I was there when it all started. Before the industrial city was razed, before the trees were ripped from the earth, even before the little town was destroyed. I was there.
Well, maybe not when it all started. Who knows how long that thing had been there before I saw it. There had been a few wild stories before then, a family calling in about their house being ransacked, a few confused calls from the high school about their sports day being ruined, and the stars. The fucking stars.
They say that's when we should've taken notice, when all the stars up and disappeared one night, just gone without a trace. And Lord knows we should've done something when the goddamn MOON disappeared. But what could we have done? Repented? No one thought it was the end of the world. Not then. Not so soon.
Now we know better, and a fat lot of good it does us.
But yeah, I was there when it was small. Just big enough to run into people, just big enough for someone to take notice. We all stared at first, and wouldn't you? This giant ball, running around, picking up STUFF. Nothing special, just the regular old junk lying around in every town. Balloons, shrubberies, bikes...it didn't seem dangerous, just odd. I know. We were stupid. But how the hell were we supposed to know it would get so big!
They had called me over to look at it, the chief and Johnson. They were the two only police officers on duty; it was a quiet day in a quiet town. They expected nothing more than handing out maps to tourists and helping little girls find their mommies. There aren't any little girls anymore, and no more mommies either. The smallest were the first to be taken.
By the time I got over there, it had gotten bigger than the little half a meter they had described it as. This thing was a meter...and growing. I was supposed to look at it and figure out what it was and how to make it stop. And it needed to be stopped, you could see things in it...flowers. Cars. Animals and people, still struggling to get free. They screamed at us to help them, trusting in the law to make everything all right...as if we could just outlaw rolling things up.
We ran around dithering, not knowing what to do. By that time it was growing fast and before I could even believe it it was bigger than all of us. It was then, I think, that we finally realised this wasn't something we could stop on our own. But by then it was too late.
Or maybe it already was too late. Too late when it came here in the first place.
Johnson picked up on it before I did, and I'm supposed to be the smart one. Was supposed to be the smart one. He just looked at me, with those eyes, the eyes of someone who's seen their fate and knows how it's going to end up. You see that a lot nowadays. He told me, "Tell Mari I love her." and took out his gun, that silly little pistol. He'd never fired it before. He once told me, late at night, how he had once had to aim it at someone, and it had given him nightmares for a week.
He fired it now. And I swear that thing turned to face him, like a bull to a red flag. He kept firing, unloading all his bullets. Didn't even make a scratch. Then it was on him and I saw the life crushed out of him under that thing, the lump of everything mankind had made, now turned against us.
I ran.
Wasn't really sure of where I was going. Maybe over to the office building where Mari worked part-time, making coffee and tea with her college degree in science. Maybe to the capitol, to warn them. Really, I was just trying to get away from that horrible thing. I stopped, panting, in the middle of the shipyard and looked back to see...if there was anything to see.
I saw it come up over the hill, bloated and huge with the remains of Pidgin Town, like some sort of hideous cancer of the world, growing bigger and bigger with no restraint. And then...it seemed like a miracle at the time. Maybe it was. Jumboman, yeah, fucking Jumboman, the guy who's not even supposed to really exist, came flying over between the islands, hitting that thing right as it fell. And it lost! It bounced aside, the shattered remains of houses and trees flying off as it fell. I think I cheered, then. A little kid's faith in the world, 'If Jumboman is here, then he can save us. He'll save the whole world.'
I think he's in that thing now.
Made it here eventually, and stayed. If I'm going to see the end of the world and all we've worked for, then I'm going to see it as dead drunk as possible. The television, they keep talking about how we're going to stop that thing, right? ...Well, not anymore. Must've gotten the station.
Anyway, I don't think it's possible now. I didn't see it take out the office buildings, but I heard it. They all screamed in unison as they realised their fate, a chorus you could hear all the way into heaven and into the ears of a God who no longer cared. If He ever did in the first place. They say he sent this, don't they?
I think Mari worked in one of those offices. Maybe she and Johnson can find each other in that thing. No one knows what it's like in there, after all. Maybe it is coming to lead us into the next world. No one ever comes back from it.
Yeah, I know. But it's important to have something, times like this.
It's coming closer, getting harder to talk. This is it, then. Later, buddy. You were a good listener.
Bartender, give me another. Straight up.