Decay

Up near the top of the grow rack, Gemma could see almost all of the Walsall Collective. On a clear day like today she could even see beyond their border, to the sea of wind turbines just on the other side. They spun away, day and night, to generate power that she and the colony couldn’t access. That’s for the normies, she thought with an eye roll. Normies with jobs, families, national insurance numbers, people who aren’t wanted for the crime of being unemployed. Normies who can still just do a big shop if they’re hungry.

She plucked a few carrots and flung them at the ground. It was on Mike to catch them, she figured. Him and his delicate sensibilities meant he’d never consider climbing the ladder. It seemed a key skill for him to have, given he worked the vertical farms, but alas. He stood at the bottom with a basket. That was his self-appointed duty. Pluck, fling. Pluck, fling. She’d hear him occasionally complain, or yelp, but it was better for both of them if she didn’t acknowledge it.

“Basket’s nearly full, dear,” he shouted from below.

“Dear? No terms of endearment please. We’re on shift. You’re my flunkey.”

“Flunkey?”

“My lackey. My employee, my charge. My ward.”

“I think some of these are a bit more insulting than others, dear.”

“Oi, what did I just fucking say?” Gemma worked her way down the ladder. It wasn’t for the timid, though with the conveyors broken, it was all they had. As she hopped off the ladder, her eyes went straight to the wicker basket in Mike’s hands. “Mike, this is not full.”

“I said nearly full.”

“You absolute weapon.”

“You hit me with a few, as well. One bounced away, I couldn’t find it.”

“Michael, you are not a particularly good lackey. Have I mentioned that before? Expect this to come up in your 360 evaluation.”

They started their trek back from the farms to their ramshackle basement flat. It was in what could charitably be referred to as the “arts district” of the collective, though was usually referred to as “Clubtown”. A quiet close with the hollowed-out remains of several old music venues, where self-described burnouts like Gemma felt a natural resonance. My atoms vibrate at the same frequency as this place, she’d declared, shortly before breaking the news to Mike that they were leaving the relative spaciousness of their bell tent to instead occupy a low-ceiling brick basement with a serious damp issue.

“Two full baskets!” Mike declared to the rotund man behind the counter at the pantry. “Drowning in carrots.”

“One of them isn’t as full as he might lead you to believe.”

“Splendid, and what’ll you have?” replied the rotund man.

“Couple loaves if you’ve got them.”

“Of course.” He handed Mike two loaves of bread, which quickly tucked away in Mike’s satchel, and off they went the rest of the way home.

“I do try, you know,” Mike said as he dumped his things by their door. “I’m a graphic designer, not a farmer.”

“Michael, I’m the farmer, you’re a farmer’s assistant at best. And I’ll say this, not the best I’ve had.”

His reluctance to accept his fate used to be laughable, but lately it had become a serious drain on her sanity. I’m a graphic designer, she mocked in her head. Tosh. If there were still graphic designers, the two of them would never have met in the first place. You didn’t get conscripted because of your highly-prized skills or high standing in society. It’s because you’re bloody useless. He was as much a graphic designer as she was the head of a music label.

Gemma stood just inside the washroom, with which the basement of this club had been blessed. It was a full-service, if extremely small, venue within a venue: a small bar at the back, a half-foot wooden platform at the front, washroom and toilet cubicle, even a metal shelf all the way around the room for punters to set their drinks on during a gig. The kind of place that was rated for thirty people and probably held over fifty during some indie metal show. Gemma romanticised it intensely. The thought of seeing a show in here—bass bouncing off the walls, your chest threatening to collapse, hitting your head on the ceiling if you jumped too high—faded as she caught her own reflection in the mirror. The dirt still on her face, rips and tears in the oversized flannel shirt she’d found on the ground a month ago. A tear rolled down her cheek, which she quickly brushed away.

“Nearly done, Gem? Could use a wee.”

“Fucking go outside then,” she snapped back.

She heard Mike slink up the stairs, creaking wood and the thuds of his boots. Thud, thud, thud, he walked across the ceiling above her, and out. He sounded so pathetic, even as disembodied footsteps. So defeated. She splashed more water on her face, and stared again. The wrinkles around her eyes, the lines on her forehead, the wrinkles bloody everywhere, really. She smooshed and stretched her cheeks. Mike was pathetic, and she was tired. But at least they had this club. Her basement sanctuary.

Click. The familiar loud click echoed through the basement, and all the lights went out soon after. Gemma groaned in the darkness. She was relieved Mike had gone, so she didn’t have to get his commentary on this, which was otherwise unavoidable. She felt her way up the stairs and outside to her makeshift battery. Dubbed the “tower of power” by herself, and many varied pejoratives by some residents of the colony, it was a glorious pile of batteries salvaged from devices large and small: old laptops, broken-down Nissan Leafs, and anything in between. Using knowledge from her conscription at the power plant, she had wired them up in a way that let her basement flat, and any nearby flats that wanted to join her, use electricals.

With a fair few harvested solar panels they were usually able to keep it charged, though it had become rather fickle in the last few months, requiring regular interventions. Even though the maintenance tasks always fell to her, Gemma still felt it was worthwhile. It had brought back the possibility of night life, of electric showers, and critically, her CD boombox.

To some in Walsall, Gemma’s arrival, and the subsequent construction of the tower of power, had been a miracle. To others it was an abomination, an affront to everything they’d fought so hard to build, and even a so-called danger. Her response to this pointed criticism was usually to turn the music up.

When she returned she let out an even louder sigh. Thing-thing-thing-thing came from the speaker on her boombox, accompanied by a different loud clicking and hissing. Click-thing-click-thing-click-click-thing. Gemma screamed and smacked the top of it, which stopped the noise entirely. “Piece of shite.”

“Babe, that’s just going to make it worse.” Mike clopped his way back down the stairs.

“Please, mansplain compact discs to me, Michael.” She popped open the top and took the disc out, then rotated it in her fingers, inspecting all sides. “It’s barely even scratched.”

“It might be the player. Or, look.” He took the disc from her and flipped it over. “It’s starting to get a bit cloudy. This is burned, right?”

“If you must know, yes.” Gemma snatched it back from his hands and stared at the bottom. “It looks exactly the same. Cloudy. That’s your cataract, old man.”

“Burned CDs only last about twenty years, Gem. You might need to find a legitimate copy of… whatever this is.”

“There’s no legitimate copy, it’s a mix. An annoying ex of mine trying to be cute. It’s only ten years old, though.” She tossed it on the table next to her decrepit blue boombox. Not her original stereo, of course. She’d liquidated all her things for fast cash when she’d been conscripted years ago. But she’d manage to salvage a lightly-damaged boombox from an old Argos warehouse a year or so ago. She moved mountains to get it working, and it had become her prized possession even though she only had three CDs: this mix and a couple of Paramore albums, all of which had been stashed away in her guitar case.

Mike stood in the corner next to their makeshift wardrobe and stripped off his clothes, which were markedly cleaner than Gemma’s. “An ex, hmm? Anyone I know?”

“How could you possibly know them?” She sat on the ground, her back against the cool brick, tucked away under the table. There was a comfort in balling herself up small enough to fit in this spot. One emphatic reaction and she’d bang her head straight on the top. But otherwise? Perfection.

“I don’t know who you got with before I arrived at the power plant.” He’d slipped into a ridiculous pair of pyjama bottoms.

“Or while you were there, to be clear.”

“Gem.” Mike sounded exasperated as he flopped onto their double bed, which was perched on the old stage.

“Gem, what is this Gem shit? When did that start, Michael?”

Mike sighed. “Are you coming to bed?”

“It wasn’t an ex, anyway. Not really. Was someone who used to have your job, in fact, and did a lot better than you, I can add.”

“Graphic designer?”

Gemma pulled her knees against her chest and squeezed herself even more tightly into a ball. She closed her eyes, pushing her face down toward her knees. Couldn’t quite reach, she realised. She’d become less flexible. Another sign of rot. It was unbearable. Was this all that was left? Decay? It felt rushed, like this place accelerated her aging. This place, or this man. This desperately unambitious man.

“Gem?” Mike repeated himself. Speaking of unbearable.

“Not a bloody graphic— he was my assistant, Michael.”

“Your assistant made you a mix CD?”

“Yes, if you must know. It would’ve been like… 2032? 2033? He was young, eager, wanted to impress me.”

“Did it work?”

“It did.”

“He was young, then? In 2032? You would’ve been, what… thirty-eight?”

“Thirty-six, Michael. Christ.”

“And he was…”

“My assistant, so what does it matter?”

“You said he was your ex.”

Gemma grunted as her head slammed into the tabletop above her. “Fucking— fuck!” She scooted herself out from under it and paced away. “I’m having a shower.”

“Want any company?”

“Keep bloody dreaming.” Her clothes hit the floor as she disappeared into the washroom.

Mike was half-asleep when he felt the bed shift behind him. He rolled over and could barely make out Gemma’s silhouette, her back to him. She pressed herself against him and he reciprocated in kind, pulling her close.

“I need some new CDs,” she whispered.

“I don’t understand how you even got into CDs in the first place.”

“Bloody told you, it was what’s his name. And it was the trade, really. Worked at the boutique music label, artisanal hand-crafted songs, yeah? All the rest?”

“But you hate hipsters.”

“I’m complicated, Michael.” In the twilight of her former life, it was her job to convince the young that owning compact discs was just as good as having a personality. It obviously hadn’t worked out, but in doing so, she’d come to harbour a shameful love for the format.

“I don’t think they make CDs anymore, anyway. There’s no demand.”

“Course there’s bloody demand. You heard those two loons the other day. Wanted to hear music, wanted to hear the same music again? Not a damned hard concept, love.”

“I guess.” He buried his face in her back.

“Don’t even know what they’d bloody put on them, anyway. There’s no new music. It’s all bloody procedural. Just generated noise.”

“You’re right.”

“Can you even fucking record music now? Is this all lost? You know the Americans forgot how to build the rockets they went to the Moon with? They just fucking forgot. It can happen.” She pushed back harder against him, pinning him between her back and the wall. “I’m havin’ a crisis here.”

“Unff.” Mike let out a tiny gasp of air as the cold concrete stung the skin on his back. Gemma flipped over to face him. She grabbed his hips and dug her fingernails in. Mike let out another pained gasp as she pressed her chest against him.

“I’m serious.”

“I believe you.” He stared into her eyes, inches from her face. “I just don’t know.”

“Someone has to be recording music, right? Someone somewhere on this bloody island. Or in America. Somewhere.”

“I’m sure they must be.” He pushed his lips toward hers. She bit down on his bottom lip briefly, then smacked his back.

“Must they?”

“I don’t know, Gem.”

She rolled her eyes and flopped over, once again putting her back to Mike. “Sam would know.”

“Oh.” She felt him slump back away from her. A chill rushed in to fill the gap between them. She closed her eyes, tensing her muscles against a shiver she couldn’t control. An immense frustration came soon after.

“Michael, really.”

“What?”

She stared wide-eyed into the darkness and waited. Her pride chose to say nothing. Instead she lusted for a hundred scenarios, any of which she’d settle for, none of which would happen. Take charge, you numpty. Do something. Anything. She felt no touch, no movement. Nothing. Her only option was to leave the bed. Her head spun from the rush of blood and the frigid air punished her immediately. She barely kept her balance as she bimbled away and secreted herself in the washroom.

By the time she returned, Mike was fast asleep.