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THE LOST CAT PODCAST TRANSCRIPTS: SEASON 2: EPISODE 6: THE END

Released on : 4th December 2016

http://thelostcat.libsyn.com/season-2-episode-6-the-end

Once I wrote a story, and I wrote it the best that I could. And I made it all about myself, because we are all the centre of our own stories...right?

THE LOST CAT PODCAST SEASON 2, BY A P CLARKE: EPISODE 6: THE END

We rose, up and up. The sun was so bright. The blue sky so clear and so clean I had to put my hands to my eyes. I looked down and there was the scar of the city cutting right through the land and stretching out. It fell away from me until all I could see were dark scabs of buildings and tendons of road, stretching and snapping, everything a chaos of picked-at and half-mended wounds, all shrouded over in a choking cloth of smoke.

But the smoke from the fires did not reach this high.

There was nothing up here, it was silent.

I looked up and immense masses filled my gaze – shining, smooth gondolas too large to take in, hanging perfect and still in the thinning air, tethered to the megastructure by geometric sweeps of docking tines.

As we rose, the lowest of the tines began sweeping past us, smooth perfect curves gliding out beyond my sight.

Now I could see the curve of the horizon too.

I could feel the pull in my guts of the great wave rushing towards me, just beneath that horizon, rising and coming ever closer.

I attempted to move about, but my arms just passed through the air I was surrounded by. I had almost no control over my ascent. I had no idea how long we climbed.

And still we rose.

I asked, “what happened?”

“Simply, I turned it off.”

“You can do that?”

“We are in control, and we have the controls. And we like to have our controls attach to the true machinery of the world, and affect it directly. We will have none of these failsafes, computer assisted decision making and automatic cut-offs, that you down there take for marks of safety.”

He held his little machine up so I could look at it.

“All the way on, or all the way off. Quite the view, don’t you think?”

We passed close to one of the lower gondolas. It's hull was a bronze that did not so much reflect the sun as spread the light upon its skin like butter. It was smooth and cool, even from here, and there was no break in the hull that I could see. Its top layer was concentric rings of glass, spinning slowly.

It too passed beneath us and away.

We were moving through webs of tines and supports, tying the gondolas together and to the megastructure that we were just reaching the very lowest limits of.

“Where are we going?”

“Do you see the largest gondola there?”

As we rounded a hull I saw its vast bulk dwarfing most of the others around it. It was impossible to take it all in, even from this distance.

“Yes.”

“The leader is there. It is his and his alone.”

“How will we reach it?”

“Simply I will expel you from myself and your movement away will create momentum in myself towards the main body of the gondola.”

“Wait...” I began.

“That's physics, my dear boy. Control. Already the defence forces are moving towards us, and while they deal with you, I shall be free to move.”

“But.” I continued.

“Thank you,” he said. “You have done everything I asked.”

And then he unfurled and I flew out towards the edges while he gently swept towards the distant body.

I flew out but the tug I felt on my limbs told me I was now falling too. I curved down out and away from the gondolas.

And then I was grabbed and pushed upwards. In a flaming ball I was pushed up through the supports and finally onto the bronzed deck of one of the massive craft.

“How goes it, chap?” cried Lisica, as she helped me to my feet. “Got you, friend.”

The Cinder who had grabbed me let me down and then looked out over the deck. Their body glowed strangely in the thin air.

Another Cinder landed a few feet from us, carrying the Empty Man

They had grabbed us both from the air I looked down at myself and found my sleeve was on fire. I tamped it down with my free hand.

The Cinder gave me a dirty look, big Lisica gave me a big hug – her eyes beamed out from behind her mask. But there were specks of red on the material. I looked down and there was blood all over her jacket and some of it, now, was on me.

She clasped my shoulders: “It’s good to be here, friend,” she said, intensely

The Empty Man was getting up too. Here-arranged his collar and tie, and opened his mouth to speak.

And Lisica slashed it vertically from chin to nose. His skin flapped loosely, and he could only make fluttering noises, as his lips moved loosely in the fresh breeze.

“You will tell no-one what to do,” she said.

Then the flaps of his skin began to move against the wind, and started to join together.

“My dear, you will have to do more that… ”

And she cut his head off.

His arms leapt up, grabbing the head, and pulling it back down. As it joined once again with his body, the Empty Man's face was smiling. He began walking towards her.

“Just what do you think you are doing?”

So Lisica got to work: slashing at the Empty Man all across his body. She just kept going.

Every time she slashed, some flap of him would fly apart, and every time the flaps and patches of his skin come together, as he calmly got closer and closer. she hacked and hacked again and again, and she started screaming as she did, and through a cloud of himself, the Empty Man was smiling widely

And then the smile fell from the ragged remains of the Empty Man’s mouth as slowly, so slowly, the cloud of him began to thing and slabs of his skin fell to the floor, slack and cold.

He let out a roar. He puts his hands out as he continued to approach Lisica.

And he lost fingers, and skin and more and more of him, and he was almost upon us.

And then...he was not holding his hand out any more and he was not walking forwards, and the sound he made was just wind passing through leaves and a small cloud of scraps and skin slowly blew away in front of us, floating out in to the sky.

Lisica fell to her knees, taking huge lungfuls of the thin air, the sword shuddered in her hand as she fought to hold it.

I got up to help her, for we were not done.

Static filled our ears then, as the deck was suddenly filled with figures in masks and body armour

But they did not create a perimeter. They just approached.

The Ignizois’ flames flared orange and they said, in turn:

“I will burn true until spent.”

“I will give light to the benighted.”

“I will give warmth to the exposed.”

“I would burn any that would extinguish the flame.”

“And let nothing stand in the path of the fire.”

“The path of the fire.”

From the ground, Lisica held up her sword, and said:

“The path of the fire.”

And the deck lit up in front of me as the Ignizoi attacked the men, and the bodies flew.

“Are you OK?” I said, helping Lisica

“I’ll be fine. Come on, that was pretty impressive, right?”

“Why are you here?”

“To give you a bottle of wine, of course! Just like you asked!” And she produced a bottle of wine from her clothes. Of course she did.

“Old Ragsy there thought no one else would follow him in to the mealstrom. Well he was wrong, wasn’t he.”

Security were falling around us, some in flames. More turned up from below

I got her up on to her knees.

“What the hell was that like, inside him?”

“Weird.”

The screams of the Ignizoi changed in pitch, becoming ever harsher. I could feel their heat now.

“I have to help them,” said Lisica, pushing herself up.

“You can’t!”

“Shut up, friend.”

“You’ll die.”

“Everybody dies.”

“We can get back!”

She looked at me. She said: “Good friend, there is no way back! There is no past! There is only a bright shining thread in to the future. The fight is here! The fight is now!”

She got to her feet and readied her sword. “You are an enormous idiot, friend, and I love you. Raise a glass to me, won’t you?”

“I promise,” I said.

She said: “I’m dancing.”

And she ran join the fray.

I took a deep breath as if to call out after her.

“Shut up!” she cried, back towards me.

She disappeared into the crowd, yelling as she did.

As I saw one flame extinguish I backed towards the edge of the deck, and felt the surge of the wave brush past me as it claimed another. Soon my wave would be here. I could feel it.

I looked out over the railings at the thin, slick tines stretching out towards the giant gondola in the pin sharp distance.

I raised the bottle in Lisica's direction.

“To you,” I said.

And I finished the one last glass of wine.

Beneath the night behind the dawn Before we all were even born It was always gonna happen It was always gonna end this way That thing you feel beneath the ground Soon you’ll feel it all around It was always gonna happen It was always gonna end this way Every drum and every gun Might as well shoot at the sun It was always gonna happen It was always gonna end this way Light up, my love! Light all the candles! Burn, my love! Fill this room with light, my love! On this final night My love, light all the candles Burn, my love! Fill this room with light Tonight, and every night It was always gonna happen It was always gonna end this way Don’t get mad and don’t feel blue There’s really nothing you could do All the tears and all the words We’ll find out what comes afterwards Hold my hand open your eyes Walk into this with heads held high Beneath the night behind the dawn Before we all were even born It was always gonna happen It was always gonna end this way Light up, my love! Light all the candles! Burn, my love! Fill this room with light, my love! On this final night My love, light all the candles! Burn, my love! Fill this room with light Tonight, and every night we can My love

I was halfway along a tine, connecting the two gondolas. There was no wind. It was perfectly still. I did not look down and I did not look up. The surface was a metre across and easy to walk along, as long as one did not think of where one was. I walked, staring right ahead of me.

And most of all, I did not look behind me, because Lisica would not be there. So I walked on, only looking forwards.

She was right, of course. There was nothing beneath me now, nothing behind me. There was no point going back for where I had come from had gone, in wind and smoke and fire.

There was only me left now. I was the only one.

And rising up, behind the world, I could feel the pull of the wave, sucking me towards it as it grew and grew and came ever inevitably closer.

I carried on and never looked down and never looked back for what was there to see?

I stepped on to the main deck of the stratospheric gondola. The behemoth had filled my gaze long before I ever reached it, such was its size. The main gangway led into a sweeping corridor that led down and I followed it in.

In there, somewhere, was the leader of all this.

In there somewhere was the architect of the Dark Cloud and every terrible thing.

Inside the massive ship the air was close and insulation in the walls sucked away all noise such that my footsteps were a dull thud. In this way the silence was loud like turning the volume up so far you can hear the hiss.

And in all this, the question kept running through my head: ‘What will I do? What will I do?’

The corridors were smooth and rounded in shape, and they curved around and around, gently sloping down, separating at junctions and joining again. In this way I lost sight of the day and the sun, and in this way the light was always the same, no matter where I went.

Every corner was the same, every junction was the same – just the same corridors bending back on themselves. I walked on and on, always forwards. Every where smelt the same. No distinguishing marks, no maps, no detail. I had no idea where I was. I went in further and further. I had no idea how far I had come. Deeper and deeper.

And I realised that perhaps I could do something, even me. But what will I do? For chance or choice or fate or luck had brought me here, it had brought me here, and I could make a difference, I could make up for everything done, I could make it right. What will I do?

And still the light was the same, and still the smell was the same. The walls and the ceiling were one moulded perfect untouchable tunnel that led me nowhere. I could not orient myself. Only the tug of the wave was constant.

And still the empty corridors led on into the empty nothing of the impossibly vast hulk. I could not find my way out. I could not find my way on. I could not do a thing.

A great hollow grew in my stomach, like the sea leaving the shoreline as the wave builds, drawing everything to it. I could feel it coming. I could feel it flooding the corridors completely leaving my body floating against a ceiling, buried in a maze, deep in the darkness, miles in the air. Alone.

I fell to the floor. I wept. My body wracked on all fours. My tears fell to the floor. The tears ran perfectly straight down the flawless, frictionless surface of the corridor.

But there… the tears split. They separated in to two streams making crooked lines along the floor. I crawled over to this glorious anomaly and I saw a mote of dirt the tears had become caught on. It was a dark, hard material, like rock. It was there, just resting on the otherwise perfect smooth floor.

I knew what it was. It was from a statue.

I looked up and saw, on a slight curve in the wall, a scuff mark and leading off from it, tiny broken off pieces of the statue that had been transported through here.

Now I had no idea what this would lead me to. I had no idea if this was the right thing to do. But I had nothing, and this was something. So I followed the tiny specks of a broken statue.

I followed them deep, deep in to the cavernous body. Down and down – long corridors with far steeper slopes than before. Corridors that opened up and spiralled down around immense chambers of vertical light.

And finally the corridor stopped at a doorway, and in the doorway, a statue, posed as if pleading for their life - arms out, face up, back arched.

And the walls had seams here, fanning out in geometric regularity from a panel on the wall, deep grooves six inches deep and two wide, still perfectly smooth of course, lined the walls and ceilings and floors.

I stepped passed the statue and through the doors and before me there were a thousand statues stretching out across the floor of an immense holding bay. The statues stood dwarfed beneath the gargantuan space, with deep seams running all the way up its walls, disappearing into the vastness of its ceiling far, far above, and running back down again far in the distance.

On the far side I could see a balcony, and a view of a perfect blue sky.

As the space vanished upwards above me, I walked out between the statues.

There were statues stood proud, staring out. There were statues crouching with their arms over their heads. There were some together, hugging each other. I realised, as I walked, that these statues were deliberately placed, in tableau.

“At last, we meet,” came a voice through the forest. “Our little sausage.”

I spun round and saw an extremely tall man in a black suit whose swept-back hair and pointed skull made his eyes look huge. They stood, as if without a care, by a large control panel. Their eyes looked entirely at rest, and pointed with absolutely intensity at me. They looked, if anything, amused.

“Who are you?” I attempted.

“Oh, I am sure I am no one special. So what brings you all the way here, to my little collection?”

“I lost my cat,” I said.

“I might suggest you take better care of your pets in the future.”

I tried to circle around him, keeping several statues between him and me. He slid around with me, gliding along the smooth floor.

“Still, it is impressive that you have come so far. All the way from down there, through the cloud to here, right at the heart of things.”

“The Dark Cloud is gone, you know.” I said.

The man smiled. “It is a shame, I suppose. The cloud did rather shield us from looking at that awful place. I shall miss the cloud. But tell me – do you feel it?”

“I am sorry, what?”

“The wave. Do you feel it coming for you? It comes for all those with eyes to see it. All those living their lives closer to the fire. Those bright enough for it to notice. Up here, alone, in the sun, you are very bright indeed. Do you feel it?”

I did not know what to say.

“I am very proud of it,” he continued. “It is so much better than the cloud, don't you think? Mobile, directed, invisible: most of them do not even know it exists. And look at the things it makes!”

He spread his arms out to take in the entire room, filled with statues. “Do you like my pets? I gather them where I can. It is, if you wish, a hobby.”

He walked through the forest of arms and heads.

“Each one a final moment of life. Each one a choosing of their final moment. Look here: one stands proud as they face their end, facing the on-rushing wave. Others attempt a dignified pose.” He pointed at a statue deep in thought. “One that expresses how they think of themselves. I particularly like these ones, I must say.”

He walked past a small crowd of statues posed as if in a race.

“Some attempt to run, as if they could outrun a wave. And you can see in their proud faces, the moment that they realise they can not. Look! Look into their eyes. These are some of my favourites.”

“Others cower,” he said, resting his hands upon their lowered heads. “Bless them.”

“Others believe that in this final moment lies a chance for something meaningful. I love these most of all.”

As he was saying this he walked through the fields of statues.

“For every moment of expression is destroyed in the horrifying gravity of time, lost amongst the noise of every other moment, or simply missed by a loved one not noticing. But here, in the very moment where they lose all expression, they have the chance to say one last thing, that will last forever. They have a chance to say what they really mean to those they really love. And in this moment is who they really are.”

I stayed away from him as he waltzed through the statues.

“And so I bring them all here, and have them stare at each other.” And with that, he began to laugh.

As I walked around I could see the faces of every statue. Every one of them with the pure clear eyes and drawn together eyebrows of those putting all of their strength in to one last expression of themselves.

Laughing and laughing, he waltzed through the crowd of statues.

And all of them, every last one, picked up and moved, their final pose rendered meaningless by removing it from their context. They were made a mockery of, up here, away from everything.

And I was brought back to the Cinder who guarded me in the Stone Village and his words to me 'What will you do? What will you do? In the final moment, what will yo do?’

“Aaaah, oh yes, I am very fond of my pets. and soon I see, you shall be one too. Tell me, what will you do? What will you do?”

I saw Lisica run in to the fray. I saw the fervour in Spiris' eyes. I saw the fires and the dead eyes of every one below and I had to do something.

And there was an opening, And I ran at the laughing figure and grabbed his hair and ripped at his throat and tore his head clean off.

The laughing stopped, and the head flapped in my hand.

And all was quiet for a moment.

But there beneath, on top of his severed neck, there was another head, exactly the same as the last. It looked at me, and started laughing.

“Oh dear,” it said.

I looked down, and the head in my hand was laughing again too.

I dropped it and launched myself at the figure again.

“Oh no oh no!” it said in mock pleading. “Please don't do any more!”

I dug my fingers into the front of his face ripped my hands apart. His face fell in tatters away and revealed the same face again, laughing still.

I tore and I tore, five and six heads, lying around me. There had to be a something true here. There had to be something real. There is no such thing as magic.

I ripped another head off and, this time, it looked up at me terrified.

“No more. No more, that’s enough. Please. No more.”

And I ripped its head off and threw it away.

And beneath uncoiled mass black tentacles that rose up from the body's neck and unfurled towards the ceiling. It's great suckers swelled and rippled as they attempted to find an attachment.

Slicks of ooze spread down the body and on to the floor while a deep grinding roar rose from the neck that I could feel in my bones more than hear in my ears.

The beast towered above me.

And I reached my hands in to its neck and ripped at its flesh, and it fell to pieces like paper.

And beneath, smiling at me with that same blank smile, and the slightly rounded face that hid his bone structure, was The Empty Man.

“Oh my, What did you do?” He inquired smugly.

I can not say what I was feeling then. I knew I had been crying as my eyes stung. I knew that I had been screaming because my throat was dry.

I brought my arms down upon his head and crushed it and then tore it away from his body and before me there was nothing but a corpse with a silent absence above his neck.

And from behind me came a voice.

“Oh my. What did you do?”

And to my right, and to my left...

“What did you do? What did you do? Oh my!”

A dozen or more figures were walking towards me, smiling at me with that same blank smile.

“What did you do?”

I circled away from them, again keeping statues between me and the Empty Men.

“You are not the real leader.”

“I am sure that I am not.”

“I will stop you. I will stop you!”

And he laughed.

“No you will not. And here is why you will not. You are nothing. You did not find your cat so much as your cat found you. You did not seek so much as be found. You are useful to me because there is so little you there at all. All the great gifts of your solidity and you did nothing with it, with all your weight you affected no change in this world, with all your gravity you turned nothing to your cause. You left your meat to rot, and so I used it, who had use of it. And now look at you. Look behind you.”

I looked out, past the statues, over the balcony at the perfect blue sky, darkening now, as if falling in to shadow, as under a great wave.

“Can you see it? Your wave is approaching. You can feel it, can't you?”

I could feel it in my belly, in my legs.

“It is coming.”

I could feel the immense walls crushing down upon me.

“What will you do?” they asked. “What will you do?”

And as I circled away, I stopped, right above the central control panel. As the Empty Man said, They liked their controls to control.

What will I do?

The Empty Man smiled as he continued: “Will you give up? Or will you...”

I said “whatever works,” and flipped up the gating circuits and pressed the big red button, all the way on.

Silently and swiftly, the great walls fell open along their seams and the holding bay dropped its floor and dumped its contents in to the air.

And I fell.

There was no wind. There was no sense of movement even. All around, thousands of statues fell with me. They turned slowly as they fell about.

I can see the gondolas disappearing fast above me as they were lost within the bulk of the megastructure.

I can hear a turbulence now as the air thickens and creates wind around us. I can see some of the statues begin to crumble slightly.

And as we fall onto the city, there would be a rain the likes of which there has never seen before, and this would be a thing indeed. No, not Spiris and their ruthless battle for a final victory. No, not Lisica and her relentless fight against the forces arrayed against us but still a sign: unmistakeable, clear, for the people below to know not only the cruelty above them but the brittleness too and in this way...

I stopped, for this would not happen.

But still I was happy.

For still I had taken a step I could not take back

A step that once taken changed ever step after. A defining choice, and I had made it. In anyone’s life, this is the true rebellion. This the real revolution.

I wish, looking back I could have known that every step we take is such.

And we fell, and when we hit, our pieces would scatter across the streets and in to every garden, such that they would be sweeping us up for years.

And if one person looks up, and sees something new, I will have changed the world.

This is what I did with the time that I had.

I turned over, to face the oncoming city, so close I could see familiar streets, and I could see now the wave, dark and full, rushing towards me, surging and foaming at its peak.

I thought about my cat. He would wake up the next day and I would be gone. I would be lost. He will not know where I was. I hope he will be OK.

I am not sure I believe in final words. But for what it is worth, here is the last thing I thought.

“We are all falling”, and I smiled.

And then the wave hit me.

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING.

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