Of course this is just one mathematical model which fits the observations; it may or may not be definitive. And many questions remain open, such as astronomical effects, and the nature of gravity on an infinite world. I leave these issues as an exercise for the reader.
One might question what difference this makes to us mere mortals. But surely geography determines our destiny. If the Pacific could have been spanned in the Stone Age, perhaps by a land bridge, the Americas’ first inhabitants might have been Asian, not Africans who crossed the Atlantic. And certainly in our own century if the Pacific were small enough for America and Japan to have rubbed against each other, the convulsion of war we have endured for the last decade would not have turned out the way it did.
Besides all that – what fun to find yourself living on such a peculiar little planet, a World with a Fold! Don’t you think…?
Date unknown. Sorry, I’ve given up counting. Not long after the last entry, however.
With my affairs in order I’m jumping ship. Why?
Point one: I’ve eaten all the food. Not the Spam, obviously.
Point two: I think I’m running out of world, or at least the sort of world I can live on. It’s a long time since I saw a mastodon, or a dinosaur. I still cross over island groups, but now they are inhabited, if at all, by nothing but purplish slime and what look like mats of algae. Very ancient indeed, no doubt.
And ahead things change again. The sky looks greenish, and I wonder if I am approaching a place, or a time, where the oxygen runs out. I wake up in the night panting for breath, but of course that could just be bad dreams.
Anyhow, time to ditch.
It’s the end of the line for me, but not necessarily for the Goering. I think I’ve found a way to botch the flight deck equipment: not enough to make her fully manoeuvrable again, but at least enough to turn her around and send her back the way she came, under the command of Hans. I don’t know how long she can keep flying. The Merlins have been souped up with fancy lubricants and bearings for longevity, but of course there are no engineers left to service them. If the Merlins do hold out the Goering might one day come looming over Piccadilly Circus again, I suppose, and what a sight she will be. Of course there will be no way of stopping her I can think of, but I leave that as another exercise for you, dear reader.
As for me, I intend to take the Spit. She hasn’t been flown since Day 1, and is as good as new as far as I can tell. I might try for one of those slime-covered rocks in the sea.
Or I might try for something I’ve glimpsed on the horizon, under the greenish sky. Lights. A city? Not human, surely, but who knows what lies waiting for us on the other side of the Fold in the World?
What else must I say before I go?
I hope we won’t be the last to come this way. I hope that the next to do so come, unlike us, in peace.
Mummy, keep feeding my cats for me, and I’m sorry about the lack of grandchildren. Bea will have to make up the numbers (sorry, sis!).
Enough, before I start splashing these pages with salt water. This is Bliss Stirling, girl reporter for the BBC, over and out!
[Editor’s note: There the transcript ends. Found lodged in a space between bulkheads, it remains the only written record of the Goering’s journey to have survived on board the hulk. No filmed or tape-recorded material has been salvaged. The journal is published with respect to the memory of Miss Stirling. However as Miss Stirling was contracted by the BBC and the Royal Geographic Society specifically to cover the Goering’s Pacific expedition, all these materials must be regarded as COPYRIGHT the British Broadcasting Conglomerate MCMLII. Signed PETER CARINHALL, Board of Governors, BBC.]
No More Stories
‘It’s strange to find myself in this position. Dying, I mean. I’ve always found it hard to believe that things will just go on afterwards. After me. That the sun will come up, the milkman will call. Will it all just fold up and go away when I’ve gone?’
These were the first words his mother said to Simon, when he got out of the car.
She stood in her doorway, old-lady stocky, solid, arms folded, over eighty years old. Her wrinkles were runnels in papery flesh that ran down to a small, frowning mouth. She peered around the close, as if suspicious.
Simon collected his small suitcase from the back of the car. It had a luggage tag from a New York flight, a reminder that he was fifty years old, and that he did have a life beyond his mother’s, working for a biotech company in London, selling gen-enged goldfish as children’s pets. Now that he was back in this Sheffield suburb where he’d grown up, his London life seemed remote, a dream.
He locked the car and walked up to his mother. She presented her cheek for him to kiss. It was cold, rough-textured.
‘I had a good journey,’ he said, for he knew she wouldn’t ask.
‘I am dying, you know,’ she said, as if to make sure he understood.
‘Oh, Mother.’ He put an arm around her shoulders. She was hard, like a lump of gristle and bone, and didn’t soften into the hug. She had cancer. They had never actually used that word between them.
She stepped back to let him into the house. The hall was spotless, obsessively cleaned and ordered, yet it smelled stale. A palm frond folded into a cross hung on the wall, a reminder that Easter was coming, a relic of intricate Catholic rituals he’d abandoned when he left home. He put his suitcase down.
‘Don’t put it there,’ his mother said.
A familiar claustrophobia closed in around him. ‘All right.’ He grabbed the case and climbed the stairs, fourteen of them as he used to count in his childhood. But now there was an old-lady safety banister fixed to the wall.
She had made up one of the twin beds in the room he had once shared with his brother. There wasn’t a trace of his childhood left in here, none of his toys or books or school photos.
He came downstairs. ‘Mother, I’m gasping. Can I make a cup of tea?’
‘The pot’s still fresh. I’ll fetch a cup and saucer.’ She bustled off to the kitchen.
He walked into the lounge.
The only change he could see since his last visit was a fancy new standard lamp with a downturned cowl, to shed light on the lap of an old lady sitting in the best armchair, facing the telly, peering at her sewing with fading eyes. The old carriage clock, a legacy from a long-dead great uncle, still sat in its place on the concrete 1970s fireplace. The clock was flanked by a clutter of photos, as usual. Most of them were fading colour prints of grandchildren. Simon had no grandchildren to offer, and so was unrepresented here. But the photos had been pushed back to make room for a new image in a gold frame. Brownish, blurred and faded, it was a portrait of a smiling young man in a straw boater. He had a long, strong face. Simon recognised the photo, taken from a musty old album and evidently blown up. It was his grandfather, Mother’s Dad, who had died when Simon was five or six.
Just for a moment the light seemed odd to him. Cold, yellow-purple. And there was something strange beyond the window. Pillow-like shapes, gleaming in a watery sun. He saw all this from the corner of his eye. But when he turned to look directly, the light from the picture window turned spring green, shining from the small back garden, with its lawn and roses and the last of the azalea blossom. Maybe his eyes were tired from the drive, playing tricks.
‘It’s just for comfort. The photo.’
The male voice made Simon turn clumsily, almost tripping.