Home > The End of the World Is Bigger than Love

The End of the World Is Bigger than Love
Author: Davina Bell

Summer


The first thing you need to know is that my name is Summer and my sister’s name is Winter and I know—it’s ridiculous, right? But that’s the kind of dude our dad was, and it probably wouldn’t surprise you to learn that he devoted a lot of his life to studying axolotls, which are those disgusting Mexican walking fish, and that’s why he was taken away by a bunch of guys dressed like ninjas. At least, that’s what we thought till we figured out what really happened, though now I wonder why we didn’t cotton on earlier. Probably because we were busy reading.

You might be thinking, where was our mother? Surely she could have put her foot down, unless she was in some post-birthing medical haze and was all, like, YES! to giving her identical twin daughters matching trans-seasonal names. Well, sure, maybe she would have, if she hadn’t died with Winter still inside her, all curled up like a little fist and just wanting to hang around where it was dark and quiet. I was out by then, so I probably saw it go down. But do you want to know something creepy? The doc didn’t even know Winter was coming—total surprise, like when you open the front door and there’s a guy there in a gorilla suit and he’s singing you happy birthday.

Did you know that once they used to do some kind of weird X-ray scan on pregnant ladies to show that sort of stuff—straight onto their skin? It’s gross to think about now, I know, but at least it would have given our mother the chance to up her bootie-knitting rate. And it wouldn’t have taken them until after she was gone to figure out that Winter was still in there, rapidly forming that part of her that likes to wander off in golden fields, trying not to hurt daisies as she picks them while I’m left all alone, going out of my mind with no one to talk to. That happened a lot once we got to the island. We were literally stuck by ourselves on a piece of land the size of a spitball. Oh, and we lived in the shell of a church. Not even joking. Our dad was there at the start, but then…you know. Just over a year later there was the whole ninja thing.

After Pops (our dad) was taken away, we kept things going, like we had when he was still around. So if he ever came back one mid-morning, say, strolling in with his hands in his pockets, he’d see us pretty much where he left us, sitting on those big old wooden pews in the sunshine, reading through the set of our mother’s classics with the patterned covers and arguing about Jane Eyre, who I called Jane Airhead but who of course Winter really liked. Winter really likes everyone—she even felt sorry for that guy we saw kicking a dog on an excursion to the Refuse and Recycling Centre.

But you wouldn’t understand all that, not yet, because I haven’t explained anything properly. Not Bartleby, the big old ruin of a church with half the roof busted in. How it became our home because Pops had to take us on the run and find somewhere to hide away until all his troubles blew over, though at the time he still insisted that the remote island’s unique ecosystem was needed to further his axolotl breeding program.

I know it’s hard to believe now that nobody goes anywhere ever, but we had been before, to the island at the top of the world. It was one long summer holidays while Pops was away on axolotl business, and we were seven and had just learned to cartwheel with our legs straight. We sailed there from another, bigger island with my grandfather—right across the ocean, skipping over the waves in a proud little yacht, not even the tiniest bit afraid of being shot down by a plane.

It was like a dreamscape from a book, that island—like a diorama made by the only kid in the whole school who really has a future in Art. The mountain sat at the back, huge and majestic, white-peaked, and, boy, was it high. Every time I looked up at it, I felt that shiver you get when you hear the roar of a lion, even through the TV. The next layer was the green plush of the forest on the right, the red rocks of the headland on the left. Then came the church, with the bell tower and the moat, and alongside it the sweet burble of the river that came down the slope, all melted snow, so icy and clear you could see your feet turning blue as you slipped round on the rocks trying to cross to the meadow on the other side, where a tiny white shack sat on grass so bright it glowed green. If there had been anyone else on that island, we could have rented that lawn out for barefoot bowling, but it was just us—that was kind of the point. In front of the grass was the sand, fine as flour, and the little jaggedy cove, the shape of a bite mark chomped into the shore, which was where our grandpa pulled up the boat that first day.

The whole place smelled like honeydew melon and sheets dried hot in the sun, and as we climbed out of the boat, Winter said, ‘Let’s never leave,’ and I added, ‘Except to get nachos,’ but even then I didn’t really mean it.

Our grandpa’s name was Walter, and we called him that. He didn’t say much except with his eyes, and Winter was mad for him. ‘This is paradise,’ he said with his eyes as he introduced us to the island, and truly it was. I don’t even have the vocab for that kind of beautiful and I’m basically fluent in three languages.

‘What’s on the other side of the mountain?’ I asked Walter one afternoon, when the sun bounced off the water so strongly that it burned my nose.

‘The end of the world,’ he said, scrubbing at the hull of his boat.

‘Can I go there?’ I asked.

‘Nope,’ he said, not in a mean way, but so I knew not to ask why.

‘What’s this island called?’ I said.

‘The island,’ said Walter. ‘You sure ask a lot of questions.’

‘You bet,’ I said happily. ‘And look at this cartwheel.’

For weeks we stayed in that wooden shack, so close to the beach that the sand blew in and got caught in the cracks of the floorboards, no matter how many times Winter swept up, hoping that Walter would notice.

Walter slept under the table that summer, so that we could have the bed. He braided Winter’s hair to distract her when she found an octopus washed up on the shore, rotting purple, and our hair isn’t that easy to plait on account of being so curly. He planted things—saplings, I think, that he’d brought across in paper sacks. I guess they were the fruit trees we ate from, years later. Did he bring them there for future us? Was the island actually his?

His boat was pulled up right outside the window, like a friendly dragon keeping watch outside a cave. In my mind, half the summer was spent scrubbing that boat, preparing for the journey home. Our grandpa was a thorough guy. He was a doctor once, Pops told us. He studied AIDS, which used to be a kind of virus, and you probably remember the hoopla when they found the cure—an injection quicker than a bee sting. Boy, was that a happy day across the planet. We weren’t that old, Winter and I, but I remember watching it on TV, the cities wrapped in ropes of white garlands that fluttered merrily as if they were hanging there to say ‘You see? There’s still hope for the future.’ But honestly? Hope had been fading for ages by then.

And after that summer on the island, we never saw Walter again.

 

 

Winter


They sat by my bed. Adjusted my drip. White walls, white sheets, white masks on their faces. A curtain that was always closed.

They watched me pretend to sleep sitting up.

When I had grown thicker, they asked questions I couldn’t answer. Not even on paper.

They gave me one sheet. They said, ‘Write what you cannot say. Write it down. Like it’s all just a story. Write it here. Write it down.’

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