Mad men live on the desert's edge

by Eilisande

They say he's there since the distant times of the end of civilization. They say he walks in the desert, quiet and deadly. They say he can't be killed, but he protect the innocent from the raiders, and the men who try to stop him always end up dead. There are hundred of stories about him, all contradictory, but all true. His name is Max and he's a legend, not a man.

3. Act 3 : The Green Place

He watched them rose above the crowd. He had already forgotten their names and almost forgotten their faces. Only one was still looking at him, the furious woman with the missing arm. She raised her other arm toward him. It may have been a salute. He did the same. Soon, he couldn't see her face, only metal plates, a cloud of dust, and a mirage above it. A mirage. It was all that remained of the past on this cracked Earth. Nothing more left to see.

The man had done his duty, even if he didn't remember what it was. He was alone again, alone with the voices. They never left him. In the company of these women, it had been easier to ignore them for a time. But now, they were screaming again, telling him to leave, to stay, to remember, to forget, to speak, to keep to himself, to... He had to kill them. To bury himself in the sand. He needed to leave. The farther he was to people and things from the past, the quicker he was forgetting his name. There would be no more Max, once again. Just an indistinct whisper, rough as the sound of the wind in the desert.

Besides, whether he forgot the women, whether he remembered them, whether they remembered him or not, the world would still be the same, red and yellow, hot and unyielding. A storm of fire and dust, an abyss into which men sink, weeping with relief.

Let them disappear. Let them all disappear.

NO!

All of them. When there was no longer a single living being left to walk this Wasteland that once had a name, perhaps then the voices would be quiet. There would be silence. He would like to know the silence.

The man slipped into the crowd. He no longer knew what he was doing there, what the voice was shouting about, who it was singing for. He just wanted her to let it pass so he could finally blend into the desert. The living terrified him even more than the dead, and yet the dead spoke to him.

No, the voice screamed, the one that begged, that exhorted, that pushed him to help the women with their eyes wide with fear, turn around, there's nothing there, nothing, only sand and rock, only death.

Good, Max wanted to reply.

Good, the other voice said, the one that was harsh and dry, the one that spoke of a world where nothing would breathe anymore, the one that promised silence but would never be silent even when Max was nothing more than a skull whitening under a fiery sun.

Max disappeared into the crowd and when he came out, he wasn't Max anymore. He was just another madman wandering the Wastelands, lost in the world's madness. He hadn't asked for the ability to think. If he wished it hard enough, he wouldn't be able to. All he needed was the knowledge of how to drive, shoot, and survive, three things he was good at. He had been left for dead as many times as there were grains of sand in the Waste. Maybe he had even been killed and simply got back up. He wasn't sure how to die. Not that it mattered. It wasn't death he sought, but oblivion and silence.

Behind him, voices rang out, shouting a name, a syllable. He ignored them. Other voices replaced them.

Turn around, turn around, tell them what they need to know, build it back, brick by brick, with your blood, with your flesh, with their tears, a tower of babel, a tower of hope, a redemption for the men and women who furiously want to live... Go back, go back...

Forward, forward, into the dunes, breathe the sand, savour the aridity, until it fills your veins, you can belong there, everywhere and nowhere, in the place Mankind's dreams and hopes come to die, as they must, because dreams and hopes always die, wither, and fade. Be nothing, be white bones dissolving into sand, let everything you are and everything you were disappear into nothingness...

Dad, father, my dear son, my mother, mommy, let someone hear me, let me testify, I don't want to die alone, where are you my brother, don't leave me, they burned me, they killed me, and left me here to die...

They killed me, cut me to steal my child, I wasn't going to let them take him, he didn't belong to me either, he was only going to belong to himself, we aren't things, you don't sell and destroy lives, poor little thing, he didn't even was lucky enough to breathe before he died, let someone take him in, take him from his father, even in this Wasteland we should help each other, please welcome me, let me become seed and soil for my sister's children...

They saw me, they witnessed me, that's what counts, I was brave, I can hold my head high and walk towards the chrome doors, I did this for them, for them and not me, for their future and not my salvation, it has to matter to someone, maybe they'll let me wait for them, I don't want to go to the McFeast, not without them, can I wait for them, are they proud of me, I don't want to die, but I have to be brave, to be strong, for them, for her...

It was easy to let the voice take him. Some were even strangely familiar.

He walked. Neither hunger nor thirst stopped him, nor the lack of blood in his veins, nor air in his lungs. His foot was bleeding. He had lost a boot but didn't remember when or how. It didn't matter. He was used to the pain. Only the voices hurt.

The sun was harsher than ever, but the man refused to collapse, not until nightfall. Even when he did, he got up again, and again, and again. He lost count of the hours or the days. The sand burned. Jagged pieces of metal left from a battle he didn't remember being part of ripped his already bloody feet. He still walked. He needed to. Something was calling him beyond the road, beyond the mountains. Something that belonged to him, maybe.

The canyon was no more, because of the explosion, rock barely balancing, crushing some cars and a war rig under their weight. Had he been there when it happened?

Witness.

The man climbed over the rocks. Once on top, he looked over the flat, streaming immensity of the Wasteland. In the distance, he knew there were dead trees and stagnant, toxic water, even if it was too far to see. A mirage that tasted like ashes, like all mirages. He didn't have to go that far. Just leaving the canyon, passing a stain of blood that wouldn't fade on the rocks. A splendid face came back to him and a voice begging him not to kill. Kill who? Why? He ignored the voice. He wasn't there for that. Those who came here to kill were gone now, and he no longer even heard the echo of their presence in the hills. Intertwined bodies and carcasses of trucks and cars were scattered here and there. The man stayed away from them. He had enough voices living in his head, and these men had died violently. He hated the voices of men like these, who saw death as a game, men who wanted glory.

But what glory is there in death? People should pride themselves in simply living the time they have left in this devastated world.

Not enough, not enough, it's only surviving. We have to do more than survive, living is building, it's thriving, it's subsisting.

The voices of the splendid woman and the one he could never were responding to each other, encouraging each other. The man ignored them. He had seen what he was looking for behind a dune, an old V8 Interceptor, its wheels in the air, the car anchoring him to the world of men, the only thing stopping him from disappearing into the depths of the desert. It was his oldest companion. Maybe this one was the original, maybe not. It didn't matter. It was an Interceptor, and it was his to take.

The man walked around the chassis to examine the cabin and groaned. It was gone. The roof had been blown away by the explosion; the doors torn off when the car tumbled down. The seats, the steering wheel, the mirrors, all gone, whether in the accident or torn off by looters. It was just another abandoned corpse. The man stood there, arms hanging by his side, mute and unable to decide what to do.

"So she was right. She said you would come straight here."

The man turned toward the voice. A woman was standing on the hood of a car. Her hair was as blinding as the sun or a dust storm. Same colour too. He knew her. He didn't know her. She may be some of his voices. Sometimes he could see the people they belonged to, like a mirage. Some came more often than others, like the little girl, or the boy and the road and his mother, and...

"Furiosa, I mean," the woman explained. "She asked questions after you disappeared on us. It was yours, right? It was your home? I'm sorry for you, then."

The woman jumped down from the hood. No, not a woman. She was just a young girl, but her eyes were wise beyond her years. She took a step forward. The man growled. Despite his clear distrust, she didn't slow down and took his hand in hers without showing fear. Her hands were too soft, but rougher than before. He touched the calluses, and she smiled, proud to be marked by life at last.

"You don't have to run," she whispered. "You helped us, and what we have, we can share with you, if you want. Come home with me and let us show you how grateful we are. We could repair your car. It's the least we can do. Will you say yes?"

Repair the car. Fix it. Yes. He could run away with his car, without feeling the map of a ravaged country taking shape under his feet. The man wasn't sure he could trust the girl, but he needed her. He nodded, and she smiled again. He roughly reproduced her expression, triggering an amused laugh from her.

"Your mind is lost again, isn't it? How can you lose yourself so quickly?"

He shrugged, not knowing how to tell if it wasn't hard if he wished it bad enough, or that men had learned to do it on the first day of the Fall, as fast as they learned to love the taste and smell of blood. Instead, he watched in silence the white-painted teenager getting out of the car to attach cables to the interceptor. He growled toward them until the fiery-haired girl put a hand on her shoulder. The teens resumed their work, sending scared glances in his direction.

At least they were efficient. Soon, the car was ready to be tracked back to where the woman wanted him to go. The boys climbed into the car, but when the girl tried to guide him toward it, the man escaped her grasp. Her touch was burning. It hurt, touching the living, and he feared it as much as he longed for it. The man thought she would get offended, but she never stopped smiling. He got behind the broken wheel of the Interceptor and took a gun from his bag, ignoring the discomfort of the destroyed seat. He needed to be able to defend himself, in case of an attack or a betrayal from the girl and the boys. Seeing the gun and understanding the intent behind it, the girl's smile disappeared. She ran to the boys, climbed lightly on the step of the tug, and talked to them. The man didn't hear what they said, but she jumped down to install herself in the seat behind Max's, the only one mostly intact. She grabbed Max's backrest to hold on as they moved.

The man hoped she wouldn't try to talk to him. The voices were back, louder than ever. He couldn't be sure who was talking, he, her, or the dead. One hand gripping his weapon, the other on the steering wheel so as not to fall out of the car when it turned with the tug, he just looked at the bright horizon, only glancing away to see if the teenagers on the tug were doing anything suspicious or to see if nothing was moving in the mountain range. Only twice he looked at his passenger. The first time, she was dozing curled up on the floor. The second, she gave him a strange look, so he never looked back at her.

Night fell. The tug stopped. The boys burst out, pulling out weapons and supplies from under their seats. They pushed each other roughly, almost brutally, but were always laughing and joking. The man glared at them. They could have continued driving. The night was clear; the moon was high, and he knew the terrain. He opened his mouth, but the girl stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Let them have a little fun. It's the first time they've left the Citadel, you know? Also, we've been waiting for you for a long time and they had to be quiet all the while."

The man looked at her, a question in his eyes. She smiled.

"Told you. Furiosa said you'd come to look for your car and that you'd be on foot. We left six days after you and still arrived two days before you, even having to go around the mountain range. I don't know how you survived. You must be famished."

Suddenly, he remembered hunger and thirst. The girl hailed one boy, who placed a bowl of porridge and a waterskin on her knees. The boy's smile disappeared when she gave it to the man.

"Max needs it more than me. I'll eat later."

The boy scampered toward his friends, looking proud of himself. Disdaining food, the man gulped down the water quickly enough to get a stomachache. When it was empty, he stared at the girl, who had eaten some of the food. Not enough. She should eat more, he thought.

"Max. It's my name."

"I know. I'm Capable. Furiosa's our friend, and we're going to the Citadel. Again. Do you remember?"

"Not really."

"How can you forget so quickly? Did you want to forget us that badly?"

"It's easier. Painless. More or less."

She didn't ask more, and he was grateful for that. When she finished her bowl, she went to speak to the boys. War Boys, whispered a part of his mind Max was trying to suppress, they were War Boys of the Citadel, half-lives without future and without past, but that's what they all were, even Capable with her body pure of disease or mutation. They are all half-alive and half-dead, the poor ones, they don't know what they're missing, tell them, give them what they need, what they want without knowing they want it... Max shook his head. For once, the voice went away. At the other end of the camp, the War Boys lay down at the foot of the tug, except for the two guards. Capable returned to the Interceptor, holding two blankets. She handed one to Max, but he refused with a shake of his head. The young girl then placed the first blanket on her seat and rolled up in hers. She closed her eyes, but she wasn't ready to sleep.

"Max," she said. "It's a funny name."

"Maximus. Greatest. Came from ancient Rome."

He didn't know that before he said it, but it was true. Things he remembered always were. Well, he didn't remember exactly. The voice told him. Capable laughed softly and stood up.

"I was thinking it was a weird name in these Wastelands, but I was wrong. Immortan Joe would have hired you as an Imperator of the spot with a name like that. Or maybe he would have killed you and taken it for himself. Immortan Maximus Joe. That scum would have loved it. A very chrome name. Very warlike."

Max nodded in agreement.

"The Road Warrior. They called me that, once."

She gave him a strange look, frowned, opened her mouth, then closed it. Max thought she was going to accuse him of lying, but she shrugged.

"Who knows?" she whispered to herself more than for him. "Stranger things have happened."

"What do you mean?"

Before she answered, Capable looked quietly to the stars they could see through the broken roof. When she looked back at Max, she had tears in her eyes.

"Miss Giddy told us stories. You never knew her, but she was our teacher. She was very old, and lived a long life before she came to the Citadel. Most of her stories were from the time she traveled the Wasteland and from before men destroyed the world."

"Was she old enough to have known that time?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure she knew herself."

Max nodded. The Fall was so long ago. Perhaps some old people had been children back then. Perhaps it was two or three human lifetimes ago. No one remembered even those who could have experienced it. Max himself knew next to nothing about it, and he was pretty sure he had been there.

So much has been lost, so much has been forgotten, things that should have been preserved. Tell them, they're here, the things they need to know, where the water is, how to tame the wind, the good days can still come back.

"One of Miss Giddy's stories was the legend of the Road Warrior. It was a story from her childhood or her mother's childhood. She had an amazing memory, but time can be confusing when you lived as long as her."

Max knew that too well. He didn't share that knowledge.

"Where you the Road Warrior she told us about, the one who protected the road wanderers? Or were you named in his honour?"

"What do you think?"

The man had no opinion about that. He remembered being the Road Warrior, vaguely. He had other names, other surnames, but names were like anything else, lost in the fog of his memory. It didn't mean much. Nothing did.

Capable raised an arm, pointing at a small blinking dot in the sky.

"Miss Giddy said these are satellites, put in the sky by men to transmit stories and information to each other. We barely remember how to repair our cars and bike engines. Our children, if they reach adulthood, will probably know even less than we do about the past. We live in an old country that has no history, no past, no future. Maybe the Road Warrior and you, poor old forgetting Max, are one and the same. Perhaps you just forgot how to die. Many things are the same in this Wasteland."

Max closed his eyes and let his head rest on the charred headrest of his seat. Behind his closed eyes, he could still see the intermittent light of the satellite, passing across the sky, unaware of all the changes on Earth and continuing to transmit forever useless information. But no one listened. No one remembered how.

The travel toward the Citadel seemed longer to Max than his slow wandering on foot toward the interceptor, when he could get lost among the sea of voices. Now, he had to fight not to let them swallowed again, and to maintain some semblance of connection with reality. Capable helped as much as she could. She forced him to listen and to speak when she conversed with the War Boys, and even to eat with them. It was nice of her, but when he was alone, he was drifting again. The only reason he hadn't run away was because the Citadel was his only hope to see the interceptor whole again, so he tried to do what Capable wanted to. He had shown the War Boys some tricks to help their truck run better, but he stopped after a few tries. They were listening, but every time he tried to teach anything, he felt an immense pressure in his head, as if all the knowledge it contained was trying to pour out at once. It was even worse than the usual cacophony of voices. Two times he almost threw himself headfirst into the truck's bumper, just to get a moment of silence.

He didn't, but only because he didn't want to make Capable sad. He could feel how worried she was about him, trying to treat him like a human being, with the same mixture of pity and motherly affection she gave to the War Boys, but he could see the great caution she took when coming near him. She treated him like a wounded animal who could attack at any time, and she was right to act like that. That was who he was, in a manner of speaking. A beast, wild and dangerous. He felt cornered, even when surrounded by a young girl and sickly children, ready to strike and flee for the slightest provocation, real or imaginary. The closer they got to the citadel, the more his distrust increased and with it his desire to flee.

Finally, they would see the Citadel on the horizon, a rocky place with three summits disappearing in the heat wave mist. Capable stayed closer to him after that, never moving away, even when Max responded only with grunts. At least she didn't touch him. Their closeness was oppressive enough for him.

When they reached the bottom of the Citadel, Max raised his head to watch the massive elevator descending in an infernal metallic noise. He didn't run away, even if he wanted to. He still felt the needle biting the back of his neck.

"Don't you want to rest?" Capable asked in a quiet voice. "Don't you want to see what we've done in this awful place, even in the space of a few days?"

She wouldn't judge him if he turned around. She would understand he had no choice and stopped the others from following him again. He was free to disappear into the desert, body and soul. Instead, he stayed. Maybe just because she gave him the choice. Maybe because he was tired.

"I don't belong here," he still protested.

"People here tried to use us as objects. Are you more of a savage than them?"

Max remembered Immortan Joe and the way his men seized the women he traveled with. His memories were blurry, but he remembered eager hands grabbing a slender figure. He remembered screaming.

"Less."

Capable smiled.

"Then you're welcome here."

He wasn't sure he believed her, but Max finally agreed and got on the freight elevator with the Interceptor and her. He watched the ground get farther away with apprehension. Maybe it wasn't too late to jump. A light pressure from Capable's hand on his harm distracted him from his thoughts. She pointed to the four figures waiting above them.

"They all came for you. They care about you."

Max stayed quiet. He was probably supposed to feel something, but what? People always wanted him to react to things he said, to show something else that distrust, but he never could guess what. It was easier to understand other people's emotions than to express his own.

Far above the women, a flash of light cause his attention. Something metallic was moving, reflecting the sunlight. He first thought of a weapon and moved to put himself between the light and Capable. Then, the platform rose higher, and they found themselves in the main peak's shadow. At last, Max could see the top of the Citadel without being blinded by the sun.

Then he saw all the green things on the top and his voices went crazy.

When he regained awareness of himself and his surroundings, he was lying on his stomach. Someone was sitting on his back.

"He's back", someone whispered.

Max moved his head to identify the voice and see if it was real. From Capable's descriptions, he knew it was Cheedo the Fragile. He wouldn't have recognised her otherwise. The one sitting on him was Furiosa. She held his wrist to the ground and looked into his eyes to search for madness. She could draw one of the girl's weapons anytime, but instead she released the pressure on his arms.

"Leave us," she said to the others. "Take his car to the black thumbs."

"Shouldn't we stay and help?"

"The man is mad. None of you know the kind of madness Wastelands forced into men's minds. Leave us."

The girls protested. Max cut them.

"Do you?" he asked Furiosa.

His throat hurt. He had screamed but didn't remember it. Furiosa cast him an angry look before turning back to the girls.

"Your lived an overprotected life until a few days ago. I may never have lost myself in the Wastelands, but I have experience dealing with it. Go."

Max watched the girl leave in silence. They were stronger than the last time he saw them, not frightened by his madness any longer, and they did not look at him with pity, but he was still relieved to see them go. Wasn't sure why.

The room emptied quickly. War Boys had already disappeared, probably on Furiosa's order. The young women did the same, whispering frantically to each other. The Interceptor was no longer there either, nor the truck that had towed it. When the sound of the young girls' footsteps finally died down, only Furiosa and Max remained, two steps away from the cliff. The woman stood up, keeping a hand firmly placed on his shoulder, like she expected him to jump and kill himself. Or maybe he had tried to, and she had to stop him. He didn't know. If he could choose how to die, it wouldn't be like that. He wasn't even sure he could die.

Max slowly got up on his knees, putting on a show that Furiosa had nothing to fear from him. He felt weak. He needed something to lean on, but the wall was too far and his legs too heavy to carry him that far, so he crawled to a pile of dusty tires, leaned against them, and spat on the ground. There was blood in his mouth. He spat again, then looked at Furiosa. The knuckles on her hand were red from blood. It matched the pain in his cheek. She had put him down easily. Good. He wiped his face from the blood and waited for her to talk.

"You'll have to explain what happened. I will not risk having you inside the Citadel if it can happen again. So?"

It was the voices' fault, but it had never been that bad before. They had already drowned him in the past, until he lost himself, forgot who he was, if he ever knew. But not like that. Never like that. He would do anything to make it stop, even kill. All these voices, screaming, pressuring his mind, begging and instructing at once... Maybe the blood in his mouth wasn't from Furiosa's blow. Perhaps he had done it himself to silence the voices. He now remembered running towards the cliff and trying to smash his skull against the wall. This time, it had hurt too much to let the wave pass above him.

Outside, the sky was purple and gold. It was dusk, but they had arrived at noon. That was new, too. The voice had never screamed for so long before. He had never lost so much time. Perhaps he had tried to cut out his own tongue to choke himself in blood.

You can't, not now, not here, not when everything is possible at last...

Yes, maybe he had tried to kill himself. It would be a first. But he doubted he could have managed, even without Furiosa's intervention. The voice wouldn't let him die. They wanted him for something.

"I knew you were crazy," Furiosa said, not rebutted by his silence. "Who isn't here? We all saw things. Done things. But that's something different, isn't it?"

He grunted in approval, but didn't have the words to explain. The voices had always lived in his head, ever since the old world had disappeared in the flames of its frenzied industry. It took him a while to understand only he could hear them and that people usually saw hearing voices as a bad sign. Max had learned to keep quiet about them and to accept his madness as a part of himself. People were usually less forgiving when they discovered what was happening inside his head. He really didn't want to talk about them with Furiosa.

"On the top. What is it?"

"Our own green land. The one you helped us conquer."

In a flash, Max saw himself half suspended above the cliff, seeing the green and frozen while the War Boys caught him.

"Can I see it?"

Furiosa frowned and took the time to think.

"I am calmer now."

"I can see that. But when you're up there? Who could say? I was wrong. I've already seen people get mad like that, when they saw green things, but usually, it comes from older people, much older than you. People who can still remember times when there were green places around here. Gardens. You're too young for that."

"Maybe not."

It was Capable's voice. Max and Furiosa turned around. The girls had come back, too quietly for them to hear. Furiosa sighed, but didn't look surprised to see them back.

"Older than he thinks or looks, stranger than we thought, less mad than he thinks," the Dag added. "Our Max."

She graciously walked across the room to take Max's hand.

"Madness' like the moon. It comes, and it leaves. It's leaving now, right? Come see what we did with the seeds."

Max was led by her white silhouette into the dark stairs and corridors of the Citadel. The pressure of her hand on his wrist was the lightest, but Max couldn't have escaped it even if he fought with all his might. Behind the Dag's ethereal exterior, he could sense her strength of will.

The Citadel was vast and built to be impregnable. The corridors were narrow, the steps horribly high and the route almost impossible to remember, with frequent backtracking. However, they eventually reached the top of the rocky peak just as night had finished falling. The Dag manipulated a panel to illuminate the series of terraces around them and Max froze. The entire surface of the summit was covered with greenery up to the edge of the cliff. There were pots and tubs filled with plants, most of which Max had never seen but whose names the voices whispered to him. The only space left was designed for one person to slip between the rows of pots to take care of them. Gutters were evacuating the water towards the lower terraces where the rows of pots gave way to soil plantations. It was breathtaking.

Visions invaded his mind, green landscapes reaching the horizon, the reds and yellows of the desert only a distant threat. He had never seen these scenes. Earth was already damaged when he began walking the desert, all things green dying. But the voices remembered. They wanted to see it again.

"Soon we'll plant the Seed Keeper's seeds," the Dag confided. She reverently brushed a young plant's leaves. "She entrusted them to me. Everything will be green."

An old woman came to them, a huge toothless smile on her face.

"It will be better than before. Our old friend had treasures in her bag, seeds from a better time, uncontaminated. Different varieties as well. We'll have another Green Place."

Max could barely hear them. The spectacle before his eyes captured all his attention. He reached out to touch a leaf and dipped his hand into the damp earth. He had never experienced such a feeling. He hadn't touched anything so real and so precious, but he had to be sure.

"I'm not... It's not a hallucination?"

Furiosa placed a hesitant hand on his shoulder.

"It isn't. Everything is real."

"Would you like to try something?" the youngest girl asked. "It's a little early to harvest, but some greens came early. One day, we may even have fruits thanks to these new seeds. Fruits! My grandmother told me about it."

Cheedo reached for a small green pod, which she opened before his eyes. Max hesitated, then eagerly gulped down the tiny oval beans hidden inside.

They must not forget that, the taste of vegetables, the taste of fruits, juice sticking in children's hands, the joy of the children in summers, the...

Max cried. Two arms enveloped him. A head came to rest on his shoulder, as red as fire. Capable smelled of gazoline and smoke.

"Why is he reacting like that?" Toast asked. "Hadn't he noticed the terraces when we turned back to the Citadel?"

He hadn't. The first time he had thought they were some hallucination born from pain, and when they came back, he was too focused on the fight to notice anything that didn't happen in their car, and after he was busy keeping Furiosa alive. He hadn't even noticed the seeds. The voice would have reacted if he had. And after, he fled the Citadel still believing the green things on top had been another mirage and it had hurt to stay sane for so long. Max didn't know how to explain. He could only shake his head in despair.

A long moment passed before his tears dried up. Capable released him and he got up, half-relieved and half-pained to lose that skin contact. He stood there, arms hanging, not knowing what to do with them. The women started talking quietly, ignoring him, or pretending to, because he constantly felt their attention on him. He walked away, half expecting one of them to follow, but they didn't. Good. Max needed some time alone to... He wasn't sure what. Process? Yes, something like that. Or he only needed to find some energy to interact with other living beings, and to find the words for what he wanted or needed to say. Perhaps he hoped that farther from these women, the voices would be silent.

He'd been right. The voices became a distant whisper. Max walked between the bins, often touching a leaf or stem to make sure they were real. Finally, he sat down on the terrace's edge to watch the plants moving with the wind.

He had only a few moments to enjoy the view. The lights went out soon after. Logic. It wasn't smart to use so much energy only for his benefit. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Max could now make out the shadows of the plants swaying in the wind, simple grey shapes against the black sky, barely illuminated by the moon. It was beautiful. There was a kind of beauty there that couldn't be found in the desert. Max loved it, but still missed the tragic beauty of the Wasteland. But sad or not, he could have looked at this scene for hours and he couldn't find the strength to get up and leave. He rolled some dirt between his fingers. It was damp. Humid. It smelled strange; it smelled like something he knew but never knew.

Petrichor, the voice whispered and wept.

He wept with her. Some things were worth mourning, so Max waited for sleep or dawn. Everything was quiet now, but he was sure one of the women had stayed behind to watch over him, somewhere near the door. He didn't want to wake her if she dozed off, and he had no trouble staying completely still.

Morning came. Max hadn't moved an inch, even when the rising sun hit him in the eyes. He felt movement behind him but didn't turn around, not until Furiosa settled down next to him, handing him a blanket and a glass of water. Despite the morning dew, another thing he had never experienced, he didn't feel the cold. He was grateful for the water and drank with relief.

"Do you believe it's real, now?" Furiosa asked.

"Yes."

"The girls don't understand. For them, seeing your hopes fulfilled is a relief, not a nightmare. They don't realise how terrifying it is."

Max nodded and Furiosa grabbed some gravel to make them fall one by one from the cliff.

"You once told me hope is a lie," she said. "That if we can't fix what's broken, we'll go crazy."

Did he? Perhaps. It's been a long time since he started walking in the Wastelands. When he began, people still called it desert, outback, frontier. He had lived two human lives, or three, or thirty. Or maybe just one. How long did it take for the world to disintegrate and reform, broken and misshapen?

How long for the world to go crazy? How long to forget, to change, they can't go on, not like this, not like that, you found them, you have to teach them, make them understand, there is so much to do, so much to do.

Good. They forgot. Let them continue, let everything be swallowed by the sand, let me submerge them, drown them under the sand, let only the sand remain, only the sand and the silence.

"I was a cop," Max whispered, so quietly that he wasn't sure if Furiosa could hear it. "There was a woman, a woman, and a child. It was about duty and protecting those who needed help."

"What's a cop?"

"A policeman. A man sworn to defend others and uphold the law. The rules."

"A great cause. I still have a hard time imagining men capable of writing rules and then respecting them. It must have been a great time to live."

"I'm not sure I lived it. Not even sure I was this man. It was a long time ago. I don't know how to be Max anymore. I never did. Maybe I never was. I hear these voices..."

Furiosa shrugged.

"Who doesn't? I can still hear my mother screaming and the cries of joy of the children I played with before my kidnapping. And I know, even if the very idea makes me nauseous, that I will always hear Immortan Joe telling me I am worthless and that I am only a weapon created to serve his greatness. I hate it, but I know I will."

The door opened behind them. It was dawn and the green thumbs were coming to work on helping the green things grow. Furiosa turned to wave at some of them. They returned her greetings. Max didn't turn, but he recognised the Dag and Cheedo's voices. Someone turned on the generator. Water flowed down the gutters and into the pipes. It was hard to think with that noise, but the tension eased in Max's shoulders. People wouldn't be able to listen to their conversation.

"My voices are... different. Worse than yours. Weirder, too."

He expected mockery or incomprehension, but Furiosa only nodded.

"Tell me, what's worse than living with the ghost of Immortan Joe inside your head?"

"I hear his voice. Others. Even now. The woman with her baby. Her name was Jess. The burned policeman they murdered, the ones who fell on the side of the road, the ones who killed themselves, the ones who got murdered. The girl, Angharad. The boy, Nux. I hear them. Everyone who died near me, even those I didn't know."

Do they know, do they know what they brought me, what they gave me, they are witnesses, they must know, I would do it again and again, Capable, look at me, you are the only thing that matters, no, not a thing, someone, someone better than Walhalla, you are my Green Land, your hair is redder than the desert and your smile even warmer.

Die, die, all of you, do you listen, my war boys, my puppets, track them, I will punish them, they steal my children, I will tear off their legs, I will cut off their arms, they are only bellies for my children to be born, they must give it to me, my son, my perfect son, my legacy, I deserve that, an heir to my empire, these thieves will pay.

My sisters, my dear, my precious sisters, let my fall save them, let this metal carcass be their salvation, not their loss, I don't care if they kill me, if they tear me apart, but let me give them a few minutes of advance. Protect them, Max, Furiosa, protect my sisters, don't let him reach them with his claws.

Furiosa stared at him for a long time, then turned away to observe two war pups and a War Boy that may have tried to kill Furiosa a few days earlier, following one of the Many Mothers on the lower terrace, keeping a respectful distance between them. They were listening to her instructions and moved with infinite caution the leaves she pointed out to them to look for the vegetables hiding underneath. Max saw a tear roll down Furiosa's greasy cheek.

"I can't hear her," she admitted. "Angharad. I should, because I did too little too late to help her. Just like you."

"Just like me. She's not angry. There are angry ghosts, but not her. Never her. She prays for the future, and for her sisters."

Furiosa choked back a sob.

"Of course. That's our Angharad."

Max gave her time to compose herself. He didn't say that from Angharad's muttering he could guess she had hoped to die in the flight or during childbirth because she wasn't ready to either love or kill the child born from her rape. Dying was her way of refusing to choose. He couldn't understand Furiosa's pain, any human pain, but he understood she didn't need to know that detail. Max wasn't a man. It was hard to feel anything with so many voices screaming their pain and hatred inside him.

He wanted to stop there. He couldn't. If he didn't say it aloud, he never would. Furiosa may understand. He didn't know if anyone else could.

"It's not just the voices of the dead. I hear other voices. The voice of the desert. You'd say the Wasteland."

His words echoed around them, loud enough to attract the attention of someone else. Max saw the Dag lean over and whisper something in Cheedo's ear, who slipped away. Furiosa sighed.

"They weren't going to leave us alone for long. They're worried about you. Not about you, mind me, but for you."

Max nodded. That was why he went away and forgot them, because he would have spent his life worrying about them. There was another reason, of course. It was because the desert still called to him, again and again, howling like a tornado. And like the Wasteland's winds, it was more violent every time. The other voice was getting louder, too. It was hard to contain them, even now.

The Dax knelt before him and brought her face close to his. She was also crazy, crazy like him, like Furiosa, but unlike the other Wives. Because of that, Max felt more comfortable around her than with any of her sisters, apart from Angharad. Capable's empathy or Cheedo's gentleness made him uncomfortable in a way he didn't understand.

"What does the desert say to a shlingo with an empty mind?"

The Dag's eyes sized him up mercilessly. She didn't blink. Max opened his mouth, but he still didn't find the words to explain. How to describe the indescribable? But if the Dag's eyes were merciless, they didn't judge. In that, they were like the desert, he told her. That voice was always calling Max to him, promising oblivion and silence, things that Max dreamt of. It promised to quiet the other voices. The desert was fierce and couldn't be negotiated with. The desert desired nothing and did not want to hurt or spare men. It only brought the promise of an end for everything, for the suffering, for the horrors committed by men, for hunger, for thirst, for...

Max's voice broke. His mouth was dry. He had been the desert's voice just now, let it talk with his mouth and it was an experience. The urge to let the desert consume him was stronger than ever. Someone gave him a waterskin. He grabbed it, but didn't drink from it. When the voice possessed him, he could never drink. He could have let himself dry out, his lips cracking with thirst, next to a lake of pure water. Still, Cheedo was nice. He thanked her silently.

You know you want this, the end of everything, the end of sound and voice, nothing would ever be heard again, not even the wind, not even the air, not even the quivering of grains of sand, just oblivion and isn't forgetting a form of forgiveness?

"It's not just you," Toast said. "I met two people who said they could hear the Wasteland talking to them when I was wandering with my clan before the War Boys killed my family and took me to the Citadel."

"We lost a few friends this way among the Vuvalini," an old woman said while making a sign of mourning. "And of course, the Road Warrior was like that too."

"Vulvalini," Max corrected distractedly.

A memory came back to his mind, two trucks loaded with precious cargo of very different natures.

"No, the Vuvalini of the Many Mothers."

Vulvalini, Vulvalini, small vulvas but great minds, a smart name, a stupid name, we were stupid too, fighting lost battles, not seeing feminism and ecology would be the first sacrificed on the altar of the survival of the fittest, so much hatred, so much misery.

A woman had stood with him, bleeding from too many wounds, but determined to stay and fight until the last second, to buy time for her sisters to reach the Green Land in which they believed and what Max had promised them. The same bullet had put them both down, but Max had survived. She didn't. The voices did not want him to die, neither the voices of the dead he carried nor the desert's nor the other, the last, the one that hurt most.

"Their trucks were full of seeds and children. They gave me a motorbike and two bullets when they abandoned me. One in the leg, the other in my gun, which they left further away. One of them stayed with me. Said it wasn't fair. She died anyway."

The few survivors of the Many Mothers frowned and murmured between themselves as they looked at him. Capable nodded and smiled.

"He's the Road Warrior. The one from your stories and Miss Gidy's," she said with more certainty than Max ever had in his life.

"The Rock Riders talked about him," Toast said. "Gaz Town people too."

"I remember my mother's stories," Furiosa added. "He never spoke if he could help it, but he helped those who needed protection. He had sworn an oath before the Fall, when there was still a law to follow and men to believe in it."

They all gave him a scrutinizing look. Max might have been that man. He barely remembered it. His memories were like those of the desert, vague and harsh.

"I remember a woman," he said. "Sharon. She loved research and teaching but she learned to use a weapon when it all started or ended and she died by a gun. She had lost her dreams. She wanted to survive but she failed."

What's the point of everything I've learned, everything I've done, I did my part and it wasn't enough, men are responsible for this and women won't do better but you have to try, make sure I gave them some time, at least that, please tell me it wasn't for nothing that I gave my life.

"Sharon?" the oldest Vuvalini asked. "I've heard that name before. You?"

"Perhaps, when I was a child. Someone was telling me about the wandering before we reached the Green Place. I do not know her clan or initiation lineage. Maybe I was born after her time, or maybe I forgot her. We've forgotten so much."

They contemplated their loss in silence, then the oldest placed her leathery hand on Max's shoulder. He flinched.

"Will you tell us? Will you tell them? The Many Mothers shouldn't be forgotten."

Max would have laughed if he had known how.

"I do not remember. Not much."

"And we've forgotten much. But not much is still enough. Losing the first Green Place taught us that much, at least. And even if the Wasteland takes you again, Road Warrior, we'll have their memory with us and we will remember you for as long as we're here."

He nodded. Strange. There was a lump in his throat. He didn't know what it was. These women, young and old, and even Furiosa, did not look at him like he expected them to. They viewed him differently, but not unkindly. Capable smiled at him proudly, a tear in the corner of his eye. Toast looked at him almost hungrily. She shifted from one leg to the other impatiently and opened her mouth as soon as his eyes met hers.

"If you remember the Many Mothers before they founded the Green Place, what are you? What else do you remember? Are you immortal, or something else?"

Max's head fell back before he relaxed. She wasn't accusing him, even if it looked like that. He wanted to answer, but he didn't know the answers or didn't want to remember them. While he stopped himself from thinking too much, the Dag rested her head on Toast's shoulder.

"Max's not just a shlingo," she whispered, almost humming. "He's the Wasteland's memory and also ours."

"Ours?" Cheedo the Fragile asked.

Her eyes never left Max, not because she was wary of him, nor because she was afraid, but because she had hope, a hope so intense that nothing could have disappointed her.

"Ours. The memory of men before the Fall."

The last voice, the one Max didn't want to talk even to these women, the one he always tried to silence and deny, screamed. It wouldn't allow him to suppress it, not this time. Max himself fell to the ground, his whole body convulsing as if he was on fire. Wave after wave of pain hit him, like the crash of drums, like thunder, but he kept his teeth clenched, so clenched that his jaw almost broke.

Tell them, tell them, don't be silent, don't hide anything from them, you must tell them everything, everything, all the beauty they can bring back, all the greatness they must restore, humanity must know, must understand, must take possession of the world, it belongs to them, it must be rebuilt, you must help them, the towers must rise again, and men rise ever higher, to the sky, to the moon and beyond, they must surpass themselves, create, innovate, so much greatness, they must take up the torch, make the world flourish again, rebuild the cities, take over the world, finally, finally, they cannot fail, they cannot disappear, there is so much to save, preserve, to start again, to start again at last, after all this time.

Everything went black. The pain lessened and faded. It took a long time, but Max regained consciousness of himself. The voice was still there, like a persistent whisper or whistle in the back of his thoughts, urgently delivering instructions and lists of forgotten things, but bearable. Barely. He cannot ignore it with how loud it gets.

You failed once, you cannot fail again, not now. Build. Speak. Speak!

Max opened his eyes. He was lying on the ground and Capable was bathing his temples with her water-soaked shawl. She smiles at him.

"You froze and slipped to the ground. Was it the Wasteland's call again?"

He wanted to lie, to say yes, but a sneer from the Dag stopped him in his tracks. She knew. Or at least, she guessed more than he wanted her to. Her head tilted, she seemed to listen to the wind. Maybe she was crazy enough to have voices of her own.

Furiosa placed herself between Max and the already too-hot sun. She held out a hand to help him stand up. Silently, just with a raised eyebrow, she asked him about what had just happened. He knew she wouldn't insist if he refused. It was comforting. With her help, Max stood up, surprised his legs weren't shaking this time. The crisis had lasted less time than he had expected. Max still had Capable's shawl in his hand. Getting up, he went to press the cloth reverently over a small plant with tiny flowers under round leaves and give it back the water. He needed more time. He needed to talk.

Some noise made him turn his head. Two young boys were running between the bins to join them, followed by an aging and deformed War Boy. The children each grabbed the arm of one of the Vuvalini.

"Will you show us?" the smallest one asked. A tumour was growing above his ear. He probably wouldn't live long enough to get behind a car.

"Show you what?"

"How to recognise which weed to cut. You promised."

The two old women glanced at each other, then followed them, trying to keep pace with the two children who refused to let go of their hands and would have happily dragged them to their destination. Max suspected they would come back later to talk with him. He wished he could remember more about their tribe. There was something. Something important he needed to say or ask, but he couldn't remember what.

The War Boy stepped aside to let the white-skinned children and the sunburned old women pass, then came to the Dag, his eyes on the ground. He was nervous. The Dag waited for him to talk, never taking her eyes off him.

"Is there a Valhalla for those who take care of green things?", he finally asked.

The Dag twisted her mouth into a strange grin, but Cheedo the Fragile was the one who took the man's arthritic hands in hers.

"Of course there is," she said with so much certainty Max could almost believe her. "There's a Valhalla for warriors, but there's another one for men who arm themselves with spades and shears. Those enter their Valhalla through a door of woven vines and they will only have to bend down to pick up ripe and juicy fruits. Those who fight will continue to fight after they die, but the others will never hunger or thirsty again and will rest under tree shade if they have devoted their lives to making green things grow."

The War Boy fell to his knees and kissed her hands.

"Can I try?"

He was crying. The Dag grabbed him unceremoniously by the arm and made him stand up, but she didn't look cross. She was pleased with him.

"Follow me. Let's see if you tolerate the smell of manure. If you do good, I'll show you how to plant seeds one day."

They walked away, the War Boy limping but following the Dag with a new pride in his step. Max noticed the little bag on her hip, crumbling under the weight of the seeds. She wore a strap around her thigh, but where warriors hung a knife or a prize of war, she wore a pruning shear.

Cheedo turned back to Furiosa.

"We can't change people, but we can change the way they see the world, can't we?"

"That we can. This green Valhalla thing is not a bad idea. War Boys have believed Immortan Joe's lies for too long not to fear the afterlife. Give them hope. It's a start, at least."

The young girl smiled with pride, then ran to join the Dax. Max turned toward Furiosa. His heart was beating faster.

"War Boys. They can work in the garden?"

"Anyone who wants it. There are few who dares, apart from the youngests. The others are suspicious of us, when they don't hate us for killing Joe. They'll change their opinion."

"And... ah, you didn't chase them from the Citadel?"

"If I could, I would bring all the half-lives up to here," Furiosa grimly said. "We can't, I know that. There are too many of them, and many have contagious diseases or are too crazy to be brought here. They would destroy what we're trying to build, whether they want it or not. But the girls want to offer some of our products, not just water. Maybe some seeds could grow in the Citadel's shadow, if we took care of them. The soil down there is contaminated, but it would be better than feeding only on lizards and insects when it's not human flesh."

"The Vulvalini..."

"Vuvalini."

"Yes. Them. They rejected men. I remember that. They wanted a green world populated by women."

Furiosa shrugged.

"Then they were wrong. It was the Green Place of my childhood and I didn't see the flaws back then. Maybe it had already started to die. We are going to start again, the Many Mothers, the sisters, and I, but we'll try not to reproduce the same mistake the men who destroyed the world did, nor the Vuvalini."

"You'll make your own mistakes."

"Probably. Isn't that how the world works? But that's not necessarily a bad thing."

Max saw men blinded by their greed, and of poison leaking from their factories to the depths of the Earth, preparing their weapons for the coming conflict because they found it easier to fight against each other than against their own stupidity. He saw women repudiating their sons with stones and spears, accusing them of their fathers and their fathers' father's crimes.

Wrong. They were all wrong, those who had thought the desert would not swallow them up, not in their lifetime at least, and those who had thought they could blame others as if they were innocent.

"We'll have to learn to work together," Capable smiled. "Men and women, Vuvalini and War Boys, half-lives and full-lives."

"We'll pass on what we've learned, our victories and our mistakes," Toast the Knowing added. "We'll tattoo ourselves so that we won't forget, as Miss Giddy did. Those who'll come after us will learn from us."

Looking at these three women, Max could almost believe in their dream of mankind sharing a green world. Before him, the ghost of the Angharad the Splendid rose, a fine silhouette freed from what weighed down her body and mind. She smiled.

Who destroyed the world?

Men.

And who can rebuild it, Max?

Men.

Her shadow was gone. Only her hope remained behind. Max could see the same hope in Cheedo's eyes, in Capable's determination and Furiosa's rage to succeed. She believed in that dream of a world without hatred, without violence. Max couldn't believe in that dream. He knew the fury of the desert and its whispers that promised silence and oblivion. He knew all men heard its voice, even if they didn't realise it. That voice was the instinct that pushed them to destroy what was left of the world because it was easy, because everything would stop. But Angharad believed in the dream the other voice promised. Capable, Toast, Cheedo, the Dag, they believed. Furiosa wanted to believe. And if they did, he would too. He opened his mouth and spoke.

"The first thing to do is to set up a more efficient irrigation system to avoid evaporation. The aquifer that you exploit is not inexhaustible and it must last for generations. You also must look for other sources of energy. Petrol won't last, but the wind will never stop. You can build wind turbines between the peaks of the Citadel to run generators. It would be better than hydropower. Afterwards..."

Max spoke, and spoke, and spoke. He would speak until his throat was too dry for him to continue. The desert voice went quiet, and the other told him what he should teach them, concepts he barely understood himself but which Toast at least could use and improve. Her eyes were brighter than before, her hands quivering with impatience at the idea of getting to work. The voice in his head hurt no longer. It didn't scream. It was soft like Angharad's and like Jessie's. That voice contained all the hopes of all those Max had known and forgotten, and all his ghosts gathered around him as he spoke, encouraging him with their whispers or advising him to keep some knowledge to himself because it could condemn mankind a second time. They were happy, Jessie, Angharad, Fifi, Goose and the others, because their death finally had meaning when their life had not. They had survived in his head only for today, to pass on what shouldn't be forgotten, to keep the hope alive.

And Max spoke.

He would never stop again.