Birds of Paradise by Oliver Langmead (read any book .TXT) 📗

chair, and they munch through packets of crisps and watch the storm together: the way the hills light up every time lightning strikes. In the pauses, the darkness is so complete that all Adam can see in the windows is his own reflection – a stooped giant, wrapped in white bandages.

For days, Adam wakes to yet more rain. Then, one day, the rain stops and the world outside is water. There is a dull dawn of great grey clouds, low over the murky brown flood that has consumed the landscape. All outside is still, and the hospital room is quiet, and Adam feels as if he has awoken to a moment outside of time. It takes him a while to realise that the power is out – that all his machines are still, and the lights are off. Slowly, he disentangles himself from his cloak of cables, pulling needles from his arms, and unpeeling the stickers attaching monitors to him. He gently presses at the architecture of wires keeping his chest closed beneath his bandages; they scratch and scrape at his ribs, and there is a reparative needling, but no pain.

A black silhouette in the sky breaks the peace, the blur of its blades whirling the clouds. A helicopter is coming.

Crow arrives surrounded by staff: nurses, and orderlies, and doctors. She looks tired, and is wearing the same clothes as yesterday. The group gather around Owl’s bed, and needles flash as they are thrust into him; he is punctured and filled with sedatives. Carefully, they free him of the machines, place the wilting flowers of his collection aside, and prepare a route. They start to roll his bed away, towards the open doorway.

“Where are they taking him?” Adam asks.

Crow wipes at her eyes with the back of her wrist. “A different hospital. One with power. The floods got a lot worse last night. How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay.”

“Good. Our own transport should be here soon.” Crow lies on Adam’s bed with a sigh, resting among the fallen petals of flowers.

Adam peers out. “All that water,” he says. “Like the sea’s swallowed the world.”

“Worse every year,” says Crow. “There won’t be much land left at this rate.”

“Plenty of sky, though.”

She smiles. “I’m going to go fetch a few things.”

Adam watches Owl’s helicopter depart, becoming a distant dot, and when it has vanished into the far horizon the grey clouds begin to clear, revealing patches of blue. A boat appears in the distance, with froth writhing in its wake.

“I found your coat,” says Crow, when she returns. The coat is beaten and worn and full of holes, but somebody has thought to wash it – there is no mud or blood staining it. Adam gratefully shrugs it on. “And that,” she says, peering out at the boat, “should be for us.” She gives Adam a backpack, and covers him with a few more blankets. “For the journey.”

The hospital is dark and mostly deserted, but for a few remaining members of staff. The lower floor is completely flooded, and bits of medical equipment bob in the murky waters. Crow helps Adam roll through to the grand central staircase, and there she sits at the edge, making a tower of playing cards while she waits. By the time she crowns it, the waters are lapping at the step on which it stands. “This is the first time it’s stopped raining in a week,” she says. “It’s like a monsoon season.” She leans back and watches the flood as it curls towards the base of her tower.

All at once, the tower collapses. Cards float away: kings and queens, aces and hearts. Adam watches them drift and bob and remembers the rains that struck him back in Manchester. It feels a lot longer than a week ago. The insect buzz of the boat’s motor fills the hall as it sweeps through the hospital doors. It’s no more than a small motorised tub, but it’s nimble, and being directed by a broad-shouldered figure in a yellow mackintosh coat. The boat’s brightly dressed captain brings it around to the foot of the steps. “How you both doing?” he rumbles, merrily.

“Hi, Crab.”

With one foot on the steps, and one foot in his boat, Crab keeps it steady so that Adam can stumble aboard. He is surprised by how weak his legs are; it is as if all his strength leaked out of the hole in his chest. The boat rocks, and Adam seats himself as centrally as he can, while Crow situates herself at the tub’s fore.

“All good?” rumbles Crab.

“Let’s get going,” says Crow.

“Right you are.” Seating himself back at the boat’s motor, Crab beckons it into life. He leans forward, and pats Adam on the knee. “Back into the bright wide world, eh lad?”

The world is indeed bright, and Adam watches as the dark bulk of the remote hospital slowly recedes. There are still staff up on its roof, and they wave at the boat as it departs, and Adam raises his hand in return: a thanks that feels insufficient. Ahead, the endless waters are broken only by the tips of the rolling hills that emerge from the flood, and Adam finds it difficult to imagine there is any dry land left. It feels as if the waters have swallowed the world; have washed away the worst of it, perhaps.

* * *

Yorkshire feels like it’s gone.

The highest hills of the moors rise from the flood, with trees clinging on to them as if they are themselves marooned. The currents that pour and swirl around them are treacherous and ever-changing, and sometimes Adam spots a distant dinghy or raft trying to navigate the watery labyrinth. Crab directs his little motorboat through it all, finding passages beneath skeletal canopies and across improbable shelves of frothing surf. The murky water is rich with debris that bumps against the boat – branches, mostly, but bits of rubbish as well. Crow dangles her arms in the water and pushes the worst away, until