“So, where were you when it happened?”
I hate this question, not so much for the answer that I trot out every time I’m asked, but for the seething mass of emotions that it threatens to bring out every time I have have to retell it. It’s tough to begrudge anyone asking though; it’s become the question that helps define our society. A tacit acknowledgement of the horrors that we’ve endured whilst skirting around the really big issues that nobody wants to talk about any more. Still, it makes a great ice-breaker whenever a group of us come together in any one place, and everybody has a story to tell that they’ve never going to forget as long as they live.
My story is so well rehearsed by now that I could tell it in my sleep. In fact I regularly dream certain parts of it, twisted into a nightmare that I know will be with me forever. The best stories, so I remember, are a good part truth with just enough embellishment to keep the listener engaged. Well, the truth of my story is interesting enough, unless you happen to have lived through the exact same thing.
I was at work, so my story starts, trying to finish up a project in time to get out for the long weekend. Well, I got out about nine at night and went straight to the pub to meet my girlfriend. We had a huge argument, I can’t even remember what it was about, and she stormed off. I stayed, drinking until the staff finally closed up. I guess that was about three in the morning, and at the point I hadn’t eaten. I’m not really sure how I got home, but my mobile phone had the numbers of a couple of taxi firms so I assume that I convinced one of them to take me.
That’s pretty much everything that I recall until I woke up the next evening. I was suffering the most incredible hangover, and had nothing to eat in my house so I tried phoning for take-away. Of course this was Saturday night, so I expected a few busy tones, but eventually I just gave up and went back to bed.
Well, Sunday rolled around, and by lunch time I was feeling human enough get up and get out for some supplies. I remember turning on the TV and just getting test signals, but at the point I had no idea what it meant, so I left it. I figured food was more important, so I stumbled out into the street and made my way down to the local store thinking I’d make a nice fry-up.
It probably took me about ten minutes before I realised something was wrong. I was still pretty discombobulated from drinking and sleeping, and I’m not at my best without a couple of strong coffees inside me. Then I started to notice how quiet it was. I mean, I didn’t live in the centre of town or anything, but even on a Sunday there would be plenty of traffic and people out and about. I was curious, but didn’t pay much attention until I got to the local shops.
There was a bus parked up at the side of the road, and it took me a few seconds to realise that it wasn’t full of sleeping people. I mean, it’s not something that your brain is trained to recognise is it? Rows and rows of people just sat completely still as if they were just in a photo. I remember spinning around a lot, trying to find somebody who I could get to help, but there just wasn’t anybody, so I must have pulled open the bus doors. The driver was still sat with his hands on the wheel, but it was obvious he was dead, his skin was too white and his eyes were staring straight ahead. I ran through the bus, must have been freaking out completely and screaming because my voice was hoarse for days afterwards, then finally I ran to the shops and tried to find someone. Well, the shops were open, but I’m sure you can guess what I found.
I know I tried calling the emergency services. My phone’s call list showed I’d called 999 a dozen times before I gave up, but all I remember was the endless ringing signal. Then it occured to me to call my girlfriend. It took me a few attempts to even dial, I was shaking so much. I don’t have a clue what I said to her voice mail, and I’m glad I’ll never know. I was sat on the step of that bus dialling every number in my phone for a good long time, and all I ever got was either voice mail or an engaged tone. Then I noticed that there was a cat moving around in the window of a house opposite, and I started hammering on doors and yelling.
By the time I’d stopped running from door to door trying to find somebody – anybody – who was still alive, my entire body felt like jelly. Well, I hadn’t eaten for two days and I was crashing without blood sugar, so I stumbled back to the shops and grabbed as much as I could carry back to my house. I spent the next couple of days there just hiding, I guess, hoping that it was all a nightmare and that I’d wake up or somebody would turn up. Once I’d realised that the TV and Radio were off completely I just assumed that pretty much everyone was dead, and that somehow I was the only person left alive.
I walked across town to my girlfriend’s flat, knowing that it was pointless, but I had to go and see for myself. I had to break a window to get in, managed to cut my hand pretty deep doing so. I barely noticed, by that point I could see the two naked bodies lying motionless in her bedroom, so I just turned straight around and walked away.
Then, after a couple of days, I stole a car – I still thought it was stealing and left a letter for the owner – and started driving around London. After a couple of weeks, when I hadn’t seen anyone and it was impossible to avoid the smell, I stole a truck, loaded it up with as much food and supplies as I could, and headed out into the countryside. I’ve been driving around ever since, and met maybe a few hundred other survivors, but never stayed anywhere for very long.
That’s my story, or at least the part of it that I tell everybody who asks. I let it settle in for a minute, there’s always this polite pause of appreciation, the odd murmured “wow” or an amused “so, you just slept through it all?”. An aging russian I met on the road outside Paris once told me it was “the worst hangover I have ever heard of.”
Then it’s my turn to ask.
“So, where where you when the world ended?”