JUNE 27
They are still driving on and reporting, though they complain of fatigue.
This morning they came across a Level 1 shelter, a rather shallow and relatively small one. It must have been a good way from a ground zero, but there were cracks in the concrete roof. They tried to get into the shelter, but the entrance was blocked by big chunks of concrete and steel, so they had to give up. There was nobody still alive there, of course. Still, it would have been interesting to know whether the people inside had died of blast, burns or radiation.
As the couple go on their reports are becoming less frequent. Because they feel tired, and because there is nothing to report.
People down here are rather disappointed. This trip to the surface seems to be a very boring affair, even more boring than life underground!
The people who thought the whole idea rather silly at the outset have started calling them cranks again. “Fools, to be more precise,” said P when we met this afternoon. “Fancy paying for such a boring trip with twenty-five years of life! Behaviour like that isn’t just neurotic, it’s plain folly.”
Interest in the escapade wanes steadily. It is still the main topic of conversation, but it is no longer discussed with quite the same fervour as before.
If their trip goes on for a few more days, people will probably give up listening to their scanty reports altogether. They will die for us even before they are really dead.
JUNE 28
The brave and foolish pair have decided to stop where they are and go no farther. They themselves seem to be bored. The scene in one place is identical with the scene any where else. There is no point in moving around. Even if they could circle the world, it would probably be the same story. They must have realised that.
And they are exhausted—tired by the driving and weakened by the sickness within them.
So they just sit in the car, resting, and occasionally transmitting some personal impressions. These become less and less descriptive and more and more emotional as time goes on. At times almost poetic—or perhaps delirious. They must be an interesting pair. And very sick by now.
There is something about the quality of these occasional talks which makes people listen again. Interest in the couple revives—interest in them personally, rather than in the surface of the earth.
Here comes one of their talks now. I will try to scribble down their exact words. It all sounds pretty odd. Delirious already, perhaps.
She: “We’re a pair of doves, sent out by Noah to see if the flood has gone down.”
He: “The flood is still around us, the water is deep. We’re the doves which didn’t fly back.”
She: “But the dove which didn’t return to Noah was a sign that the flood was over. It was a sign of life and hope when it stayed away from the ark.”
He: “How right you are, my dove! We’ll stay here, outside the shelter, until it’s all over. For this is a much worse flood than the one God made. Men caused this tide of blood to rise and leave no hope for man or dove.”
She: “Listen to us, you people down there in the caves. Hear what we have to tell you. The flood is around you, the poison is trying to get inside you. Your blood is still red, but the world is black. Stay below in your man-made caves as long as there is air to breathe, as long as water seeps so deep, as long as spirits don’t go down and drag you up!”
He: “Stay in the ark for ever!”
They must certainly be delirious. But not everyone in delirium can talk that way. It is broadcasts like that one which have people listening, fascinated. Almost everybody. Even P has stopped making disparaging remarks. After one of this morning’s transmissions I do believe I saw an unusual shine in her eyes. As if they were wet.
JUNE 29
The couple are still broadcasting, though their voices are weaker today and they have to break off from time to time. But we listen. Everybody listens.
Another broadcast is due to start any moment now. I will try to jot down what they say as I did yesterday. It is easier now that they have to speak slower.
She: “No birds are singing in the world today, no flowers are blooming. There are no trees, there are no fields.”
He: “Just débris.”
She: “Man is gone, and woman too. No children play around.”
He: “Just bare earth.”
She: “The world is like a ship abandoned by her crew. Like the moon, it is arid and dreary.”
He: “Another planet.”
Another planet. They have got something there. In their delirium they may have hit on a truth. The earth has become like the dead moon—except for the caves. But who knows?—there may be caves like ours on the moon, with some crawling creatures living in them.
Just another planet. The earth was always that, anyway. But not just that: for there were other things on earth.
JUNE 30
The couple announced today that they would not broadcast any more. They are too weak. They ended like this:
He: “This is our last message, the last broadcast from the face of the earth. Nothing new to report. The world is empty. It still revolves. There is day and night, sun and moon and stars. But that is all.”
She: “Farewell, men and women of the caves! Let us die in peace.”
That was this morning. Since then nothing has been heard from them. I wonder if they are delirious or unconscious. Perhaps they are gone already.
We shall not hear from them again. Let them die in peace.
I did not intend adding to what I had written earlier today. But although the time is already past 23.00 (I have reverted to normal hours for sleeping since my daily duty finished), I do not want to go to bed until I have recorded a strange feeling which has come over me since hearing that last broadcast. The feeling is new to me, yet not entirely strange: a feeling of tenderness for those two up there in the car. I wish I could have comforted them and helped them.
Something seems to have changed inside me. It stirred when I saw X-117 hanging, just outside in the corridor there; but on that occasion the sensation quickly passed. Perhaps my new feeling is connected with the sudden chill I felt then, and earlier, when I saw the black screen. But this is different: not a passing shiver, but a persistent warmth.
Is this compassion? Love? Sociability? Are other human beings able to arouse in me feelings like those? Was there a green spot hidden in my soul which they, the doves, have discovered?
It is a warm feeling—warm towards them. But it has enough warmth for humanity in general, for any living thing. It even reflects back to keep me warm inside.
Only now do I realise how cold I was inside. How dead. Now I can understand X-117. He must have had a lot of that warm feeling. It could not have been taken from him, even by psychotherapy.
I do not have that much. But I have some, enough to keep me warm. And chilly too, in a curious way, when I think of that screen, or even of the buttons which blackened it.
One needs that warmth in order to feel chilly. And it is better to feel warm and cold than not to feel at all. That is what the treatment they gave me was supposed to do: deprive me of what little feeling I might have possessed.
But they failed. I love that pair of doves, dying out there on the bare planet. I love them.
If there can be such a pair of doves, the planet will live again. If I can love, then my soul is not like the dead shell of a planet. It can be revived.