0800 Hours [slash]

0800 Hours: Recording #004

Click.

“0800 hours. Six hundred days since the French border closed. I think. I'm not entirely sure, seeing as there's a radio silence up here, but it seems like it's an important milestone to document or something. I don't know.”

The voice is muted by a rustling, the crinkling sound of plastic on plastic.

“There's fuck all to do around here. We used to keep livestock – chickens and pigs and the like – and normally dad and I would be dealing with that right now while my mam looked after the crops. But it all got Infected, so my dad had to put them all down. Oh, and he burned the crops too. I don't think that was to do with the Infection though. I think it was more because he just couldn't stand to look at them any more.”

The speaker exhales slowly, their breath reduced to a wistful wisp. Silence seeps in, dampening the atmosphere until it is penetrated by the zealous buzz of a bluebottle's wings.

“They reminded him too much of my mam.”

The drone of the bluebottle increases in vigour. It hovers for a few moments, the hum oscillating in volume as it darts around the microphone. A callous slap echoes as a palm hits wood. The buzzing has ceased.

Click.