Fieldwork

I first heard this story when it was read on stage at the launch of New Papers issue four. (Every time a new issue comes out they put on a show where the whole magazine is read, in order, from start to finish.) It’s funny and strange and I found it unexpectedly moving, and I hope you’ll find space for it at the end of your week. Our Friday posts are normally behind the paywall, but we’re trying something new for this one, so you can read the whole thing for free. If you enjoy the story, please give us £5 to help us keep the lights on, and keep delivering independent storytelling to your inbox.

The girls were outside, we were in the house, trying to remember why we loved the girls. There were two of them, two of us. And we were thinking.

Sitting on the floor, even though there were chairs around, drinking beer slowly because it was hot, very hot. So hot in fact the beer warmed up, and then what’s even the point?

You think of anything yet? I asked him. Yea, George said, George being my best friend. He said, I was thinking that when I’m with her, I don’t necessarily have to be with someone else. That's not a good reason, I said.

The house kept burning, a beam in fact crashed down sideways, Crash! but that was in the hallway. I think we should go, he said. Relax, I said, looking around, most of the structure still intact anyways. What about, I said, and George looked at me hopefully. What about, I said to buy some more time, but then he could see I had nothing. Well, he offered. After two years it does get repetitive. Them? I asked. No, I mean, life too, he said. Like generally speaking. He waved his arms around, watching these ugly pleated curtains to our left go ablaze. But what about specifically, I said. I don't know, he said. You start to wonder why you do the things you do, even breakfast. I wondered if his brain was feeling a little melty like mine.

What do you eat for breakfast? I asked. I don’t eat breakfast, he said, the chimney behind us starting to lose its bricks. I scooted over a little.

Like ever? I asked. He shook his head as his shoe caught fire. He stamped it a few times down hard on the wood. It went out.

We should probably, he said and took a deep breath, which was pretty incredible considering the way the flames made the air. Fine, I said.

Covered in smoke we came out into the garden, police everywhere. The girls were glad we weren’t dead yet. They dusted our hair a little, told us to get into their separate cars. Now. So long, I called. Till Sunday, he said.

On Sundays we watched the game together until the power went out. Everywhere. The whole world went out, so it wasn’t just us. Or our fault.

We wondered if this sudden darkness had anything to do with fate, or maybe I just wondered that. That given this sudden darkness now we could say some things that normally we wouldn't say. I waited a few beats to let the new world sink in before. Thought of anything yet? I asked. I heard George sigh somewhere in the darkness.

One thing, he said eventually, like he did not want to go into it. You don’t have to tell me, I said. It’s just, he said, tapping his wedding ring on the neck of his bottle. It’s not anything that happens outside of us, he said. Okay, I said.

What do you think the players are doing? he asked. Probably wandering around in the dark, I said. We waited. The lights came back on, the referee resumed the game.

Apparently, a meteor the size of a pear had crashed into a satellite, thus splintering the satellite instantly into a billion orbiting pieces that, on hurtling around the world, crashed and destroyed all the other satellites and space stations in the sky.

They estimated that about ten astronauts (the Russians were rather vague) were in the sky at the time of the tragedy.

Ten or so astronauts, dead or dying or drifting through space trying to catch or hold onto something no longer there.

After the game was over, we walked outside. The girls came back from their night out drunk and stumbling. We hugged, not all together, you know what I mean.

George and Rana walked to their car, George snatching the keys from her, as Eve and I stood there.

First, watching them drive off, then, for a little while, looking up at the emptiness. Well, Eve said, I know where they'll be next.

Nothing changed for a week or so besides the new breath of autumn. It blowing the vents of my jacket as I uncorked my telescope.

The hill, a good hill, as close as possible without any danger of being seen. I adjusted my front pocket so it hung better, my telescope trained on where the tree line ended.

When I saw them emerge, she had a few broken daisies in her hair, they were running a race she had started, a race in which she was caught by him. The meadow had been planted the year before, so the grass was new and sharp as he threw a checkered blanket into the wind.

His ashen skin coated his youthful features making him look like he was dying of one of those youth-killers like TB or cancer. Her skin fresh against his.

I looked to their hands, their fingers. I watched their glances and glares, how often they spoke. I looked down at the little blue ribbons running beneath her skin out of her wrists. Her arms stretched high and wide as he stripped her.

I put my telescope down. It would be same thing now for a little while. The same movements, even if varied. The same outcome, even if varied. Of complete disinterest to us.

I turned to Eve, her telescope also orphaned in the grass in front of her. That’s not our problem, she said. We both know that, I said. Maybe, she said, so I looked sideways at her, hopefully. Her face twisting.

Maybe we need to get fatter, she said. Fatter? I said. Yea, they both weigh like a little bit more than us, she said. Maybe the weight... That's ridiculous, Eve.

Well, you’ve said nothing all day, she said angrily. She stood up, picked an acorn off the ground and chucked it, hit me in the head with it.

I continued to lie on my stomach, squinting at the couple in the distance, as Eve kicked grass. But she lay back down quick when I said, they're done. We picked up our telescopes. The couple were florid and vermillion, figuring out how they wanted to fit together, probably saying, you get the fruit, no you get the fruit.

He broke the cork inside the wine, shoved the broken end down into the wine with his thumb. She reached over his chest for apple slices, and to ruin his hair he'd just fixed.

He ate cheese directly off the knife, tearing bread from the loaf. He handed her the wine bottle, she spilled a little on her blouse by lifting the neck too quickly.

I watched methodically; Eve watched carefully too. We watched them as the sky turned from blue to burning. We watched them be together all the way till the sun fell, and they left.

New Papers is a magazine that publishes new fiction and poetry. Each issue’s publication is accompanied by its live and sequential performance at the Rose Lipman Centre in London. For every performance, an artist is commissioned to design the setting and a representative collage is published as a card.

Kazden Brackett's fiction has been published in The Southampton Review, The Barcelona Review, and New Papers. He received his BA from Bennington College and is currently enrolled in Stony Brook’s MFA program.

Angus Read graduated from Falmouth University and is an emerging illustrator, currently based in London while he continues to expand his artistic practice. His work tends to revolve around relationships between people and between the worlds they inhabit, or wish to inhabit. He's looking forward to new opportunities coming up over the course of the next year.

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