// I.G. thermal war selection//

The sun was bright and it was warm and it was red and it was just out there.

It's rays cast a spell over the planet I  can see. I daren't look at the rays, they would surely harm my spacesuit I do.

Space is quiet. The blackness goes on and on and the vaccuum is eternal isn't it not? I smile to myself, the first woman to float around the endless reaches of a cold dark plain.

I close my eyes and I open them. I wish I was at home sometimes rather than be here some 7.5 million lights years away from the Earth.

But I must pursue what I paid to pursue. I am here and that is that. The echoes of my memories and my wishes and my woes can spin around my head like the faraway elements they were.

I clench my hand and I try to will myself to the reaches of the planet. I am one and with one I must remain.

//I.G thermal war selection part 2//

I close my eyes again and I see myself dancing in a red dress in a room that sparkles with gold. My hair is auburn and it sways about my shoulders as I twirl not once but twice.

But that was before. That was before the event that changed everything and everyone.

No...we myst never think of the event....it is illegal.

Glen is illegal. The memories on him as he pulls his weights and smiles that great smile of his.

But what is gone is gone. This is it and this is what remains.

myself...this spacesuit....the space transporter behind me.

It's boosters are low and they cast a shadow over the planet.

//I.G. Thermal war....//over//next jump//12

I smile and I smile wide like I was dreaming of insense....I could smell the presence of incense but surely I am only thinking back to the....

No, I must never think back....what is gone is gone.

The boundaries of space are the boundaries of anyones inner mind aren't they not. It is infinate....but is the mind infinate too?

I love you Glen...

But he doesn't exist no more and I shouldn't cry for somebody that is only now a figment of my imagination.

Am I imagining all this? Where I am now....am I there where they all are....in that....no, I must not think about that.

I drift on the cord. The umbilicus cord from the transporter. I see the red light flashing on what they used to call an airlock in the day...the days when there used to be night and day and when I and Glen would hold hands in the park and look to the sky and see the first signs of....

//I.G Thermal war...// end selection//carbotor 12365484 route course// 

No that's not right.

No....I mustn't think about that....it's illegal.

I open my eyes and I fight back the tears. I remember that I am here in the void beyond the furthest reaches of the astral plain. The only headline was....if I could go back....

But nobody can do that...could they?

I shut my eyes off from the area that used to refered to as an airlock and think about the church on the hill. It was all clapboard white and had a nice sharp steeple.

Well...it did.

The double oak panel doors burst open and the flock came running out. It was all yellow ribbons and hats. Big hats.

Nice little dresses that bore on the red winds.

Winds were red now....and me and Glen looked at eachother....him looking very dapper in his wedding morn.

And myself....the dress was white.....but it was red now....was I on fire....was everybody on fire?

Was that me? Was that really me....I don't remember when.

I'm not even supposed to be here...but there wasn't anyone was there? Not now not after the event....

No I mustn't think about it...they will know if I do.....

Glen was shouting at me....I still see his face in the red....the red that is like a red sheet that has everybody running in either joy or mass panic depending on how you feel about the event....

No.

I let go of Glens hand.

//I.G. selection canter 3//compartment 12364844....ark number 3/4 human female//widow

I breath deeply and sit on the cold hard metal of the area that we used to call an Airlock. Back here in the deep and darkness of all outer space.

Thinking about that time that seemed an age ago but could be no longer than 2 years surely?

//I.G Mind select// sleep warp 3 memory core 0 // event wiped event wiped.

Catagory 3 and red forec 0 =  subject female Susan ready to plant the seed of life again....

Begin.....

The sky is red. Well it is isn't it. I has been since I was 27 and now I am 35.

It's hotter today as well. I noticed it this morning when I was driving out of Aunt May's house and cruised along the freeway. Mind you she is an old girl and old girls feel the cold, not that it is a problem anymore.

I was mighty angry I can tell you. Those frigging bible bashers and their on going stories of how the prophecy  is upon us is wearing mighty thin. Nobody in the god damned county cares.

They stand there with their leatherbound bibles in their hands and stare up at the red sky. Stupid mindless morons, that's what dad would have said if he hadn't croaked it last year.

But they do. They stand and they stare and they chant. As if God is going to help them out.

Science has told us that this is the end. This is the end as we know it, yes it is a long time coming, but as each day passes, it is like that your inner mind is about to explode, like something is trying to pry it's way into your head.

Anyway, like I said, the bible lot were there outside the church with its sharp steeple pointing up into the red skies. 

The stereo is on in my car and the latest news was saying that the Moon was blurring out of existance.

Who needs a frigging moon anyway.

I look towards the bible folk and they turn their faces from the red sky and turn their attention to me. They all have such sad faces. Like the pain was just too much for them.

A child runs amock and his mother slaps his legs hard with a stick. The child doesn't cry.

 I push down onto the gas pedal and I force the car on up the freeway trying to forget about all of that. Aunt May was not going to leave the house and that was that.

Mother would be disappointed, but she always did say May was always the stubborn one.

I turn off the freeway and at a crawls pace I drove down into the next town. Its Church bell was tolling and the bible folk were out trying to spread the word.

It's the prophecy, it had been foretold, we have to praise the lord and be thankful.

I shake my head and pull into a vacant car space outside the parade of shops. As I step out of the car, the hot wind is on my face. It is a hot cruel wind and it whispers at you DOOM DOOM DOOM.

At the shop front ahead of me an old man looks at me sadly and smiles. I smile back and straighten out my crumpled trouser suit.

A cop car is across the road and they are trying to stop a fight between two teenagers. Looting, it was becoming a bit of a problem since alot of the township upped and left overnight.

I crossed over to the phonebooth and picked up the handset, the line was dead.

My hair is in my face and there is a hell of alot of screaming all around me.

I step out of the phonebooth and am nearly thrown to the walk. The wind is burning my skin, it's like sunburn but twice has harsh.

I Crawl to the shop front and pick myself up, the poor old man was lying in the street and people were stepping on top of him as they fled up the main street. His poor red burned withered hand trying to reach for his specs that had fallen from his face. But they had been smashed too. The frames twisted beyond repair.

I turned to the cop that was ahead of me, he was clutching his cap and saying, "you have to run for cover ma'am"

I look at him, he is a young cop with short wavy hair, early twenties at a guess, poor boy was as scared as all of us. Yes I am scared.

It's been a long time coming.

I look up to the sky and see it raining red. Was that fire? Was it some great space volcano that had appeared right out of nowhere? Had the moon exploded? Was it indeed God who had finally given up the ghost on us all and had decided to kill us?

I, Fiona-Leigh Farrington am about to die on the spot. What will become of me? Will I end up burnt to a frazzle on the concrete?

I struggle to my car and get in, I reverse it out of the space and had a near miss with a trash can that rolled out of nowhere.

I dodge it and honked my horn. I want people to get out of the way. Damned school bus is right ahead of me. It's dirty yellow shining up red to match the sky.

The red is here. It's has overedwhelmed me. It is raining red and I scream out in terror.

And then I know nothing at all.

An arena of science talk.

"They know, you see....they know what's coming"

That's what Jow Metcalfe told me as we sat in the lecture hall. Some big wig with a power point presentation informing us what life will be like after the 'event'

I clutch my purse and want to leave, I feel quite flushed and had quite enough of all of this speculation and trash.

The sky was red for god pity sake....if doomsday was upon us, wouldn't we already be burning in its hell fires.

The sky had been red for years, since she was a little girl and mother used to sing how blue it once was and the birds used to tweet.

What aload of crap, everybody just needs to get a grip and realise that this is the new order of things.

My boyfriend Jow was supposed to be super bright, but he is a clunk like everybody else when it came to the 'event'

That's what the TV Media called it. Jack Forsythe and Stacey Matthews achoring the 6Oclock news and that was always the top story of the hour.

When I leave the lecture hall I cross the neat lawn and look up to the red sky. What if Jow was right, what if the science govermental bodys knew what was going to happen.

I bet you the President and his family already has some safe-bunker beneath the White House.

I get the bus home and that's when it started.

It rained from the skies. Red Rain. Fire that was giving everybody third degrees and there was burnt blackened hands slapping up against the bus windows as it stopped in the road.

I looked out and saw the fires from the sky. The hundreds of people ablaze as they ran for cover.

The bus was like a hot oven and everybody was screaming around me.

I look out the window again and see people lying on the walk and in the road, they were burning to death where they fell.

The old man sat next to me started to chant something from the Bible that this was what the prophecy had predicted. I knew that he was one of them, those who stood outside Churches and preached how things were meant to be.

I deemed them as crack-heads, but I am not so sure now.

He turned to me and his eyes were glazed but he smile and said, "The Lord will foresake you"

And then he stood up and went down the aisle of the bus and pushed the door open, the driver shouted at him at the top of his gruff voice, "Are you crazy?!"

But the old man stood outside and raised his arms into the air and smiled. It wasn't long before his cotton white hair was alight.

I sat firmly still and wonder where Jow is....Was he still safe in the lecture hall? Was he out looking for her and was now one of the many ahundred charred bodies on the ground up and down the streets.

I, Beth Raines am one of 19 in this bus and all of us look out and have tears rolling down out cheeks.

A fat man who's Tshirt hem was sitting on his belly looked around at me, his expression just like all of us. Blank.

The old man was then at my window, his face was burning, his skull like face stared at me and his teeth chatter before he is swept away by a fire wind.

I close my eyes tight shut to force away the image. 

Darkness. When I close my eyes it is darkness. A darkness I feel comfort in.