he was just a normal guy. At first I was kind of bummed. Then I realised that if he was a superhero or a wizard, then all of this would just be bullshit like a comic or a movie,’ said Tommy.

  I nodded, but wasn’t totally sure that I followed.

  ‘When I found out he was just a normal guy who couldn’t do magic or anything I thought, oh wow, this is a real situation and anything can happen. That’s when I knew the Residencies would end,’ said Tommy.

  I smiled. Tommy had probably just made better sense of it than anybody.

  We swung off the highway and into the suburbs surrounding Carousel. Tommy started fishing around for something on the dashboard.

  ‘I was going to save this for when I drove back into the uni, but I think I want to listen to it now with you,’ he said.

  I watched as he loaded a CD into Ed’s scratched up old player. There was a pause, then the cab filled with a pulsing, kinetic beat. Tommy beamed at me from behind the wheel.