This World

2

The wind whistles past the carts, screeching through cracks in the wooden exterior. I am squashed right up against the side, my shoulder grazed and splintered on the beams nailed together.

Where was Kelsa? She was here, stuffed in like sardines amongst the rest of the sacrifices. The second-bests.

No, I mustn’t think like that. Mother would’ve given herself if she’d had the chance. I remind myself of this, although the thought is not exactly pleasant. I am not sure whether I am angry with her or not. She gave me up. Her first born, her ‘little Marlon’. With barely a tear she handed me over to the gas chambers.

But what would I have done? I think of the rest of them, of Alethea, Jasper, Ola, Mabel, Fenton and the little unborn child stirring in her stomach. And of Kelsa and I, the two who were to save them all.

I should be proud. What that what we were supposed to feel? Pride, as we were pulled to our deaths in rickety wooden trucks.

An Official in a grey uniform causes a stir in the carriage. People shuffle around, trying to make room, or trying to get away from the woman. She has a metal cylinder in her hand, matt black.

‘Some sort of communication device,’ a man beside me whispers. He’s wrong. I know exactly what it is.

Back when I was a young boy I used to help father in his factory. I wouldn’t do much more than sit on the floor and play with spare bolts, or tug on worker’s trouser legs, but I knew what the black cylinder was.

A bomb.

But why – ? I push against the side of the carriage, pulling at the wood with my fingers. They bleed as the splinters tore through them. I had to get out. I had to get Kelsa.

A beam comes away from the rest. With a lurch in the pit of the stomach I watch the gravel by the tracks racing beneath me at a terrifying speed. Well, I could die trying.

‘Kelsa!’ I screech. The people around me nudge my ribs, moving to put their hands over their ears.

‘Kelsa!’

My eyes dart from the bodies, engulfed in a thick smell of unwashed skin, and the ground, blurred by the speed of the moving vehicle. The official disappears through a door into the next truck. I tried to remember from father’s factory as much as I could. How long did I have? A minute? Yes, sixty seconds, that was it.

‘Kelsa! Kelsa! Come here, Kelsa!’

‘Shut the hell up. We’re all ending up in the same place.’

The man beside me shakes me, puzzled. They stare at me, all of them, wondering why I was screaming. Wondering why I was so panicked.

Should I help them? These strangers, these poor second-bests like myself.

‘Look, son, I’m sorry. We’re all sorry. None of us wanted this to happen,’ the man smiles, then, ‘is Kelsa your sister?’

Sixty seconds. Less. Probably only twenty now. Quick.

‘Kelsa!’

Ten seconds. I had to move. Maybe it would be better for her. More painless. She wouldn’t know. Maybe –

‘Here,’ I grab the man’s hand and pulled him with me. I have a leg out of the gap I made in the truck already. I hear his protests, what are you doing? They come from others as well; telling me I am mad, telling me it is suicide. The temptation to shout a warning is all too much. But there is no way we could all escape. It would only be mean; to tell them they were about to be blown to pieces.

I tug on his hand, pulling his torso through the gap. We are both straddled there for a second. And then I leap, diving onto the gravel headfirst. It is in my eyes, in my hair, in my face. There is blood, I can taste it in my mouth.

There was an explosion.