Maddie

When Henry closed the door, I wept like a lost four-year-old who had become detached from my parents in a crowded place. The urge to run out the door to search for him and cling to him was unbearable. It was a shocking feeling, A feeling of loss that I imagine was like him having died. Henry had talked about this for months. His obsession with wanting to get out and record what he called the re-birthing. For years he had left behind the dangers of his journalistic career, where he once was brave enough to expose himself to the threat of being shot at, kidnapped or blown up. The inherent dangers of preserving his tenuous trappings of Press neutrality in a war zone where he could bring news and gruesome images to the world in the name of reportage.

I humoured him back then in those months of his planning and research. His old creased maps of places that were once retreats of pleasure. Memories of vineyard visits and walks in the once-dense Karri and Marri forests. Now these places were like cemeteries. Where there were forests, there are now blackened, withered stumps and barren dirt that fed dust storms that blew North to the cities. The South had become a wasteland. Henry had heard that things were starting to grow again. There were enclaves and oases of life and sprouts of green emerging like germinating seeds after a bushfire. This was Henry’s swansong, his last great adventure… I never thought he would walk out the door and start that journey.

I recall saying I would go with him, but he insisted I stay behind. ‘I will be back in a few weeks. You’ll see. Then I promise to hang up my shingle and never leave again. So keep the home fires burning for my homecoming.’

One part of me wanted to be with him, to keep him safe and nurtured. Henry was not a young man anymore. It seemed his brain was misleading him into believing he was still that younger man that could stride through the land and survive the worst that could be dished out to him. The other part of me cringed at the thought of leaving our home. It was hard enough these days. We had some money and lived as comfortably as possible despite the rationing. The world around us has changed in the last couple of decades. I remember twenty years ago, we laughed at people hoarding toilet paper during the COVID pandemic; how stupid and short-sighted we were back then.

I thought back to my younger years. I grew up in Perth. My parents were middle class. My mom was a traditional stay-at-home wife, and my dad was a policeman. He worked hard but loved both me and my sister. There was always plenty to eat and plenty to do. I went to university and studied law, and got a job with a mid-tier law firm. That’s when I met Henry. I was Second Chair in representing clients in a class action against a large corporation dumping pollutant waste and contaminating farmland. Henry had just returned from an assignment in the Middle East and was a guest speaker at a Press Club dinner. I remember seeing him on the stage silhouetted against his large grainy black and white photos of a war zone projected on the screen behind him. I remember sitting in awe of him as he described the plight of families whose lives had been upended by the warring parties on both sides of the conflict. Mutual friends introduced us, and we naturally melded together and became a couple almost as soon as we met. Henry was interested in everything I did. He offered to help with leg work and research, turning my case into a project. Our teamwork went a long way to conclude the class action satisfactorily. Henry and I became darlings of the local environmental lobby, and we went on to co-write a couple of books and speak at public forums.

We never married, but we might as well have been as we have been together ever since. We did not have children, something I partially regret. We made that decision because we could see what was happening to the world around us. It would be a terrible time to bring children into the world. We decided to wait to see if things might change, but with the sinking feeling of certainty, we knew the ship of the world was sinking like the Titanic. This is not the legacy we would like our children to inherit.

Henry was forty-five when Europe exploded into war. Russia had been posturing for years and swearing to avenge its defeat by Ukraine. Russia blatantly led troops into Finland, which had won membership in Nato only a few years earlier. The Russian leadership believed they’d called NATO’s bluff, but that backfired badly. Germany and America reacted swiftly, joined by Poland and the NATO countries. They led an air war targeting Russian troop incursions into Finland and Ukraine. Bellaruse industrial complexes were also targeted in these airstrikes. Ukraine attempted to remain neutral for a while, but even this neutrality evaporated as Russia sought to re-invade. A fanatical Russian commander let loose two tactical nuclear ballistic missiles into the Ukraine heartland. Thousands died. There was no retreating now. The Third World War was now in full swing.

Our comfortable lives were transformed over the days that the conflict unfolded. Henry was on the phone in endless conversation with Reuters, with whom he was in great demand. Arrangements were being made to fly him on military aircraft to Poland. Their hunger for news was insatiable. My heart froze every time the phone rang. Henry was energised and ready to go as soon as arrangements could be made. Then this all changed.

China decided it was time to take sides and strategically aligned itself with Russia, like the tenuous German-Russian alliance at the beginning of World War Two. China aimed to take advantage of the chaos and use its economic might to subsume Russia into its borders. Russia let the wolf into the door and then found itself embattled on all sides. America reintroduced the draft, as did many first-world countries. India and North Africa fell into famine as Ukraine’s breadbasket became compromised. An energy crisis like nothing before afflicted Europe as gas supplies came to a grinding halt. What were minor conflicts in the Middle East ignited into total warfare as Iran and Syria attempted to usurp Israel. Reuters abandoned plans to fly Henry to the war zone. Apart from the fact that it had now become far too dangerous to send anyone to a certain death, all military resources were diverted to the war effort, and only those journalists that happened to be in the war zone were available for reporting.

Henry and I joined forces in synthesising reports, co-writing and editing copy for news agencies. For me, having Henry safe at home was a huge relief. It was the beginning of a new and more challenging existence for us. Overnight petrol prices soared, supermarket shelves were quickly depleted, and the chains had great difficulty resupplying. Australia relied on trade with China, and this all but dried up. The economic disruption and scarcity threw family life into chaos. People were accustomed to plenty and did not have the experiences of previous generations who lived through the shortages of World War Two. People began to migrate South into the semi-rural areas, believing they would have an easier chance of survival outside suburbia. Society was transforming in the worst possible way. Henry and I were fortunate we did not have children unless you count our cat. We had been prudent, and even with inflation, skyrocketing prices, and rationing, we got by better than most.

As the world was consumed by war, the alarm bell rang on nature’s geological clock. Tectonic plates shifted, and Yellowstone National Park erupted in a volcanic event that made Krakatoa look like a firecracker. The effect was dramatic. Soldiers on the front lines instantly stopped fighting. All sides looked over their shoulders as if a new enemy had entered the arena and fighting with each other would be better served by joining forces against an unconquerable new enemy. It was too late. The war had destroyed the once modern habitable cities and left ruin and deprivation all over Europe. China held the world in a vicelike grip, exerted its economic power over all nations, and applied sanctions to any force that tried to resist, and then the sun disappeared.

Henry and I watched glorious sunsets, deep carmine and blood-red skies every evening as ash and toxic gases vented from the Yellowstone volcanic zone. The International Space Station images showed the Earth shrouded in grey and yellow clouds, and the long Winter began.