Aurora - Blood Moon Epilogue

The single-file path meandered through several more pastures, over fence-crossings and across two or three footbridges spanning sweet little streams. The morning calm soon gave way to a blustery breeze, redolent of the sea, and puffy cumulus clouds scurried past overhead. A passing gust flipped the sunhat from Penny's head and she chased it, cursing, the first words she'd spoken since her preliminary carping. Folding the cap, she jammed it down the back of her jeans and was about to set off, bare-headed, when Watson caught her elbow. "Here." he said, whipping off his baseball cap. "Let's swap."

Penny raised her hand. "I'm good. Ta."

"No, Penny, you're not good. Look at that complexion. Peaches and cream. You'll cook."

About to argue the point, Penny chose the easy option instead and winkled her hat from the back of her jeans. "It's got daisies on it." she said darkly. "People will think you're weird."

"Too late, they already do." Watson said, waiting while Penny trussed her shoulder-length, wavy brown hair up in a ponytail. Task complete, she slipped on his cap and fed her ponytail through the closure, before cinching it up as tight as it would go. The old man heaved an inward sigh. In the oversized cap, with the sleeves of her button-up shirt rolled to the elbows, in tatty jeans with rips in the knees and a pair of purple running Converse, the young woman bordered on the adorable. Scars notwithstanding, with a few, small tweaks- to her attitude mostly- the slim, pale female would turn into a stunner.

The cultivated fields soon gave way to natural cover, low shrubs and ferns, stiff, hardy grasses, festooned with flowers in a riot of yellow and white. Blooms of amethyst touted for passing bumblebees, nodding their heads in the breeze. Here and there they passed eruptions of weather-worn rock, daubed with patches of ocher lichen, like spatters of paint. High above the low-flying cu, mares-tails of cirrus streaked the dome of bleached blue sky- a sure sign of weather on the way.

A few hundred meters short of the cliffs they crossed paths with with a pair of hikers, an elderly couple laden with rucksacks and brandishing ski poles, tramping the wild, winding coastal track, heading west. Pulling up for a chat, the hikers exchanged pleasantries with the fit, older gentleman and his glowering young daughter, who stood with her arms crossed saying nothing.

With a bout of mutual well-wishes the hikers took their leave. Watching as the humps of their rucksacks bobbed out of view, Watson fished a water bottle from his pack. "They were nice." he said, proffering a drink. Penny hesitated at first, but just Watson was about to withdraw, took the bottle with a nod of thanks and sucked down a few gulping mouthfuls. Passing the bottle back, she swiped her mouth, while Watson wrapped his lips around the clear plastic teat, savouring the thought of sharing her spit. "How are you travelling?" he asked, stowing the bottle.

"Fuckin' awesome." Penny said, as if nothing could be further from the truth.

Unfazed by her mean spirit, Watson cut cross-country to the very edge of the cliff, where he stood, overlooking an alien seascape. To the west, a towering cumulus was showing off its muscles, already growing the anvil of fully-fledged stormhood. With the sun well on its way to the western horizon, in the haze of a low-level inversion, the sea had turned the colour of pewter, streaming wind-lanes and serried with waves. Following the slow-motion charge with his eyes, Watson looked past his feet, watching breakers dash themselves to smithereens on the rocks below.

A presence materialised at his elbow. "I wonder if it hurts when you hit the bottom?"

Glancing at the top of Penny's head, Watson shrugged. "Well, I've never heard any come back and complain."

Looking straight down, Penny tagged the likely impact point. "Is this why you brought me here?"

The old man looked at her, grimacing. "Are you for real?"

"Why not? You might be doing me a favour."

"Yeahhh... nahh..." Watson hedged, hand closing gently but emphatically around her elbow, "I wouldn't if I were you."

"Why the fuck not?"

"Well... for one thing, just think about the poor old first responders. They're the one's who'd have to go down and clean up the mess. And look. And they couldn't get a boat in so they'd probably have to abseil. Abseiling's dangerous. Or use a chopper. Have you any idea how expensive they are?"

"Fuck the first responders." Penny muttered. "They could just leave me there. For the crabs and the seagulls to finish. At least I'd be doing something useful."

Watson tugged her arm and to his great surprise she didn't pull back. "Penny? Why the fuck would you do that to your ancestors?"

Penny looked at Watson as if he'd just grown a third eye. "Mu fuckin' what?"

"Ancestors." Watson said, leading her away from temptation. "You do have them, don't you? Unless you were born out of immaculate conception, in which case I wanna be your agent."

"Jesus Christ," Penny breathed, pulling away. "I can see why you need a carer."

"No really. Think about it. How many beings did it take to make you? And the answer's not two."

"How many... Fuck me, Damon, how do you even come up with this bullshit?"

"I didn't." Watson said, taking her hands. "I heard it in a rap song would you believe? By a Brit no less. I only heard it the once, but it's something I will never forget it. It's about a man, on a bridge, on the brink of throwing it all away. It saved me one day, while I was standing on the edge of a cliff, just like this. After almost thirty years in an abusive marriage. To a woman who even turned my own kids against me. And there I was, thinking, 'why not?', when-"

"A shit marriage?" Penny sneered. "Is that it? As if it even comes close!"

"No." Watson said, dropping her hands, embarrassed and humiliated. "Of course it doesn't. What was I thinking?"

"I mean it. A little domestic strife compared to what I've been through? Rape and the murder. Having to fight every day. Day in, day out, year after year. In some filthy, dirty shithole deep in the desert-"

"Thanks, Penny. I get it"

"-where I was meant to remain forever and ever."

"Penny! I said I get it!"

"Shit marriage." Penny scoffed, stumping away, "What a joke."

Simmering with shame, cursing himself for having squandered something so precious, Watson stood at the cliff-edge watching the waves. Breathing deeply, counting to ten, he reined in his thoughts, calming himself while Penny sat, twenty odd meters away on a rock, ripping stalks of grass from a tussock, dismembering them one by one. What was he thinking indeed, Watson wondered, exposing his soul like that? Fool me once, he thought, but never again.

Still, the standoff seemed like good a reason as any for calling it quits. If they left now they could be on the road by mid-afternoon, back in London by evening, and he would never have to indulge this young woman ever again. Ever. Compassionate he might be, kind and forgiving, but even his forbearance had its limits. She wanted to suffer? Let her suffer. Everyone needed their own reason for being.

Just as he was about to turn and give her the good news- their holiday was over- Watson heard the crunch of footsteps behind him. "Well?" Penny demanded, heaving-to, "How many?"

For a moment Watson stood, weighing his options. Tell her to just go and get fucked and take her foul temper with her? Or do them both a favour and throw her off the cliff? Or just take it. Pretend she hadn't just ripped his heart out and shat on it. "A lot." he said.

"Like... how many?"

"Pen," Watson sighed, "we really should be going. It's almost an hour back to the farm, then we have to pack and stack for London."

"But I wanna know."

"No. You don't."

"I do. Honestly."

"Well, sorry Penny but its too late for that."

Penny clenched her fists in frustration. "Damon. Man up. Just humour me."

"Humour you? So you want to hear another another joke? Okay. I had a motorcycle prang when I was young. It nearly killed me."

"Please? Damon?"

"Penny... all I was trying to say... a lot of good beings had to fight tooth and nail so you could be here. That's all."

"Well, give me a number."

"Enough to populate three point eight billion years."

"Billion? Did you say billion?"

"That's how far your line goes back. Unbroken."

Penny screwed her face up. "No it doesn't. Humans haven't even been around that long."

"I said beings, Penny. Not humans. We didn't start as humans, did we? We didn't even start as multicellular organisms. One thing became another, and another, and another. And another over time, with tiny little changes... a gene here, a gene there... until it led to us, the most violent and dangerous creature that's ever walked the planet. I'm gonna call my theory 'evolution'. I'll probably get the Nobel prize and be denounced as a heretic. Think about it, Pen. I'm gonna be famous."

"It's true." Penny nodded.

"Of course it is.

"You are fuckin' crazy."

"No I'm not. You look it up. A spark was ignited, the instant that molecule began to self-replicate. And that spark was passed on from one to another, to another, and another and another until you."

"And this is supposed to make me feel better?"

"Well it's not meant to make you feel worse. Think about it. The only way you came to be here, having this conversation with a not-in-the-slightest-crazy old man, is because not one of your ancestors threw in the towel."

"Throwing in the towel?" Penny demanded. "Is that what I'm doing?"

"That's what it looks like."

"After what I've been through?"

"You're still alive, Penny. And now you're back home."

"You don't understand. I don't have a home. And my body might be alive but my soul's been extinguished."

"And still causing this much trouble? It's not extinguished. Far from it."

"Well maybe it's about to be. I'm telling you, Damon. It's just sooo fucking tempting."

"And how would they feel?" Watson challenged, "Your ancestors? If you went and did that? Hmm? After all they'd been through?"

"They wouldn't feel anything." Penny said hotly. "Because they're all fucking dead."

"All of them?"

"Nearly."

"Your Mum and Dad?"

"Except Mum and Dad."

"Grandparents?"

"Except Nanna Gee and Nanna Mick."

"What about their parents? And their parents? And their parents and their parents and on and on? Just imagine, if someone invented a time machine. And went back. And told them, 'Oh, by the way, one branch of this lineage just came to an end. After four billion years. When your great, great, great, great, great greatgreatgreatgreat granddaughter threw it away. How would they feel, knowing all that effort had been for nought?"

"If they knew what I'd done? They'd probably offer to push."

"No, they wouldn't. They'd say, 'whatever happens, Penny, hold on. Cling on to life as hard as you can. Treasure this gift we've passed from one to another to another on to you. A flame that's been burning almost four billion years. Because if you jump now, it's all extinguished'."

"Well what about my sister, smarty pants? And my brother? And my cousins? And all my rellies who never murdered anyone? Aren't they carrying this same mythical flame?"

"Each is a result of their own, unique, unbroken and irreplaceable chain of survival."

"If this isn't the biggest load of hot cock!" Penny huffed, stressing the last word.

"But it's not hot cock, Pen. It's the truth. An indisputable, scientific fact."

Whipping her cap off, Penny raked her fingers through her hair. "Must be all that weed you'v e been smoking. It's addled your brain."

"It's not the weed that's addled my brain. It's the nearly sixty years of living on Earth. I've come to know things, Pen. Amazing things. Like how we got here."

Penny looked at him, not about to capitulate but nonetheless weakening. In his loose green T-shirt and baggy grey shorts, with his lean, sinewy legs and silly floral hat, standing there backlit by a seething silver sea, for one dizzying moment she knew not who he was. Or what. Someone or something transcendental, a vision, a Mage, not just some idiosyncratic old fart waffling rubbish.

She turned away, breaking the thrall. "Is this why they sent me here? To have my mind fucked?"

Watson shrugged. "You'll have to ask them."

"Well there's one teeeeny weeny flaw in your funny little fairy story, isn't there? I might have had ancestors, but I'm not gonna be one."

"How so?"

"Cos' I'm not gonna have kids. Why do you think?"

"Why not?"

Cap in hand, Penny stepped back. "Well... look at me." she glared, spreading her arms. "I mean... look."

Watson palmed his forehead. "Not this again."

"Yes, this again. And who cares anyway? Cos' in the end we all die. We plough into a truck at two hundred kays an hour. We get stabbed or burnt or strangled to death in a riot. We get hanged, we get beheaded, or we just give up and we starve to death. I've seen it, Damon. Then those billions of years are totally meaningless. LIFE is meaningless. It's just an accident, one great, big, stupid bloody accident."

Watson nodded. "Which just happens to come with the ability to self-perpetuate. I know, right? It's a frikken' miracle. Wanna go deeper? We can do creation of your elements by super nova if you've got time."

Penny swiped her eyes. She knew full well there was no way to counter the argument. Because he was right. It WAS a miracle. A poisoned miracle, fraught with danger and despair, where an instant of cruel fate could send a soul careening down a one-way road to hell. "Have you ever wondered if you might have dementia?"

"Now and then." Watson admitted. "But that doesn't mean I'm not one-thousand percent correct. If ANY one of your ancestors had decided not to go on, we wouldn't be standing here, on these amazing cliffs, on this beautiful day, on the only habitable planet in the observable universe. If any one, ANY ONE of your billions of ancestors had just said, 'sod it', none of this could have happened. You owe them Penny."

Penny put her face in her hands. "It's not my fault." she cried, "If you only knew what I've been through."

Arm around her shoulders, Watson walked her clear of the path and the puzzled scrutiny of more passing hikers. "Can you imagine?" he said. "What your forebears must have endured? So you could be here? The final result of their endless sacrifice."

Penny buried her head in the old man's shoulder, sobbing. "I don't wanna die, Damon. I wanna live. I wanna move on and be happy. I wanna have a kid. I wanna grow old and go batshit crazy like you. But how can I? Now I've done what I've done? There's no going back, there's no undoing a thing. I forfeited my future. All for the sake of one, reckless decision."

"Well it's not like you're the first." Watson said.

Penny looked up, eyes puddled with tears. "First what?"

"Individual in your lineage who had to kill to survive."

Penny gave her head a little shake. "What the fuck? What's that supposed to mean?"

"The same thing must have happened hundreds of times over the eons. Thousands of times. Fucking millions."

"Are you trying to say I come from a long line of murderers?"

"Killers, Penny, and yes you do. We all do. Think about it. How many of your forebears ever fought in a war? Or some tribal conflict over resources or women? In religious crusades? Or defending themselves from robbers and villains? And that's just as human beings. What about your weasel ancestors, in the time of the dinosaurs? Dodging raptors and praying for an asteroid, fighting for food or mates? Imagine how vicious those little bastards were. And how do I know? Cos' they were the victors, which is how you came to be here. In fact they probably ate the losers after they killed them, and not in the nice way either, the one we all know and love. Same goes when your family consisted of trilobites, or jellyfish."

"But how many got off on it?" Penny demanded, face contorted and eyes full of tears."

Watson shook his head, thrown by the sudden left turn. "How many what?"

"Got off on it? Killing? Cos' you wanna know how it felt?"

The old man looked at her, startled. "...No."

"Well I'll tell you, Damon. I fuckin' LOVED it. That's right. It was awesome. Killing that woman felt fuckin' delicious. Thrilling, magnificent, fuckin' amazing. Wrapping that chord around her lily-white neck. And pulling, and pulling, while she scratched and clawed, and her face turned purple. And we both went down, just the two of us, the closest I have ever been to any human being. Her veins popping out and the noise she was making... I swear to god it just about gave me an orgasm. I wanted that moment to last forever, Damon. I wanted that moment to be my last."

"I think that's what they call a peak experience." Watson said, gathering his wits, secretly rattled by so momentous a confession.

"Right. So now you're a shrink?"

"No," Watson said, "But I spoke to one once, researching a character I was scripting. Apparently that sort of thing is all pretty normal."

Penny screwed her face up. "Pretty fuckin' normal? I just fuckin' said I fuckin' got off on it. Killing that woman. You know what that makes me, don't you? A fucking psychopath."

"Pffft!" Watson scoffed, back on safe ground, "You're not a psychopath."

"I fuckin' am too."

"No you're not. Not even close."

"And how the fuck would you know?"

Watson really wanted to explain he had expert knowledge. Gained over 26 years of being controlled and belittled, gas-lit, guilted and shamed. By a pathological attention-seeker and brazen exhibitionist. Self-important, vain, ruthless and entitled. Prone to fits of inconsolable jealousy and bouts of screaming rage. Cunning, manipulative, and worst of all highly intelligent, for that's what attracted him in the first place. Still smarting from the last time he opened his heart, he bit his tongue and said, instead, "Your state."

Penny looked at him gobsmacked. "My what?"

"Your state. Your distress. Trust me. A psychopath would have revelled in what you've done. Not fallen apart into a blithering wreck."

Penny's jaw sagged. "What did you just call me?"

"Look," Watson said, "Ally had a fight with the Russian, didn't she?"

"And so fuckin' what?"

"Beat the shit out of her, didn't she? Remodelled her face?"

"That's a bit different to killing her, Damon."

"But what if she had? If the goons hadn't turned up and Ally got carried away. I've seen it, you know, when she loses her shit. It's fuckin' scary. So what if she'd wound up actually killing the Russian? Would she be a psychopath?"

"No. She wouldn't. But that's a completely different kettle of fish. Ally was just defending herself. I sought Sonya out."

"After she'd just set fire to your friend?"

"Ally's friend. Not mine."

"But you knew the girl, didn't you? And you ki... attacked the Russian because of what she'd just done?"

Penny looked around. "Are we on Judge Judy or something?"

"Answer the question, witness. What if Ally had killed her? Premeditated or not. Would you have written her off as a psychopath?"

"No." Penny said, "I would have kissed her feet. For saving me the trouble. For saving us all."

"Exactly. For saving the tribe."

Brow furrowed, Penny stood in silence.

"Someone had to do it, Pen. Protect the tribe. And I swear to god, Ally would have done it if she'd been there. And what about the other girls?"

"What about them?"

"After you did it? What did they do?"

Penny stood fuming at the old man's prescience. In the aftermath, while she was still reeling, all the girls shuffled past. One by one, every last one. Some just touching, others embracing her, some actually kneeling and touching her feet. "They knew I'd probably hang."