Beyond All Time

‘I still don’t understand,’ Ally repeated, voice hard and cracked like it always was. He paced in front of Jaz, trying to recall things she’d already told him. ‘So everyone’s dead?’

‘Yes,’ Jaz said. ‘We’ve been over this before.’ She plucked the string from her wrist and tied her hair up. She bunched her tangled mane up in one hand, and wrapped the string around it with the other. It hung down to the back of her neck, practically dreadlocks.

She kicked at the charred grass, trying to make a clean patch before she sat down. ‘The virus?’ She looked up at him as she spoke from the ground. He looked more like a shadow in the non-light, tall and thin. ‘God you must’ve taken some blow to the head to forget all that over and over again. It was years ago now.’ Her face was hard. The lines and angles were soft, but circumstance had worn them before her time.

As Jaz pulled off her boots he wandered over, face bent in, like he was remembering some things. She tossed her footwear aside and started tugging down her trousers as she stood up again, eyes fixed on the sea.

‘Wait,’ He jumped up, following Jaz as she padded into the dull sand, careful to wind around splats of oil. As she trudged forward, she threw back her jumper, shirt, everything else she was wearing.

She walked fast, and as Ally tried to catch up he just got a face full of her clothes. ‘But that was just the first time, right?’ He bundled her clothes together and tucked them under his arm, reaching out to stop her from walking so fast.

‘Yeah,’ she said absently, tucking a loose clump of hair behind her pointed ears. Her hair was strange, changing almost every day. Shades of greys and blacks ran through it, and no matter how many times she hacked at it with old rusty scissors, it was stuck at one length.

The rest of their party was asleep, a way off the beach. They’d made camp in what used to be a shop. Derelict, half buried in sand and mud, but still the best shelter they had. Why that tiny building had survived was beyond them, but the four of them needed some sort of home, however temporary, and it did just fine.

‘You coming in?’ She turned to face him, body glowing slightly against the dull sky, and gestured towards the ocean with one greyed hand. She was stood in front of him completely naked, and the one thing he noticed was that her right hand was slightly greyer than the rest of her.

‘I don’t think I can remember how to swim.’ Ally set Jaz’ clothes down in a small pile. He knocked at his head with one hand to demonstrate a point, ‘Not yet, anyway.’

Jaz laughed, stretching her toes out in the dirty sand. Everything was dirty, well, everything they’d seen was. Every place they’d walked through had been caked in mud or crawling with insects, and they weren’t exactly spotless themselves.

‘Come on,’ Jaz lunged forwards and grabbed Ally’s hand. ‘We don’t have to go in far.’ She flashed a toothy smile at him, and pulled him forward, heading straight towards the water.

‘Okay, okay, fine,’ he laughed, pulling her back just before she reached the sea. ‘At least give me chance to take this lot off before you dive in.’

As he pushed his trousers down, Jaz bunched his shirt and jacket up and pulled them both off him at once. She was desperate to get in the water, had been for days. Something about the sea just drew her in, calmed her like nothing else would anymore. Not that Ally really remembered that part. Well, he’d remember it, but then a few day later it’d be a bit foggy, and a few more days totally forgotten.

Before Ally even had got his boots off properly, Jaz was grabbing at him, pulling him forward into the still water. There was no moon anymore, so there was no tide either. Occasionally whilst swimming Jaz felt a ripple, or what seemed like a current, but she wasn’t sure what it was.

She stepped backwards, pulling him in with both hands as she paced back through ankle deep water. If anyone was around to see it, they were quite the sight. Not quite humans, laughing as they waded deeper and deeper into the icy sea.

By the time the water was up to their waists, Ally was already remembering a few things. ‘My family were from what was the Caribbean, right?’ He asked Jaz, who was now stood at his side, extending her arms out into the sea.

‘Well, that’s what you’ve told us before,’ she replied as the water started to reach past her chest. ‘And it makes sense, beneath all that grey your skin tone agrees with the statement.’ She smiled, pale eyes shining.

‘Why do you tell me the same things over and over?’ He stopped walking and turned to her.

‘Because, well. I don’t know,’ she shrugged, ‘It’d be mean not to, I guess. And you’re the same person as before, a rock to the head doesn’t change that.’ The truth was he said that sort of thing pretty much every time he forgot again, but Jaz didn’t have the heart to tell him. It was sincere, and she always appreciated it, so mostly she just kissed him on the cheek and told him not to worry about it.

Jaz wrapped her hand in Ally’s and pulled him forward, sending him straight into the bleak water. He coughed and spluttered underwater, but rose to the surface laughing, and lunging toward Jaz.

The bleak remnants of the world held no sounds. Everything was generally bathed in a stifling silence. Mountains capped with toxic waste that spoke not a word, even the wind in the distance that occasionally blew seemed to be holding its breath.

In a world with no colour, then, everything was lit up. Painted with sound. An icy dead sea held the only spot of colour for miles around. Ally grabbed Jaz’ waist and threw himself back down into the water, submerging them both. In almost slow motion, they padded down, thrown onto the soft dirty sand.

Ally’s legs twitched. His muscle memory was obviously not affected by his blow to the head. He pushed down against the sand and kicked off, daring Jaz to race. He darted through the icy water, arms stretched out in front of him with wide open eyes.

Way back behind him, he’d stirred up dirty thick sand, and it whirled up and around Jaz as she chuckled and swam after him. The sand became almost alive, a dank replica of the life that once splashed through that ocean.

They swam out far, pushing and shoving each other playfully under the water. A friendly competition that really didn’t mean anything. Every day was making the most of what they had. And what they had was a lot of time. All the time in the world, really.

It took Jaz hardly any time at all to catch up to Ally. He’d had the advantage of a head start, but she was practically a fish. She slid through the water, it came more natural to her than walking did.

They remained under the water for quite a long time, and she knew perfectly well that she could’ve stayed down below for much longer, but he wasn’t quite as evolved as she was. Lungs that may as well have been made of steel, but even his warped organs needed a little dirty oxygen sometimes.

Their hands wove together as they dug their feet into the ocean floor. The stray strand of dark grey hair was floating defiantly around slightly above them, freed by the water. Ally smiled at Jaz, practically beamed, and squeezed her hands.

Something in his eyes, a small flicker of gold in the hazel pools that wasn’t there before his accident spoke for him. It planted his words in Jaz’ mind without so much as him opening his mouth. He let his toes uncurl and lose their grip on the sand, and with his hands clutching Jaz’ tightly, he pushed his body up.

He kicked up and spread his whole body out so that he was upside down, a straight line through the water. His body, suspended in rare freedom of comfortable liquid, was completely still. Jaz extended her arms out, her hands wobbling slightly as she lifted him higher in the water.

They were so far out, so deep in the ocean that both of them effectively end-on-end still didn’t break the surface. Ally laughed and bubbles rushed out towards the open sky. He wiggled his toes, enjoying the silliness of the situation. His hands were locked in Jaz’ hands, and he felt like he could’ve stayed there forever and been content.

He couldn’t have, however. There was only so long his lungs could go before they gave out, so he kicked upwards and pulled on Jaz’ hands. Her feet detached themselves from the sand and Ally spun himself over so they were floating towards the surface facing each other.

Goosebumps ran across Jaz’ pale grey tinged skin, a natural reaction to the cold that she no longer felt. She could barely see the face in front of her but she knew he was probably smiling at her. Despite the very nothing that they all found themselves in he still managed to smile almost all of the time, chipped teeth beaming out towards the dull sky.

They broke the surface at the same time, hair slick back and water running down both of their faces. Ally’s head bobbed back as he gasped for air, lungs choked and stripped from the extended time under water. He coughed and his head sprang forward, pink in the face, but satisfied with dirty air.

‘Sorry,’ Jaz grimaced as Ally’s body calmed back down, ‘I forgot you had to breathe regularly.’

Ally smiled and kicked his legs, water rushing out and around them, their movement creating the tiny artificial current that sparked through the sea.

‘S’fine,’ he said, breath starting to fade back to its usual pace. ‘We should probably get back though, right?’

‘Yeah,’ Jaz replied absently, eyes staring straight into the ocean, the colours so similar they could’ve been carbon copies in different watery shades. Her hand was limp in Ally’s, but a faint heart beat rushed through it every now and then. They had to leave eventually. Eventually it would be morning, and even though morning meant nothing much to anyone anymore some traditions still stood. They might wake up and decide to walk on, or to make a more permanent home among the broken shops. Whatever it was, they had to at least be there to hear it.