by Mark A. King
The ache of what could have been surrounded these walls. Loss was buried in the soil being held at bay by arches, tunnels, trains, stations, and roads.
These were my people: the Hidden. Even in the daylight, the world not only ignored their needs for help and compassion, it mocked them.
They came, as I asked.
They were no more real in substance than the victims of the plague. Yet their weight was almost infinite.
Behind me, I heard desperation. “I warned you. I fucking warned you, McKinley. I told you I’d shoot her, but you didn’t listen.”
A shot. I assumed Iona was down. Perhaps it was for the best.
I turned the power back on but kept the lights off. I opened the train doors. I heard Armitage and her men leave the carriage. I watched from my cab as they walked towards me.
A moment later, I stepped out and stood in the throng of souls. I say souls, but it is not the right word, perhaps such a word didn’t exist in English. As Abna I had known it as Penitrale, spirit, the life held by the soul, the innermost chambers of a person.
Their Penitrale, stolen, as Westbourne had taken her husband Gerry’s future and threatened the Penitrale of countless others in London.
Thousands of Penitrale surrounded Armitage and her men.
First came those of the plague pits. Armitage and her henchman scratched at buboes that were not there, scrubbing, ripping, clawing at their own skin. Screaming in pain. Suffering the same feelings as those discarded into the pits.
Then came the Penitrale of Bethlem. The two of them howled at the brutal treatments: impaling, bloodletting, pressure, starvation, thirst, abuse of body and mind. Forced surgery without anaesthetics, antiseptics, or antibiotics. Armitage convulsed and keened for the grief of lost futures.
The bodyguard scream for help. For an end to it.
Armitage turned the gun on him and shot. The shots came until only Armitage was left.
She turned to ask me to finish her.
The screams of Bethlem and the pain of the plague victims were real to her. In her mind they were happening, and there was no escape. She was caught in a life with no hope, like she had given others.
I returned to the driver’s seat. I opened the door from the cab to the first carriage.
Iona was lying on the ground. The gunshot had missed her, but she was unconscious. I figured that Armitage and her bodyguard must have trampled her as they rushed to escape.
I thought of Gerry and his suicide in the tunnel.
Armitage was still screaming.
I heard a shot boom.
Then she screamed no more.
In this most despairing, most troubling, and darkest of moments, I felt the most hope.
If we live on, as souls, as spirits, or as lingering emotional resonances, then the life beyond this one must be made from our purest joys: the sunrises we witness, the touch of cool grass, the sight of our soulmate, the memories we build or make for others, the chance encounters, the kindness of small gestures, the people we touched or loved.
There is no time for regret; there is not a single molecule to leave untouched nor a second to waste.
Life—in this world and any others—would be what I could make of it.
I powered the train up and headed forward.
Towards Liverpool Street and Merla.
Dawn
On the Embankment, the young girl watched the sunrise. She sat on a park bench with an older man, her father perhaps. Her skin was darker than his. Her hair was light blond, dyed a similar colour to his.
“I like your hair,” the man said.
She shook her head. “I’ll be changing it back as soon as I can. I did it to fit in. To feel like someone else. But I am proud of who I am.”
She was comfortable and confident in the body she had been given. To want anything else would be to disrespect her mother, and more importantly, to not value herself and everything she was and could be.
The man placed his arm around her, and she learned in more closely. Their proximity was new but their love was not.
Tears rolled down his ashen cheeks. “I’ll always look after you. I won’t let anything happen to you. I love you, ‘Riah.”
“I don’t need looking after.” She smiled. “I just need you to be there for me so I can be there for others.”
She thought about her mum. She thought about a homeless boy. She thought about the children in the buildings, the dispossessed, the desperate. She thought about angels, demons, darkness, and all the things she planned to do.
Near the bench, a man and a woman, arms interlinked, leaned over the railings overlooking the clementine colours reflecting off the Thames.
“Now that I don’t have a job, I feel like taking a break, maybe going somewhere new,” the woman said.
“How will you pay for such an extravagant lifestyle, Miss Stone?” the man replied.
“I have access to as much money as I like,” she said. “I don’t take much, just a bit here and there. The rest ... I ruthlessly redistribute to good causes.”
He nodded. “A Robin Hood of the cyber waves?”
“You could say that.”
The man had old scars on his face. The woman felt responsible for them. But that was in the past, and they had a new future ahead of them.
He rummaged around in his jacket. “I have tickets to New York.” He handed her an envelope. “Will that do?”
She thought about a new start. A new city.
Fresh perspectives and new cyber wars to fight.
A life to live.
A life to love.
She said nothing.
She smiled and kissed him.
A man in a bowler hat walked past them and slowly grinned.
New York?
He thought he should visit one day—but not yet.
He had found love himself, in the most unexpected circumstances.
He thought about her. How happy she made him. How the darkness had eased. How content he was with his past and how everything had come to be settled.
He wasn’t sure it could last. But then again, what lasts forever?
Time is just a concept.
There is only here.
Only now.
And when now has gone, what we have done with our time is all that is left. It lives on.
The man had lived below ground for too long. He had to wear sunglasses. Even at dawn the sunshine hurt his eyes. He would have to become used to it. He would know little else.
He looked over at the riverboat, bobbing on the glittering river. The boat was bathed in the warming glow of sunshine.
New York?
LA was never the city of angels.
It was always New York.
Maybe he should visit after all.
Inside the riverboat a woman and a young boy sat opposite a man in a nurse’s uniform.
“It’s good to see you again,” the woman said to the nurse. She held his hand as he cupped a fresh coffee. “Thank you for everything.”
“This coffee is better than the coffee in the staff room of the hospital,” he said.
The boy looked at the man as though he might become the sort of father who could make him happy and proud. The boy’s father was no longer around. His stepfather wasn’t, either.
The boat was nearing the quayside.
“We need to go, pumpkin,” the woman said to the boy. She then looked at the nurse, “One day...” she said. The man looked at her, expectantly. “Never mind. We need to go. We have so many things we need to do. I’ve never felt better, so healthy, and alive and… so much of that has to do with you. But I can’t give you what you want. Everything that I have in me needs to go into raising Noah, and nothing can get in the way of that. But, maybe, one day...” She stood up, adjusted her weight and leaned across to kiss him.
“One day is good enough for me,” he said.
St Paul’s Cathedral rose into the breaking light as though it had punctured the fabric of space.
> Long before the skies were filled with towers, it sat upon the highest hill and witnessed the birth of the new city. Its wooden spire had stretched skywards, into the celestial heavens, the tallest building in the world.
It had witnessed London becoming the most populated city on earth.
Its sacred floor had once filled with the blood of the murdered, the executed.
Its dome had survived the incendiary munitions of the Blitzkrieg.
But this was not the first cathedral. It had been re-born. It was built on the ashes of city-destroying fires and the hastily buried bones of the plague. It had been ransacked and rebuilt. Destroyed and rebuilt. Desecrated and rebuilt. Gutted and rebuilt. Each time more glorious. Each time more beautiful. Each time stronger than the last.
Acknowledgments
Writing Metropolitan Dreams has been one of the most rewarding yet challenging tasks I have ever attempted.
I’ve heard it said that writing is a desperately lonely occupation, but I am fortunate and blessed to be able to thank the following people:
My first thanks must go to Lorraine, Samuel, and Abigail ,who are the centre of my universe. I am just a meaningless speck of dust without them.
More gratitude than I can possibly write goes to Emily June Street. She is an incredible author, a generous, tolerant, and forgiving editor, and a true friend to me and the wider writing community. She has often been my safety-net while I braved the trapeze for the first time. She has transformed the book beyond recognition.
To Tam Rogers, for the generosity of her time and her stunning, incredible, and inspirational artwork. I am lucky to have such kind and talented friends. She also needs thanks for giving the world Grind Spark, what a gift! We’ll all miss the Beast, the playful and mischievous forever mascot of FDHQ.
To Tamara Shoemaker for the faith, belief, laughs and guidance. For being the best mentor I could ask for.
Thanks to ALL the FlashDogs. Special thanks need to go to Jacki and Liz, who by some gentle nudging introduced me to Twitter, Flash Friday (thanks Rebekah), and all the things that came about afterwards. And a huge thank you to Karl and Tam for the invaluable pre-release reading.
No acknowledgment section is complete without a nod to family, my gratitude to Mum (RIP), Dad, Will, Kerry & Glen.
Along the way, I also had a great deal of help with research. My gratitude to: M.M.G. Zegwaard, who kindly let me peer behind the curtain to glimpse the exciting and dangerous word of Urban Exploring (His photography is simply breath-taking). To Father Mathew, for the initial inspiration for Maria and guidance on Kerala and the Syro-Malabar Catholic faith, and to Sam and Abi who also occupy large parts of who Maria is. To the unsung Underground staff who transport millions of people every day, they were the inspiration for Cal. To the unknown cartographers, who helped me find my way around the vast landscape of London as I created worlds within worlds.
Finally, a huge thank you to you for reading this far. It genuinely means more than I can ever tell you.
About the Author
Mark A. King was born and raised in London. Metropolitan Dreams is his debut novel. In the past, he has been published in several magazines and anthologies. He is proud to work in an ancient and magical place that many say looks like a famous school for wizards. Mark is a founder of FlashDogs, a global community of talented flash fiction writers.
Mark sometimes dreams what could have been, had he scored that goal in front of the England football manager and not passed it meekly to the opposing goalkeeper.
Mark now lives with his family in Norfolk, England, with a dog that looks like a teddy-bear and the terrifying sounds of a sky full of geese.
Copyright © 2017 by Mark A. King
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Disclaimer
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Credits:
Front and back cover: Tam Rogers at The Dust Lounge.
Editor: Emily June Street at Luminous Creatures Press.
Book Design: Emily June Street at Luminous Creatures Press.
Front map image: Believed to be the first map of London (Agas Map) Public Domain.
Rear map image: © Sameboat CC BY-SA 4.0