Two Thousand Forty Two 

It was the smell that hit M first. A heady concoction of eau de perfume, thick sultry scents against the more sickly and floral, soon to intermingle with the stench of decay as the bodies would fall to rot in a marked grave of the wealthy. Then came the noise. Howling jeers as the sun set, an impatient stampede of waiting feet. It was her first public hanging on the aptly named Millionaire’s Row. She found herself joining in, screaming with the masses, her fists clenching in anger, her knees vibrating from pounding the concrete floor. It was hot and humid. The heat made people do terrible things. It turned them into animals. 

The crowd silenced as a man walked onto the stage. He was dressed in green flowing robes that silhouetted against the emerging sunset behind him, his long blonde hair cascading down to his hips. The crowd began to pant in his presence. It was really him. Their Master. The one who would save us from the flames of molten lava that was rushing towards them and restore the world to its original climate. To bring rain and joy once more, but first they were here for justice.

‘Welcome,’ came his booming voice. His eyes glinted, they were black holes in his head, his lips stretched, parched from years of water rations. They were all so thirsty.

‘We are here to witness the punishment of those found guilty of crimes against the Earth. Those that have funnelled their riches and stripped the land of its natural glory. Multiple gas guzzling cars, empty holiday homes and slave-made clothing. With their consumerist minds and greedy fingers, we are here to reclaim that wealth.’ 

The crowd roared. M hung onto his every word, desperately trying to make eye contact with him. Those that he locked eyes with were his Chosen Ones. Spittle landed on her chin as she yelled. Pick me. A guttural moan escaped her and reverberated through the crowd who parted and turned to face her. Her Master held out his hand and his gaze met hers. Yes. As if she were floating, she walked across the hot ground towards him. He lifted her up onto the stage with him and pressed his lips to hers, feeling his dry skin against hers. She felt dizzy and clung to him, her heart pounding with euphoria. 

‘I have my assistant for today. Introduce yourself.’

M made only unintelligible sounds. Their Master nodded and held his arms up to the sky. 

‘Silence,’ he boomed. ‘The show is about to begin.’

On cue, the curtain lifted and the guilty stood on wooden stools, a thick rope noose wrapped loosely around their necks. They were dressed to the nines, dripping in jewels and eerily silent. Once upon a time they would have appeared ageless, plumped up by botox and stretched by surgery, their teeth veneered and whitened as emblems of perfection. The poisons had since melted and time had caught up with wrinkles, drooped faces and a lacklustre rainbow of grey hairs. 

M looked at each of them, all but one’s eyes were diverted. The woman on the left was wearing all black. Black leather trousers, a silk shirt with a ruffle bow tie and a veiled bowler hat. She had dressed for her own funeral. M imagined the sweat forming in the crevices, a slick layering of liquid beneath the oppressive fabrics. Her mouth salivated at the wetness. The woman in the middle was the youngest, her hair pulled sharply back in a bun, her thin birdlike body dressed in a white dress. It appeared virginal but M didn’t understand the significance as she watched the woman’s features disappear behind the gauze that covered her head held together with a bejewelled clasp. 

M felt herself drawn to the glance of the third woman and looked her in the eyes. They twinkled blue against the deepening amber of the sky. Her mouth was mouthing something. She was dressed in a dusty pink ball gown, the bottom flowing out hiding the stool that stood between her, gravity and death. Her hands were gloved. Opera gloves. Suddenly M was a child, swaying to an orchestra, an ice cream in her hand that she had been given in the interval. She was watching a ballerina on stage, his limbs outstretched what she imagined could only be a painful pose but she saw only elegance. M closed her eyes, breaking the eye contact and she was back in the present with the sweltering heat, her feet burning and splintering on the uneven wooden stage and tuned into the words spoken around her. 

‘When the moon reaches the sky, my friend here will walk towards this device here,’ their Master turned his attention to the right of the three condemned, where a lever poked through the stage. As M walked across the stage, she heard a voice separating itself from the crowd. 

‘Don’t do it! It’s all propaganda - a witch hunt. This man, your supposed master, is using you to commit his crimes…’

Their Master watched on, a smirk on his face.

‘You are chosen in his delegation…can’t you see, you are caged animals in his circus..’ 

M looked across to the man. He stood naked on the peripherals of the crowd, his hair long and tangled, his skin burnt to a crisp, blackened and blistered. His arms waved with his fanciful statements and the crowd booed loudly. She found herself sprinting to the front of the stage hissing in his direction. How dare he insult Their Master? 

‘…Humanity has a conscience. We are better than this.’

Their Master snapped his fingers and in a split second, the crowd pounced in uniformity. She set her legs to spring, to reach him first, when she felt a hand on her shoulder. He held her back and in his arms, she furrowed into his concave stomach, her head on his willowy shoulder. The protesters arms were pinned down, people bit at his face, stampeded his legs and his pleas turned to whimpers and guttural sounds. Who was the animal now? A plume of red evaporated in the still sky. He was dead. 

Master turned to M. She looked him in the eyes, they were black with a fleck of gold, and he gave her a nod. It was time. She walked with the same weightlessness as when the crowd had parted and parked herself at the lever. Three women stood condemned to their deaths, guilty in their greed, balanced on stools wearing their riches. A currency that would be redistributed towards the labour of the land as those waiting persecution gave back their dues in physical drudgery. 

Each acted differently awaiting their fate. The woman dressed in black fidgeted, her knees trembling and her mouth quivering. Beads of sweat formed on her upper lip and her silk shirt had turned transparent showing a braless torso. 

‘Ten…nine…eight….seven…’ their Master began the countdown. The crowd joined in. Spurred on by the electricity of justice in the air, M placed her hand on the lever.

‘…six…five…four…three…’ 

She involuntarily twitched and pulled. The noose whipped back, dragging the first woman up into the sky. Her legs bucked out kicking over the stool. The woman in the middle cried out. 

M reset the lever and without looking at the second woman, pulled it. Significantly lighter, the stool didn’t topple, as her body flew up with an audible crack as her neck snapped. The crowd jeered and M found herself panting once more. 

Once again, M found herself drawn to the final woman’s face whose eyes burrowed into hers. She was making sounds, forming three words that M struggled to make sense of. Each repetition grew louder in conviction.

‘Ay…aaahhv…do.’

Their Master clicked his tongue in frustration and walked over, and punched her in the stomach. She veered dangerously to the side, doubling over and the noose tightened. M saw a glint in the moonlight. A single pearl set within a dull silver heart and a memory unlocked itself. 

She was eight years old at the opera. Stabbing her plastic spoon into her ice cream, she stared at the dancer on stage who was mid-air in a leap, the orchestra at its crescendo and the high pitched sound of the singers reaching their final notes. Her chocolate ice cream had melted and missing her mouth, some spilled onto her party dress - a fuchsia tutu with a satin body. She began to fuss, frustrated with the billowing stain as she tried to mop it up with her wrist. 

‘Shhh darling,’ came a gentle sound. She looked up and noticed an opalescent glint in the darkness. She stared into a face of kindness, plumped lips lined with a slightly darker red, her smiling eyes smoky with thick black lashes, her skin porcelain with slight crinkles as she smiled. M nuzzled into the woman and inhaled her scent, a light floral perfume against a powder that reminded her of the talcum that used to be nursed into her chafing nappy. The woman enveloped her and with her other hand, absentmindedly twirled the piece of jewellery around her neck, the pearl swivelling and at a closer angle, M made out a silver heart. 

That was the last night it had rained. M remembered dancing around the puddles as she emulated the leaps she had just witnessed as she was being ushered into a cab. 

The memory tore itself painfully through her subconscious. The three words of the final woman awaiting her death becoming louder.

‘Ey….lahv..yu…’ 

M gasped as she grasped their meaning.

‘Grandma?’ she whispered. She was much older, the lined lips set in wrinkles, her eyes creased as the shadow set awkwardly. 

‘Ten…nine…eight…’ Master had begun his countdown, the crowd following suit.

‘I …love…you…’ followed by a two syllable word she had not heard for ten years. ‘Maeva..’ 

That was her name. 

‘Seven…six…five…four…’

‘May..vah…’ M formed the word on her tongue and repeated it. The woman…her grandma, was moaning and she brought her hands up to her neck. 

‘Three…two..’ A hand gripped hers on the lever.

‘ONE,’ The crowd broke out in a cacophonous cheer as the lever pulled down. A scream escaped M’s lips as she watched her last surviving family member being wrenched up to the sky, her arms flailing, legs twitching, her face reddening as she choked on her final breaths. Then stillness. All three women dangled with two of the stools toppled. M saw something fall from her grandmother's hands and heard a delicate clatter on the wood. She pulled herself away from Master and stumbled towards the sound. There it lay, the heart locket. Glancing to the front of the stage, Master was deep into his speech.

‘Three more evil-doers eradicated from our lands. A step closer to justice for the Earth…’

M bent down and picked it up, and fumbled for its clasp. Inside was a picture. She was six years old, smiling and gap toothed. As her tears came, the sky darkened and a droplet of rain landed on her head. The drought was over.