Bloody LJ word limits...
Continued from Part 1...
***
They met several times after that day, running into each other on buses, boats and freeway lanes, bumping into each other at cafes, carnivals and coliseums. It wasn’t particularly unsurprising, really - Famine and Pollution did often go together, after all, and it was all in the line of work. (Or in the name of art, as Pollution would frequently emphasize.)
If one were to observe them from the outside, they would’ve seen two men - one tall and thin with dark features and high cheekbones, the other younger, with a lithe body, long scraggly hair and blank eyes - meeting every few years over the next few decades for no apparent reason at all. Sometimes they would sit down at exclusive little restaurants in the south of France, and talk animatedly about whatever they had been up to:
( “I heard about Chernobyl,” one would say. “Well done,” he’d add, with the briefest of poorly hidden smiles.
“Thanks,” the other would answer gratefully, eyes shining. “So what’s this I’m hearing about The Diet Book of the Century?”)
And sometimes they’d just sit by the river Uck with a couple of cigarettes and say nothing at all.
Some days Famine called him ‘White’. Other days it was ‘Weiss’, or ‘Albus’, or even ‘Chalky’ depending on where they were in the world. Sometimes Famine would talk to him as if he was a different person than the one he’d met last time; sometimes he’d make up excuses and let himself pretend that nothing had changed between them. But no matter what anyone called them, they were above all Pollution and Famine, and they both knew there was no escaping it. There was no escaping any of it.
They met several times after that day, but it was never really a coincidence.
***
Raven Sable, corporate head of Newtrition and inventor of CHOW™, was sitting in a boardroom with select members of his West Coast base and listening to a new advertising agency pitch their vision for his product.
“I thought we had decided on blue packaging,” Derek-from-public-relations whispered to him as the bright orange posters were revealed at the front of the room.
“Is there a problem?” asked Brian-from-advertising.
“Well, as you know, our main concern is to sell Dr. Sable’s product, and we don’t understand how deviating from our original agreement is going to help us in this regard. Orange doesn’t sell products,” put in Nick-from-marketing
“Bullshit,” said Brian. “You don’t want to sell CHOW™; it has enough money behind it that anyone could do that. You want to sell the idea of CHOW™. What you’re selling is the concept.”
“But orange -”
“Orange,” interrupted Brian, “says ‘this is new, this is bold, this is better than all the substandard blue-packaged mediocrity’. Orange stands out. Orange gets people’s attention. Orange says ‘take a risk and try me, you won’t regret it’.” He raised his eyebrows. “Besides, it’s the new blue.”
Sable scratched his chin. “I like it,” he said, eliciting defeated sighs from a couple of his employees. “Thank you for your time,” he said to the small group from the agency. “I’ll get in touch with you tomorrow to discuss further details.” He rose from his seat, satisfied. There was a lot banking on CHOW™ - it was his pride and joy, the ultimate diet food (with no nutritional content whatsoever, of course) - and if things went right, it would prove a huge asset to his corporation.
He swung open the door, stepping out of the boardroom only to find Pollution waiting for him on the other side, leaning casually against the opposing wall and inspecting his fingernails.
“I heard some of that,” he said by way of greeting. “Sounds promising.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“What are you using for the packaging?”
Famine looked at him. “Biodegradable, eco-friendly material that disappears completely from the moment it’s thrown out,” he said wryly.
“You’re a cruel, cruel man, Sable,” grinned Pollution. “ I might’ve believed you, too, if only I hadn’t known you to be such a sarcastic bastard.”
“It also serves as a miracle fertilizer,” Sable added, with every modicum of seriousness.
“Naturally,” Pollution conceded with good-natured skepticism.
At that moment, a man pushed past Pollution deliberately as he made his way down the hall, confident eyes raking over his body as he turned the corner. Pollution stared after him.
“Who was that?”
“Mr. Orange-Is-The-New-Blue. Just started up a new agency in Pittsburgh. I’ve just taken him on as head of advertising.”
“Huh,” said Pollution. “Anyway, I heard you were in town and I thought we could do drinks.”
“Any particular occasion?”
Pollution scowled at this. “Damn Clean-Air Initiative crap. Not to mention composting is catching on. I need to get drunk.”
“You always did have a particularly mature way of dealing with things.”
“Is that a yes?”
Sable flipped open his slimline black cell phone and dialed the office. “Jessica?” he said. “Could you postpone this afternoon’s appointments until tomorrow? Fine. Yes. Good. Thank you.”
“You big softie.” Pollution muttered happily as they stepped out of the building and into the clear October sunshine.
A slim, black limo was waiting at the foot of the office steps. Sable liked slim things. He motioned to the car. “Go ahead,” he said to Pollution.
“No, let’s take my car, it’s just down the street. I’ve been wanting to show it off for ages.”
Famine ran a hand over his face. “Fine.” He tapped on the car window.
“Sir?” the driver asked, rolling the screen down.
“Your services are not required today, Marlon. Thank you.”
He turned to Pollution. “Well?” he said irritably.
“It’s just down the street.”
“Bit warm for this time of year, isn’t it?” remarked Famine as they started to walk.
Pollution beamed. “I’m glad you noticed. Most people don’t give a shit about global warming, no matter how many glaciers I melt. No one appreciates my work,” he sighed dramatically, not for the first time that decade.
“So you keep telling me.”
“Well, it’s true- ” he began. “Ah, here we are,” he said suddenly, stopping in front a black Corvette.
“A Corvette? Doesn’t quite seem your style.”
Pollution laughed. “It isn’t. Mine’s the one in front of it.”
And Famine lifted his eyes to the white, mud-splattered Hummer H1, staring at it in disbelief. It was an overly large vehicle (with an overly large fuel consumption to match), a veritable symbol for petroleum excess and it was possibly the ugliest thing he had seen in the last twenty years. [5] Famine winced.
“It has terrible emission control,” Pollution said brightly.
“I see,” Famine said tightly. “It’s very… destructive-looking.”
“You say the nicest things, Sable,” Pollution winked, undeterred as he put the car into reverse and smashed the Corvette’s headlights in the process.
When they were seated a an old Irish pub somewhere on 54th street, Pollution was quick to order the hardest liquor they had [6], and Famine asked for a water, much to Pollution’s chagrin.
“It’s not called ‘doing drinks’ if you don’t actually drink, you know,” he said petulantly.
“Some of us have to get up for work tomorrow.”
Pollution groaned. “This is work! Our entire existences are work. You’re working right now, just by being here, because now everyone in the place is starved to death. Famine isn’t a 9 to 5 job.”
“ Obviously.” Famine said curtly, sipping his water.
Pollution looked at him sadly. “I wish you would just, just...” He took a large swallow of his foul-smelling drink and sighed. “Just do something about it.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Look, do you ever get frustrated with your job? Ever wish you could do more than what you do? That there might be something more to us than bringing about the end of the world?”
“No.”
He threw his hands up in the air. “Exactly my point. You’re not living. You’re just… whatisit, going through the motions.” He downed the rest of his drink in one gulp and signaled for another.
Fifteen minutes later, Famine had moved from the bar and was sitting at one of the corner booths, attempting to push Pollution off his lap.
“You’re completely intolerable when you’re drunk,” he was saying.
“You’re completely intolerable all the time,” Pollution mumbled, hands pawing at Famine’s tie and collar. “I don’t understand you.”
“Because you’re drunk.”
Pollution shook his head. “Because you say things, sometimes, that make me think you understand what all this is all about, and then whenever I bring them up, you ignore me and smoke your fucking cigarettes instead.”
“This isn’t about composting, is it?”
“No,” said Pollution morosely, attaching his lips to Famine’s neck for a brief moment before Famine forcefully pushed him away, scowling. “I’ve known you for sixty years, Sable. Sixty bloody years.”
Famine scoffed. “A wink in time. An imperceptible blip on the face of the universe.”
“Maybe. Maybe for you,” continued Pollution in a determined slur. “Even so,” he added, knocking over Sable’s bottle of water, “what are we doing?”
“You’re making a complete fool of yourself, and I’m attempting to prevent your hand from continuing to poke at my eye like that.”
“No,” Pollution moaned, hand dropping miserably to his side. “We’ve been meeting for ages - we say hello and we talk then say goodbye and go back to our lives. Last year, I saw you almost every month. What are we doing?”
Famine rose to his feet. “Enough of this,” he said. “I don’t expect you to understand the inner workings of the universe when you’ve been on the planet for less than a century, but there’s no need to be unprofessional about it.”
Pollution looked him over balefully. “Oh, just fuck off.”
Famine raised a perfect eyebrow. “Charming,” he said, and left.
Famine passed the rest of his evening alone, looking over some figures for Newtrition and trying not to think about everything Pollution had just said.
Pollution, to everyone’s surprise, spent the night with Orange-Is-The-New-Blue. By dawn, he was nowhere to be found.
***
The two figures met in a place-between-places, staggeringly bright and deep-reachingly dark all at once. There were no people, plants, or animals. There were no roads or rivers, no skies or skyscrapers or anything of the kind. There was nothing. A nothing that stretched on until the end of existence. And then some.
“Are you sure?” said a voice.
“YES,” said another. “QUITE SURE.”
“How long do we have?”
Silence.
“HARD TO SAY. THE WORLD IS SHIFTING, FAMINE.”
And it was.
***
It took Famine six months to catch up with Pollution. Over the years Pollution had grown very adept at making himself invisible, and if he didn’t want to be found by anyone, he wouldn’t be. Famine, however, wasn’t just anyone.
It was a blustery April day when Famine found Pollution huddled under the awning of a meat shop in central Amsterdam, knees drawn up to his chest and bags under his unfocused gray eyes.
Famine knelt down and put a warm hand on his shoulder. “I want you to come with me.”
Pollution looked up wearily. “I’d really rather not, Sable.”
“It’s not as if sulking is going to do you any good, White. I need to talk to you.”
Pollution massaged his temples, closing his eyes.
“It’s important.”
Pollution glared at him. “Oh, alright. Hurry up, then,” he grumbled, allowing Famine to pull him to his feet.
“Thank you,” Famine sighed in relief, and grabbed on to his arm. One second they were standing on the wet, windy street, and the next second they weren’t. It was as simple as that.
Suddenly, it was night. The city felt warm and uncomfortable, lit up under the dark sky in a wash of red lights. Overhead shop awnings glowed with neon-bright characters, and advertisements shifted across the giant screens plastered up above. A flashing sign in the distance told him it was 4:25 am, explaining why the place seemed so eerily quiet.
A solitary car whizzed by with alarming speed, causing Pollution to jump nervously on to the pavement, looking to Famine for an explanation. But Famine appeared to be preoccupied with a little old lady and her trolley. Approaching them, Pollution overheard a rapid exchange of sibilant ‘s’ sounds, and other foreign things that required abilities like tongue-curling to say properly.
“Here,” Famine said, turning back to Pollution and handing him some dim sum.
“You speak Mandarin?” asked Pollution, perplexed.
“You do too. You just have to access it.”
“Oh,” he said, stabbing his food with a chopstick. “So what did you want to say that was so important? Why China?”
Famine looked resolutely ahead as he started walking past rows of concrete buildings, each one coloured the same dull shade of gray.
“It’s almost here.”
They walked past the late night pubs, where a group of rowdy teenagers emerged laughing, spitting on the sidewalk as they stumbled home. Around the next corner, two elderly men were seated at a park bench, playing a game of Chinese chess under the dim glow of the streetlight.
“What is?”
Famine reached his destination; a tall, rectangular, non-descript building that towered above all the others. The doors opened at his touch, and he motioned for Pollution to follow him into the elevator.
“The end of the world.”
Pollution stared at him, eyes wide. “That’s impossible. Not now.”
Famine shrugged. “Apparently. Death says things are changing. He saw the demon with the anti-Christ,” he said dully, getting off at the top floor, and stepping out onto the roof.
“So what happens then?” Pollution asked quietly, hair tickling his throat under the light breeze.
“I don’t know,” said Famine. “We ride up on our motorbikes -”
“Motorbikes?”
“Why not? Anyway, we put on one last show, and then… that’s it, I guess,” he trailed off uncertainly.
“That’s it,” Pollution echoed hollowly. He dragged his feet over to the edge of the roof, and stared down sadly. “What if I don’t want the world to end?” he murmured to his feet.
Famine came up and stood beside him. “I figured out what it is about you that was different from the rest of us.”
“Oh?”
“War and I have never really concerned ourselves with the outcome. We both knew this day would come eventually, but we never really thought about what it would mean. We just carried out our jobs, as was expected of us. The same thing, century after century. Death…. well, it’s not as if he had anything to worry about to begin with. But you, on the other hand, live like a human.”
“I… what?”
“Like a mortal. Like someone who knows they’re going to die, aware of their own mortality. It makes everything seem bigger somehow, doesn’t it? More important, more urgent, more now. I think I’ve always admired you for it.”
“… thank you?”
“You were right, you know, about what you said last fall. In fact, I think you made altogether too much sense for someone that intoxicated,” he lowered his voice, reaching out a pale, long-fingered hand to Pollution’s cheek.
“Um, what are you doing, Sable?” Pollution asked, averting his eyes.
“Living,” Famine replied, and kissed him.
Pollution tasted like poison; fatal, addictive, and somewhat euphoric against his lips. Kissing Pollution was like an instant high, his presence suddenly overwhelming, with talented hands and candy-wrapper skin as it shivered under his touch. Famine tangled his fingers deep in Pollution’s hair and let his mind fall back to the slick, mind-numbing sensations that threatened to engulf him, tipping his head forward and delighting in the sounds Pollution made in return. Kissing Pollution felt like the end of the world; final, definite and unavoidable, and more than a little disappointing when it was over.
“So,” breathed Pollution against his throat a moment later. “Why China?
“Beijing? It’s the air pollution capital of the world.” Famine drew him closer, and Pollution smiled like the dawn. “I thought you knew.”
Morning broke in the distance, a pale strip of light stretching out over the crushing blackness of the city. Pollution and Famine looked to the east, blinking as the light began to filter through the haze, and together, they watched the smog rise.
_______________________________________________________________
[5] Also, it was not slim. At all.
[6] Famine suspected it was actually dishwashing detergent.
***
ETA: Does anyone know how to do linked footnotes? Much obliged. :)