After that, the price of petrol skyrocketed. Banking systems blacked out as people frantically tried to snatch their savings, and the stock market crashed as hard and fast as the Beings themselves. Looting flared up like an angry rash, infecting cities all around the globe. (It was kind of amazing seeing the things people would steal, even in the face of Armageddon – as if you could take micro scooters and thirty-two-inch TVs to the afterlife.) Christmas was only a few weeks away, but turkeys and pigs in blankets were left to rot on supermarket shelves. Instead, people stocked up on tinned foods, toilet paper, batteries, torches, warm jumpers, nappies, sturdy shoes . . . anything that might help them survive the weeks ahead.
Through all this, between news reports and TV shows that nobody was watching any more, government announcements urged everyone to keep calm. ‘It is still unknown where these Beings are falling from, or what their doing so signifies.’ They named them ‘Beings’ because ‘angels’ seemed too religious, too obvious – calling them angels would have been admitting the world was ending, and inciting the very panic they were trying to avoid. ‘We urge the public to avoid drastic action and to await further information as it becomes available.’
For those of us who bothered to show up, school was an eight-hour debate on if, when and how the Rapture was going to happen. The remaining teachers did their best to distract us, but it never worked – there was always somebody having a panic attack in French or storming off in the middle of PE, ranting about the futility of netball when we’d all be dead in a week anyway.
The rest of us made jokes about it.
‘I think it’ll happen on Christmas Day,’ Emma said at lunch one day. ‘In the middle of the Queen’s speech. She’ll be sitting there, all smart in her pearls and whatnot, and then the screen will start shaking, like they’ve put Buckingham Palace in a tumble dryer. There’ll be corgis flying about, footmen screaming—’
Marek chucked a Hula Hoop at her. ‘The Queen’s speech is pre-recorded, genius. I think it’ll be aliens. They’ll come on Hogmanay, when people are drunk and don’t have their wits about them. Just as we’re counting down to the new year, BOOM – they’ll zap us into dust and turn the country into a water park.’
‘It’d never be as dramatic as that,’ Leah said, scoffing. ‘It’ll happen on some random day of the week, probably a Tuesday. We’ll be sitting in History, writing about boring Liberal reforms or whatever, and the ground will open up and swallow us whole. The end.’
‘You’re probably right,’ Sam said, through a mouthful of tuna baguette. ‘Mrs Maciver would still expect you to hand in your homework the next day though.’
But the weeks trickled on, and though Beings kept falling, nothing else happened. The sky didn’t cave in. The earth didn’t split in two. Jesus didn’t rock up on a golden chariot, ready to whisk away the good and the pious to the afterlife. Neither did Marek’s extraterrestrials. For most people, there’s only so long panic can hold out. And after so much madness we were all desperate for monotony.
So the airports reopened. Buses started running on time. The council sent out emails saying it would not, under any circumstances, accept any more school truancies. Most people returned to their jobs; George showed up a few days after New Year with a sheepish grin and a handful of very late Christmas cards. Some of those who had left town to be with their families came back, laughing off the terror they’d felt just a few weeks ago.
By the end of January, life had returned to something resembling normality. It was the world as we’d known it, only with the occasional winged person falling out of the sky.
But not for everyone. Some people joined cults. Some found religion. A few poor souls even killed themselves, a desperate attempt to reach an afterlife they felt had been proven to exist. The papers were filled with tragic stories about lives wasted. They never got easier to read.
Other changes were less drastic. Some people quit their jobs to spend more time doing what they loved, for example. Dad said he’d handed in his notice to look after Rani and me, that he needed a job with shorter hours and more holidays, but that was bullshit. If there’s one thing a sort-of apocalypse is good for, it’s showing you what really matters in life. For Dad, that was getting rich, chasing angels.
I didn’t need the Falls for all that. My own personal apocalypse had happened when Mum died. In all the chaos the Beings had created, everyone else had forgotten.
There’s no TV in Shona’s flat – no doubt it’d interfere with the cosmic vibes or whatever. Instead, I while away the morning watching vlogs and scrolling through Tumblr, playing music full blast to drown out the bagpipes and the ranting preacher outside. I check the BBC and the Guardian websites for the latest news on the Standing Fallen. There’s a video of last night’s display on the rooftop, plus others in Luton, Cardiff, Bexhill-on-Sea, dozens across Europe and the States. I refresh my Twitter and my long-neglected Facebook.
Still nothing from Leah.
I know she won’t get in touch. It’s been four months since she and her mum moved to Stirling; four months since anyone’s heard from her. Emma’s lost hope, and Sam and Marek act like she never existed, but I keep waiting. It’s different for me. Even if we were on and off, even if we never gave a name to it . . . she was my first girlfriend. I can’t just forget about her.
Not even if she’s forgotten about me.
I amble around the internet for a few more hours, but at half twelve hunger finally drives me out of the flat. Despite the rain, the street is still full of Wingdings. Tour groups swarm around the cathedral, selfie sticks bobbing in the air. The queue to see the spot where Being No. 8 fell through the roof snakes right across the square, and dozens more tourists clamour around the merch stalls lining the road. Each one is heaped with tacky souvenirs: postcards, candles, tote bags, mugs, tins of shortbread, all emblazoned with illustrations of angels mid-fall. Some are even selling tiny vials of gold liquid meant to represent Beings’ blood. Just as I ask myself who would possibly spend their money on such a thing, a woman in a tartan bonnet picks one up and hands the seller a tenner for it.
Outside Starbucks, a huge TV screen is playing footage of the Scottish Falls. I’ve seen it all before: No. 42 floating in a river; No. 33 plummeting between two tower blocks; No. 46 smashing into the motorway, sending cars spiralling off the road. Between clips, the film cuts to interviews with witnesses.
‘Ah wiz pure terrified! Ah wiz just walkin’ tae work when ah seen this spot of light in the sky . . .’
‘I’d been reading about the Fall in Kazakhstan that morning, but it didn’t click at first – I thought it was a shooting star, maybe an asteroid.’
‘And the sound when she hit the ground, it was so loud! I think I never stop hearing this in all of my life.’
‘It came out of nowhere, man. It was just so . . . out of the blue.’
A sudden blast of pop music drags me away from the screen. Further down the Royal Mile, a queue of fifty or sixty people has formed on the pavement opposite the Storytelling Centre. As I walk towards the crowd, I see a couple of girls in skimpy white dresses and glittery wings scurrying along the pavement, handing out flyers and shouting over the music.
‘Welcome to Celeste’s, the UK’s first Being-themed restaurant!’
Two more angels stand by golden-gate doors, writing down names on clipboards shaped like harps. The walls of the building are baby blue, both inside and out, and decorated with fluffy white clouds. One of the waitresses, a skinny girl with platinum-blonde curls, flips her hair and pushes a flyer into my hand.
‘Heavenly hour from two to four, Sunday to Thursday!’
One side of the paper shows a cartoon of a female Being with a silver halo and red lips, winking as she bites into a burger. The other lists the menu: Halo Bagels, Cherubim Chips, ‘Angel’ Wings. Just your average diner food, only with stupid names and at ridiculous prices. My stomach growls. I’m starving, and the ‘Erelim Omelette’ does sound pretty tasty, but I wouldn’t be seen dead eating in a place like this. As I turn to leave, a voice cuts through the girl’s sales pitch.