Barnaby's English Journal

‘All the time in the world to get it done.’The account of my previous thoughts drifted through my mind. All the time in the world- and now none. Just the measly 3 and a half minutes till judgement, the time that would decide my ability as a man. The unfairness of the situation, a mere teenager, fourteen and one month, and twenty four days of age. No this could not be true- surely there was a rule against this, child cruelty- anything that could get the poor soul that was me out of this. Yet no. Nothing sprung to mind, nothing in anyway useful. Wait, now only 2 minutes. Think brain think!

I am back three hours sitting in a pastel blue painted room- messy at first sight, but in my mind an organised room. An organised room of junk overflowing like beans spilling out of a bag. A little sleep would do, I thought, not knowing the trap that I was blindly falling into; the endless abyss of… nothing. The clouds floating around cushioned the fall taking my weight and lowering me gently to the ground of my imagination that was now the real world. The vain attempts to push up through the layers of drowsiness collapsed, buildings springing up out of the ground alongside the golden hills that turned into mountains that bordered the land. Things passed, grew and evolved from scene to scene in front of my very eyes- shapes morphing from tree to cave to cloud. Then the feeling of continuously falling jolted my body and after the small spasm sat up. And there I was with only a few minutes to go.

The only decision- to face the wrath of Mr North. Whether or not I would be able to get my way out of him finding out that I had not done the final assesment was a near guaranteed zero. The next minutes rushed by as I sprinted out of the house and towards my school, a greyhound set loose on the general public, racing towards my destination. First period and already I was feeling the tension as I entered the room, others’ faces a reflection of my own anxiety and nervousness…

Drip, drip,drip:

into puddles and streams;

streams flowing past houses,

of people indoors,

they’re bored out of their heads,

heads filled with the knowledge,

that sometime in the near future,

the rain will subside,

leaving soggy wet soil,

for the men to then work,

work upon till it rains again,

Drip, drip,drip:

in raindrops, in hail stones,

or what form they may take,

the rain will keep going,

to rivers and lakes,

and some place on earth,

will be unlucky enough,

to bear the bright raindrops,

till the heavens subside,

Mr. Waugh
I would like this to be in the book thingy

———————————————————————

I crunched on my dry, crusty bread. We had run out of water again, it’s dry taste in my mouth, sour from its days in the zone. I had been told about the zone once, but I would rather not be reminded of what it was like in there. Its location was secret, so nobody could go and scavenge, but also to hide its secrets. How I knew it had secrets I am not entirely sure, but just the thought of what the terrible place may be hiding. A vulture squaked from its perch above, this was a signal for me ; to get out of this place. Dusk was lowering now enveloping the light, clenching out the life that was left in this gloomy place. I set off at a jog, as the sounds of the night started approaching, forcing me back to the shelter of my vault.

My heavy steel doors rolled into place to keep me safe for the night, my one use of protection against the creatures outside. I had just half a loaf of bread to last me for the next day, so I started to finish it off, each bite of the gruelling substance draining my taste buds of the taste they deserved to get, but I was denied, a feeling that I was getting used to feeling in this world. The emptiness that surrounded our homes and the life that proceeded within them, seeming to be cut off from the rest of the world somehow. Or maybe there would be no better place to get to, maybe everywhere else was just as desolate as where I lived. I entered the room where my parents used to live. Silence, silence everywhere surrounded me. I ventured into a deep sleep in the old chair I used to sit in when I was a child, gnarled and cracked it had somehow survived through the times. For this chair at least times had not changed, had not moved on like like most people, trying to find a better place. Somewhere that the grass is greener, the animals are more humane, ans somewhere that the quality of life is much better. I then slept till the dying sun started to approach midday the next morning.

The cold metal doors were rolled back as I stumbled up the steps ready for another day at work. I passed junk yard after junk yard of heaps of rubbish, with the occasional sight of a child scavenging through the messy heaps looking for any scrap metal that they may be able to sell or trade. As messy as they may look though they were mainly organised pieces of rubbish now, generations having already searched through them. I arrived at the biggest mountain of stuff in the whole country I had ever been to, and met by the usual meeting point beside a pile of decaying blue plastic bags. The stench, unbearable, forced its way in through my nostrils, I tried to restrain but the smell just kicked its way into my nose. Here I saw our other men, pale yellow skin, standing over the grey rubbish, and dark gloomy clouds, brown with the fumes of pollution. They were not the prettiest bunch ever but like all of us we all needed work. We scavenged off the crash site that was the dump, I assumed something large had crash landed here at one point, the mess of materials from the machine spread out across the site, burnt and charred from the wreck. Perched everywhere were birds waiting to pounce.

We started our day of labour putting all thoughts out of our mind, all exept for the thought that one day, maybe soon the world would become better again and that we would have food to allow us to survive, that we could find that evening when we had finished the day. If we were lucky…