<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
An Epiphany<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2018I can\u2019t help you,\u2019 says the guy on the desk. \u2018Look at this place. The Israelis bomb it and then they drive tanks over the rubble, How would I notice one more lump of concrete among all the rest?\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Not concrete,\u2019 mumbles Caspar. It\u2019s the first thing he\u2019s said all day. It\u2019s not just his pallor that got him the name Caspar, but his freakish capacity for silence.<\/p>\n \u2018I told you,\u2019 says Mel, \u2018it\u2019s not from round here. You get me? Just listen to that Geiger counter…\u2019 Mel holds it up. It crackles away like a badly tuned radio. \u2018Here somewhere, innit? If I were you, I\u2019d let us look.\u2019<\/p>\n The guy shrugs, one of those shrugs that ripples around the Mediterranean shore and could mean anything. Mel, Zar and Caspar take it as consent, replace their helmets and breathing apparatus and move off towards the guesthouse garden. The Geiger counter\u2019s crackling crescendos as they clamber over smashed furniture and tumbled lemon trees towards a tool shed that appears miraculously intact. Mel Takes a blast of his oxygen and pushes open the door. Zar, whose gran brought him up a Seventh Day Adventist, invokes the name of the Lord in a voice that sounds like Darth Vadar because of the helmet. Caspar\u2019s white and silent as ever.<\/p>\n The dusty light falls on the faces of a man and a girl.<\/p>\n \u2018Are you them?\u2019 The man shows no fear, as though three blokes in radiation suits are just what he expected to see when the door opened.<\/p>\n \u2018Mate, are you?<\/em>\u2019 Mel waves the Geiger counter at him. \u2018You can\u2019t be human. You\u2019d be coughing your guts up \u2013 literally \u2013 at these levels if you were.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018It\u2019s not us,\u2019 says the woman. She holds out a bundle towards Mel. \u2018It\u2019s him.\u2019<\/p>\n Zar takes the baby. Zar\u2019s used to babies; he\u2019s got three sisters and they\u2019ve all got kids. He folds back the scrap of sackcloth and gazes at the scrunched up little face that looks new and old, furious and full of wonderment all at the same time. \u2018Looks human to me,\u2019 he says.<\/p>\n \u2018No,\u2019 says Caspar, and because he says so little, his conclusion carries real authority.<\/p>\n The man picks up some shards of metal from among the garden tools littering the shed floor. They have the changeable sheen of a starling\u2019s wing and the edges are blunt to the touch, as though something has broken along pre-arranged lines. \u2018No,\u2019 he agrees. \u2018We found him lying in the middle of all these, almost like he\u2019d hatched out of an egg.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Except we saw it land,\u2019 adds the woman. \u2018We thought it was a shell to begin with but Yussuf said it wasn\u2019t.\u2019 She flicks Yussuf a nervous look. \u2018He knows more about that stuff than I do.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Shut it, Mariam.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018We\u2019re not interested in Yussuf\u2019s politics,\u2019 says Mel, snapping off the Geiger counter, \u2018we\u2019re interested in the baby. He needs our protection.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Our silence,\u2019 adds Caspar.<\/p>\n \u2018Bruv,\u2019 says Zar, \u2018what you most needs is to learn growing up different is a cross you has to bear.\u2019<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sarah Bower<\/strong> is a novelist and short story writer whose fiction has been published in nine countries. A resident of Suffolk, she also works as a mentor and creative writing tutor and is a former editor of the Historical Novels Review<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An Epiphany \u00a0 \u2018I can\u2019t help you,\u2019 says the guy on the desk. \u2018Look at this place. The Israelis bomb it and then they drive tanks over the rubble, How would I notice one more lump of concrete among all the rest?\u2019 \u2018Not concrete,\u2019 mumbles Caspar. It\u2019s the first thing he\u2019s said all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-twelve-days-of-christmas-2012"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3814"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23935,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3814\/revisions\/23935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}