I got out of bed, and shivered. Edith said it was the middle of April, and even I remembered April being warmer than this.

I am a digger. I'm one of a thousand and we were born to be diggers.

The ocean is a monster, Georgie told Judy when he watched her throw a sand dollar into the water.

One way or another, the fallout has carved its marks on all of us.

I had to go out. That meant a full hazardous materials suit to avoid the possibility of airborne contagion.

Space split from time, the future began pulling away from the present, and tents appeared.

The first of the buildings fell today. The salt had eaten away at the foundations, the water churned and crashed into the walls, until it buckled under the weight of sixteen storeys of concrete and collapsed.

When the bright green light left her eyes, I had no idea of the pain that would come after.

It’s early evening when you finally get home.

It’s the silence that gets to you.

The emptiness of the library was as unsettling as always.

Bastian sat heavily in the angle formed by tree trunk and crust.

It has been one month since the solar storm and it doesn’t look like the power is coming back on.

To start at the start, I suppose we must go back to the hospital.

Dull grey foam swallows the boulders at the cliff base. The foam, cliff and sky all fade into one, grey on grey on grey.

The waiter took one look at the Countess of Wessex and turned tail.

That summer was so hot the eucalyptus tree in the back garden dripped oil, making the whole neighbourhood smell disinfected and clean.

Fresh, clean paper. Ages before us, people replaced it with small digital devices, replaced everything with those damned things. Then, The Singularity happened.

Awesome meets Vicar’s link, travels deep into the Shog’s past, and gleans the stones. Awesome’s activity is represented in Vicar’s mind as a rotating red orb.

As I study her sitting half-undressed on my cot, I realize I recognize her from before the bomb. Or I think I do.