Part 1: The Waning Hour

As the final vestiges of sleep receded, Bobby awoke to a world in quiet conversation with itself. It was still early, before the dawn chorus and the first hint of morning light. The world was still in its nocturnal guise, and the chill of the February air had seeped into the room, tickling his bare skin with its icy touch.

His weary body craved more sleep, a few more hours to regain strength and fortitude for the day ahead. But the discomfort of his cold surroundings, and a relentless ache that throbbed in the background of his mind, denied him that solace. With a sigh, he accepted the day's premature arrival and the inevitable misery that it brought.

Casting off his lightweight duvet, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, his feet recoiling slightly as they made contact with the cold wooden floor. The scuttling sound of small paws against the floorboards reached his ears, and a moment later, the eager lapping of TinTin's tongue at his toes brought a small, fleeting smile to his face.

Pushing himself to his feet, he gently nudged TinTin away, before reaching for his slippers that waited faithfully atop the oak chest of drawers. Slipping them on, he padded across the room to retrieve his dressing gown hanging from the door.

The day would follow a familiar pattern, a languid passage of time marked by simple tasks and quiet contemplation. Lunch would be followed by a short nap, then a walk with TinTin in the afternoon. As the day gave way to night, the soft murmur of the radio and the warm presence of his dog would be his sole companions.

It was a routine carved out of necessity and resignation, born of the knowledge that time would run out. Yet, he found a certain solace in its simplicity. The world had been preparing for the endgame since his childhood, the countdown to zero a daily reminder of the inevitable. When apocalypse becomes routine, it loses its power to terrify.

The end was coming, but life still trudged on in its mundane, tedious rhythm. Bobby's existence was anchored not by joys, but by a life marked with hesitations and small moments of peace. TinTin's bounding energy and persistent yapping were a daily reminder that even in the twilight of human existence, life could still hold surprises. And for Bobby, that was just about enough reason to face each dwindling day.

********

‘The world will end not with a bang but with a whimper, Mary.’

She flushed with rage at his words. His stubborn complacency! His absence of desire! There was so much to experience stiil. Yet, he was already a ghost: a puppet ventriloquising the platitudes of those cheap and tatty philosophy books she had so often seen strewn across the living room table in that cold and inhospitable flat of his.

She hadn’t been up there for months now. In the evenings, she preferred the bustle of the town, and its all-night coffee shops. And she was pleased to have finally dropped the pretence that she enjoyed hanging out with him anymore. She was one of the few who still lived, she thought, and this pale boy in front of her was happy enough living life in abeyance. He frustrated her, and part of her anger at him was grief. In a way, she mourned each lost day on behalf of him. She recgonised the sadness that pooled beneath her rage. The boy she once loved - that blue-eyed Bobby - had no fight left in him.

She stared at him with a wide-eyed intensity. ‘I won’t be one who goes quietly, Bobby.’

She lifted her frothy coffee to her lips and drank a little. The booth in which they sat was close to the shop’s counter. All the staff were young these days. Generation Zero had work to do.

Mary had caught the eye of a cute barista last week. She had stayed with them after closing; she thought she might see them again this afternoon.

They sat quietly for at least a quarter of an hour as Mary’s anger at Bobby subsided. She felt calm now. Her body was tired but her mind alert. She knew he would be lost in thought contemplating the past, perhaps, or imagining other worlds, mirrors of their own, in which they hadn’t been abandoned. She knew he wouldn’t be thinking of the real future; the limit to their lives that was on the horizon and getting ever-closer to them. Both of them had fallen into a stupor;  it was only a touch of soft fur upon her ankle that roused Mary back to life.

TinTin was awake and looking at her expectantly from beneath the table. His brown eyes quietly begging for attention. She broke off a small piece from one of the tea biscuits that lay plated in the centre of the table, and moved it towards TinTin’s mouth. His teeth snatched the treat out from between Mary’s fingers. He licked around the edge of his lips in a delighted ecstasy as he swallowed the little pleasure down.

Poor little fellow, she thought. She broke off some more biscuits and fed them to the delighted pup. Her sympathy and love for him were forever mingled with a returning sadness.

‘He has even less time left than we do,’ Bobby said quietly from across the table.

*******

Out in the street, the wind was beginning to pick-up and the day was turning towards dusk.

With his free hand, Bobby managed to zip up the neck of his jacket, while, in his other hand, he kept hold of the brown leather dog lead he’d had since TinTin was six months old.

He walked this route with the dog most afternoons: down the cobbled paths that circled by the old Church, past the statues of the town’s ancient warriors, and into the public grounds of the castle that lay just beyond its wall. Once they reached the old playing field the castle sat above them in the half-light. Even Bobby felt a sense of quiet enchantment.

Before letting TinTin off the lead, Bobby made sure he had biscuits in his pocket, to lure the dog back to him when the time was right to. TinTin ran like a juggernaut across the open field, looping towards and then over the mounds of earth in the far corner of the land. He would run until he was almost out of sight before circling around, in two or three loops, and then back towards Bobby.

Bobby heard TinTin’s every movement and the deep rhythms of his panting breath. Otherwise, the castle grounds were quiet and still. It was only in the spring and summer mornings that you heard the birds, building their nests in the trees, and chirruping industrially to each other. It had been weeks since he had seen another soul walk up this way. It will be nice to have the birds back one last time, he thought.

That was how it was going to be from now on up at the castle: just him, the dog and soon the birds. He tried to suppress the memories of young families picnicking on the lawn, the sounds of laughter, and the drunken chatter of the old ones as they celebrated their release. Picturesque scenes tinged with some regret and some bitterness.

Bobby had no brother or sister to help him see out the changing of the guard. But he knew that siblings are not always a gift; Mary’s experiences had told him that. The way they had judged her moments of rebellion. Imagine that, thought Bobby. To waste your time on policing the actions of others when all of our end points are the same: fixed in time and unshakable.

‘TinTin, come!’. On cue, his dog returned happily to his side. TinTin went back on his lead with a good grace born from routine.

The night had darkened and Bobby walked his dog back up the cobbled paths, past the old Church, and up the hill towards their flat.

As they walked, little pieces of mortar fell from the empty buildings they passed, and the wind turned colder. It must be coming off the North Sea tonight, thought Bobby. Always this coldness. The Olyins had left that behind.

He remembered Mary burying her uncle; it was so long ago now but he saw her with the single rose held in her silk black glove, which she had thrown into the fire as a final act of love and somber dedication.

Bobby could go for days forgetting what they had all faced during the separation. His parents and Mary’s had been healthy enough to relocate. Possibly to Valencia or North Africa. They were generous; they had left money and provided housing for them both. The rewards for doing one’s duty were there to be had.

TinTin began pulling on his lead just a street or two from the entry to Bobby’s close.

When they reached the blue door TinTin went on his hind legs, slapping the door with his front paws. Bobby turned the keys in the lock and went into the close shoulder first.

The lights flickered on and off. TinTin walked Bobby up the stone stairs towards the black security door of their flat; one more key to find and another lock to turn.

Soon, they were in the kitchen. Bobby was boiling water for some tea, and TinTin was preparing his blanket, which lay at the foot of his master’s armchair, for his nap before dinnertime. The dog would be fed first; Bobby’s meal would consist of some rice and spiced mince heated from frozen.

********

Two floors above an old man was awakening for the night. His pyjamas clung tightly to his thin limbs as he walked into his musty kitchen. Two working spotlights flicked on to partly illuminate the scene. The blue marble of the kitchen worktop was barely discernible amidst an array of copper pots, tea mugs, and empty but yet-to-be-washed-out soup cans that cluttered the place. That smell of old tomato soup and fish bones was barely discernible to Padraig; he had become accustomed to it months ago. He slid some cans out of the way with the back of his hand to make room for his porridge bowl, which he had pulled down from an open shelf above. The porridge was ready made in a rice cooker that stood against the back wall of the kitchen; it switched on each night at seven and slowly cooked the porridge until nine.

Padraig opened the lid and scooped out some of the pasty porridge into his bowl. He cheered it up by adding a little salt and honey, and stirring it all round with his trusty dessert spoon. There were no clean mugs on the wooden shelves above the counter; he eyed-up one or two of the dirty ones before choosing the least unappealing to rinse out. The sink tap was held in place with some duct tape around its base; it wobbled slightly as he flicked its lever down and on. The lukewarm water spat out unevenly from the faucet; he found a browning scrubbing sponge by the side of the sink that was still damp from dinnertime that morning. He rinsed out the sponge and wiped it around his mug. It was clean enough for him.

He took breakfast on his small foldable table; the pine of the tabletop had once been bright red but the colour had faded now to an ever-lightening pink. His cloth dinner mats collected crumbs like no other surface in the house; the sight of them reminded him that he would need to ask Siobhan for some bread and butter. He’d write her a poem or two, he thought, and that would be material enough to barter with. His spoon tapped lightly on his bowl as he scooped up the last of the honey-porridge. He caught the last drips from his mouth with his tongue before clearing the table and placing his bowl back on the kitchen counter. He’d wash it later, he thought.

It was time to get to the church.

*********

Bobby heard a neighbour’s door open and then close somewhere in the close above; the flats on the floor directly above him had been empty for some time: one for six months and the other for a year now. He presumed his neighbours’ money had been cancelled, and that they had been forced into the capital for food and shelter.

His curiosity wasn’t enough to carry him to the peephole to spy on whoever was descending the stairs. That old resignation was returning to him. TinTin was asleep and out of sight.

He lay in bed on top of his navy duvet, still fully clothed, and feeling more lethargic than sleepy. His bedside drawer was clean of dust and decorated with a single lamp, which emitted a dull beam of light, as well as an old coaster fashioned from slate that was stained almost completely brown by spilled tea.

Bobby pulled the drawer open to reveal a pair of sunglasses (unused), a paperback with the word ‘Zero’ printed diagonally across its cover in bold and capitalised yellow font, and a small black smartphone.

He took the phone, switched it on, waited impatiently for its home screen to load, and finally navigated to the app that contained his wallet: only 15 dollars left until Friday.

He could buy some soup, some bread and fish, and a coffee with Mary. But the heating would have to stay off until the next compensation payment came through. He had checked his wallet last night and the night before, even though he knew how much there would be to spend. Checking the wallet was not about the money; it was a reminder of his connection to the Olyins.

There was no phone signal in the town anymore; you had to rely on home wifi to use ‘web 1’, which had been set-up by the Olyins in the year before the great migration. Access was restricted to just four apps: your wallet, a digital copy of the ZERO manifesto, CHAT (which allowed you direct contact with supervisors), and a clock that displayed the countdown calendar.

There were four months until Zero. Four months until he would encounter that last limit of life: his death. And Bobby’s daydreaming was getting worse.