The Upper World

by Femi Fadugba

  That’s what Einstein’s equation said: hidden inside even the tiniest bits of matter is an ungodly amount of destructive power ready to be unleashed.

  I’ll admit, I didn’t think much about Hidden Energy when the Elders explained this all to me. Not until a few years ago, when my fellowship paid for a trip to Hiroshima – the city where Hidden Energy was first revealed to the world.

  We had been taught about the first atomic bomb the world dropped on the Japanese in World War II. Our teacher told us it killed around 146,000 people. But she left out one small detail: most of them were kids. They leave out those child-sized details in the textbooks as well. Like the burns. I had heard of first-, second- and third-degree burns before. But visiting Hiroshima was the first time I learnt there is such a thing as fifth-degree burns. That’s when your flesh turns straight into charcoal. They don’t show you the photos of the rain that fell that evening – each drop sticky and soot-black. The kids were so charred and thirsty that they opened their mouths to the heavens, drinking in as much of the radiation-soaked water as they could. Many died from it. The ones who survived suffered from diarrhoea for months. Then they died too.

  My child, I have read about Japan’s cruelty towards its enemies during war. Believe me. I have heard people say that, by dropping the bomb, we ended the war early, that countless lives were saved. But none of it seems to wash that bitter taste of Black Rain from my mouth.

  146,000 people.

  146,000 people.

  146,000 people.

  If you sat the bodies of those kids in double-decker buses and, starting from Peckham, lined up the buses end to end, you’d get to Piccadilly Circus and back. And it took less than a kilo of nuclear material to erase all those souls. Less than a kilogram. The approximate weight of a human heart.

  E = mc2

  Look at it, how bland and tiny it looks. Three letters followed by a tiny number that even a toddler can count to. You have to look closer to understand how it creates its terror. Written in words, the equation simply says:

  Energy = mass × the speed of light (squared)

  So, for 1 kilogram of explosives, that’s:

  Energy = 1 kg × (300,000,000 m/s)2

  Which, when you multiply it out, gives:

  Energy = 90,000,000,000,000,000

  That final number is ninety quadrillion. Or, put another way, 90 million billion units of energy. Staring at the maths, you realize – it’s the speed of light, that c in the equation, that fucks you. That’s what killed those kids. 300,000,000 is already a devilishly large number; then the equation takes liberties and forces you to square it. They never stood a chance.

  My colleagues tell me I have a habit of mixing my science with my voodoo. But I believe all of us can feel Hidden Energy around us, flowing past us, through us. When someone you love walks into a room, and you feel that surge, that tug on the fabric of space–time between you. I tell you all of this because, if I could have spoken to my younger self, I would have warned him. I would have asked him to find a less destructive way. Old Eve might have been the wise one all along. She knew some things were better left forgotten.

  CHAPTER 25

  Esso · Now

  By the time I stepped outside the pub, the streets were hollow and a ghostly wind was scavenging through the skeletons of buildings. I unknotted my tie and tossed it in my bag, knowing that, whatever I might have to do en route to Narm, I’d be better at it feeling loose.

  The #12 bus approached the corner. Just in time, I thought. My first bit of luck all evening. Against the backdrop of dim streetlights, the bus looked like one of those glow-in-the-dark caterpillars on Planet Earth. It even moved the same way, snaking round the bends and corners of Camberwell Green. I hopped on through the back shutters and saw a little girl using her fingers to carve triangles into the steamy window. The seat opposite her was open. As I moved in, the woman I’d be sitting next to squeezed her handbag. So I decided to stay on my feet and think in space.

  What had worked in the school dining hall with one boy caught off guard wouldn’t work on the roads with two packs armed to the teeth. I’d been lucky with D; odds were, I’d get no run-up next time, no back doors, no chances for an injury-time comeback.

  The bus driver was rounding corners like he wanted to tip over the bus. It took a while for me to build up enough courage to let go of the handrail and type. A few jumpy scrolls later and I found MANDEM FIFA 18 – the message group me, Rob and Kato had made when we first became friends. We’d never got around to updating the name.

  @MANDEM FIFA 18:

  Currently patching shit up with D. Stay away from Peckham library area

  I’d missed a few opportunities to warn them earlier, between chasing after Nadia and my breakdown in the pub. Still, it felt satisfying to tap send.

  @MANDEM FIFA 18:

  Also I’m sorry for what I said earlier I was being a prick

  I thought about finishing with a line about how I hadn’t meant any of it. But, staring at my phone’s keyboard, I couldn’t do it. Some of what I’d said had been real; lots of it still was. And something felt off about putting a straight-up lie right after a sincere apology – the same kind of dickhead behaviour that had got me into this mess in the first place. And I couldn’t afford to gift Kato and Rob an overly moist text as ammo for however many days of teasing I had left. So, in the end, I went with something simple.

  @MANDEM FIFA 18:

  If anyone asks … I went out like a G. Love for everything

  The driver took a sharp turn on to Peckham Road, then slammed hard on the brakes as he pulled up on the stop. The swing-jerk combo launched my thigh into the hard edge of the seat in front of me and a stinging sensation shot down my leg, reminding me how sore and bruised my hip still was from the car crash. It felt like my body had aged a decade since morning, and it felt like that much time really had passed.

  The engine hummed to life again, and the driver went back to carving up the streets. Only when I stopped massaging my hip did I look up and see that two boys had got on. The kid in front was massive. He was wearing an all-black tracksuit with thick yellow scribbles across the chest that made him look like an Addison Lee van. He was gripping his pouch, which was bent up and stretched by whatever was inside. Hold up – is that Vex? I’d never met Vex, but I knew his name. Everyone did. Between the stories of him knocking out three counter-protesters with one punch each, him pulling up on one of Spark’s guys, the case he buss last summer and the rumours about his strict diet of Ting and vegan food, his name got around.

  If it was Vex, that was very bad news. He was one of Bloodshed’s guys. I still couldn’t see the kid behind him, but I was lucky neither of them had spotted me yet. I cut my losses, distracting my eyes with my home screen.

  No new texts. But two notifications: an imjustbait video and a follow request from my uncle in Bénin. I rejected the request and watched half the clip. Kemi had also posted the sierra-filtered photo of me, Rob, Kato and Nadia sitting together at lunch. I took a screenshot and saved it.

  Meanwhile, I was wrestling the temptation to look up and see what the two boys were on. I thought back to a story from Sunday school, the one where God’s about to destroy a city and sends an angel to tell Lot’s family to run and not look back under any circumstances. One of them does look back (obviously) and immediately gets turned into salt. Was God testing me the same way? Or was my paranoia getting the best of me?

  I waited a few more seconds, then looked up and, sure enough, Vex was staring straight back at me.

  ‘Shit,’ I muffled under my breath, holding myself back from full-blown panic. In my periphery, I could see Vex turning to his friend, nodding. I still hadn’t seen the other guy’s goddamn face, but I also couldn’t afford another look.

  I’ve gotta do something, I realized. And ASAP. There were four more stops until Peckham Library, and no way I’d last those ten minutes. I was certain it was Vex now, which removed hand-to-hand combat as an option. The guy
looked like he sparred with bears for practice.

  I could run, though.

  ‘Next stop, Peckham Park Road,’ the digital conductor announced overhead.

  Dear Holy Avengers, remember my prayer this morning asking for forgiveness? I hope that request got cleared cos I really need you to cover man’s back right now.

  When the bus stopped and the doors slid open, I stood perfectly still with my head low.

  One … I counted as the main batch got off.

  Two …

  On three, I sprinted at the exit, sliding between two ladies flanking the opening just before the doors slid shut.

  Before I knew it, the bus was back in gear, the wheels rolling on with me safely on the pavement. ‘Thank you, Iron Man!’ I shouted at the sky. I might actually get to figure out this time-travel shit and live to see another day. A day when I’d play FIFA with Rob and Kato again, tell Mum I loved her again and, if I got really lucky, maybe even ask out Nadia.

  I’d barely made it twenty yards into my jog before I heard banging and muffled shouts from inside the bus behind me. ‘Let us out, you batty man! Open the fucking door!’

  You could hear the strain in the bus’s joints as the blows to its frame got louder and harder. After putting up a brief fight, the driver pulled the hydraulic brakes and the bus let out that African-auntie-kissing-her-teeth noise – followed by the two boys.

  The decision was all but made up for me. My best option now was to force them to chase me all the way to Peckham and play on home ground. At least, according to the Upper World, my destiny was to be in front of Peckham Library tonight, alive. I’d have to figure out how to bend the rules of time back in my favour once I got there but, for now, running would just make that fate arrive sooner.

  Before they could roll down their balaclavas, I saw that the other kid had been Bloodshed all along. That sent my heart rate into a frenzy.

  The chase was on. And the end, hopefully, was near.

  CHAPTER 26

  Esso · Now

  A stinging pain shot through my injured hip as I launched into an ugly sprint. ‘Mind over matter,’ I counselled myself. It was the kind of pain that would have slowed me down on any other day. But Bloodshed and Vex were too close behind. Too motivated.

  Even with a wobbly leg, I fancied my chances in a race against Vex – I’d banked on that before jumping off the bus. But Bloodshed was gaining, his long legs swallowing up the gap so fast that, within a few seconds, I could hear him breathing.

  Above us sat an empty black sky that looked like it was creating spheres of rain out of nothing. One pudgy drop fell from a leaf into my eye, blinding me for a moment. Even the trees were against me. In primary school one time, my teacher said that William Blake had come to Peckham as a kid and claimed he saw angels in the trees. Running down that stormy, desolate road, clinging to my life, I wondered where Blake’s angels had gone.

  A lightning bolt spread its branches across the sky, staining everything white. Thunder followed a second later, and what had started out as trickling rain turned into downpour. I kept running, powering through a stitch in my side that felt like it might burn a hole through me.

  ‘Where d’you think you’re running to, fam?!’ Bloodshed shouted. He was within snatching distance; I could feel it. I wasn’t about to make the mistake I’d made on the bus and risk turning to salt again. So, I faced forward and somehow – from somewhere – found a last bit of fight.

  In the distance, I made out the profile of a heavy-set man carrying supermarket bags in each hand. He had on a stonewash jacket and matching jeans.

  Is that …?

  By the time I got close up, his familiar beaming smile confirmed my guess. It was the same smile I’d seen him wearing as he’d argued with the chaperone after the car crash, the same one he’d worn after taking the piss out of that Vietnamese kid, Tom.

  ‘Preston!’ he shouted gleefully in his full denim suit. ‘Haafa, bross? Is everything –’ He looked behind me and, on seeing Bloodshed, let his shopping bags drop to the ground.

  About to speed past him, I yelled, ‘Sorry, bro. Can’t stop.’

  ‘Don’t worry, bross.’ His accent still came with a generous serving of plantain. ‘I got your back.’

  I turned and watched him shove himself clumsily into Bloodshed’s path, forcing him to sidestep into a passing pedal bike.

  Bloodshed and the cyclist crashed into a heap on the main road, and a line of cars screeched and skidded around them. I wanted to laugh but held back, knowing how pissed my lungs would be if I wasted the oxygen. The West African man, seeing his job was done, ran away in the opposite direction, waving.

  Keep faith, I told myself. After that massive piece of luck, my plan might actually work.

  I threw my guardian angel a thumbs up, then focused on winning the race to Narm.

  The next time I looked back, the two yutes were no longer in sight. I decided it was safe to slow down a bit and started thinking about where to veer off the main road. The oversized, overlit Burger King backing Poundstretcher came into view, meaning I was a ten-minute walk from home. But ten might as well have been an imaginary number – D and Bloodshed both knew where I lived.

  Slowing down was the worst decision I could have made for my body. I had a headache in my hip and a migraine in my thighs. Pretty quickly the best I could manage was a quick hobble, one leg dragging behind.

  I’d walked these streets a thousand times and never seen them so empty. Everything felt different. It was like the universe had sucked all life from the storm we were walking into, the vortex I had created.

  I finally reached the walkway leading to Peckham Library. And even though I hoped none of my mates were in there, it brought some small comfort imagining Kato and Rob in that odd-shaped lump of pastel-coloured copper. Not that they could do anything to help me. But just like no one likes watching a horror film alone, I kinda wanted someone with me in case the boogie monster showed up. A friend to smile over me as I breathed my last breath.

  The same #12 bus I’d jumped off ten minutes earlier sped past. The driver gave me a nod, mouthing: ‘Good luck.’

  Further ahead, in front of Katie’s chicken shop, was the hazy silhouette of a familiar girl, also nodding at me. Is my brain playing tricks on me? I had to check it wasn’t constructing a reality I wished was real by filling it with the one person I wanted to see most. But as I got nearer the mirage didn’t disappear, it solidified. It became Nadia.

  ‘Why you limping like that?’ she said once I got close. Her smile cut a sharp contrast to the chaos I’d just been running from. ‘And why you so out of breath?’

  I was knackered, but seeing her pumped fresh fuel into my cells. I knew this would be the only chance I got – the only comma in a breathless chapter of a day. I wanted to reach for the one thing that might bring light into the void I was in, even if it was just a flicker.

  Tomorrow wasn’t promised after all.

  I glanced behind me: still no sight of Bloodshed or Vex. And so I grabbed Nadia’s hand and pulled her into the narrow alleyway behind the chicken shop. She complained about there being no cover and about her hair getting wet, but she said it all while laughing.

  I stopped and stared at her, peering into her giant brown eyes. It felt like the walls were closing in on us, space conspiring with time to strangle my last opportunity. This really was the last thing I should have been thinking about. Bloodshed and Vex couldn’t be far behind – what if they spotted us? What would they do to me? To her?

  What if she didn’t feel the same way I felt about her? What if she’d never felt the same way?

  But what if this was my last shot and I might die never knowing? Never trying? Every instinct in my body was telling me that now was the only time.

  ‘You’re scaring me, E. Can you just tell me what –’

  Before she could finish, I pulled her into my arms and pressed my mouth to hers.

  She froze.

  Maybe from the shock, I ho
ped. My lips were freezing wet, after all, and I’d come in with no warning.

  But, with seconds flying past, there was still no sign of her reaction. Crap! I screamed silently and pulled back to see her face stunned and confused. I’d come on too strong, probably too soon as well. I’d messed this up the same way I’d messed up everything else.

  But just as I was accepting defeat, she pressed her chest to mine and fell softly into me. She kissed with purpose, almost like she was stealing me. My unbandaged hand wandered down to the small of her back, and she snatched it – not to pull it away, but to guide it further down, sliding my palm across the denim holding her bum. I squeezed, and she lifted on to her tippy-toes, giggling. It was barely first base, but it felt sweeter than all my life’s wet dreams combined, a magical moment we were both sheltering under the blanket of rain. It was perfect.

  But it also felt – almost – too perfect. The sort of flame that can’t sustain itself for more than a few moments. With time against us, how long could it last?

  Something cold smacked my forehead. Was that a stone? I thought. Then one landed smack on her nose, and she tilted her head back. The icy wind that had been searching through Camberwell earlier had found its way into the alleyway, stripping the heat off our skins and away from our embrace. I looked up to a sky peppered with hailstones the size of marbles.

  This was the hailstorm I’d seen in the Upper World.

  This was it.

  Nadia brought a hand to her mouth. She was staring wide-eyed over my shoulder at something, or someone, that I couldn’t see and, judging from how her face sank, it could have been the devil himself. Whatever it was grabbed my arm. A beat later, I was spun round and pulled away from her.

  It was D, with Bloodshed jogging close behind. Filling the other corner of my view was the orange surfboard on top of the library.