When TransGraph-UK flew me to America to solve a technical problem with one of their machine-robot installations, I booked my holiday allowance to begin as soon as I was through with that assignment. Happily this site, which made household air-conditioners of some description, was located in California. I completed the job over two long days (sleeping on the floor of their offices). In the end it required a change of software and a different type of grease; what they had been using till then was too viscous so that when the robots applied it to their joints it didn't penetrate enough. Their bearings would seize, and the robots would start to drill holes in the wrong places, like into the floor or each other.
Quite why this company wanted to get its production line going again was never properly explained. In my opinion there was very little point since the oil was going to run out in less than a month. What harm would there be in closing a few weeks early? Perhaps there was some contractual obligation that required them to stay in business for as long as possible or face immediate fines for compensation from the workforce, their customers and their suppliers which would total far more than the bill from TransGraph for my services.
When I finished the job and reported it to my boss over the telephone, I went out and bought myself a car. I left town that night. During the next few weeks I drove the all the way across the United States, proceeding from one tourist attraction to the next, gradually working my way east. My intention was to wind up in New York City by the end of it all, and from there catch a plane back to England. Fortunately, I'd got TransGraph to agree to the plan before they bought my tickets. The "open-jaw" option (flying to one city and out of another) was twice the price of a return fare to the further destination!
By about Kentucky the interesting geographical attractions were beginning to thin out. I'd done the canyons, the deserts and the forests (alive and petrified), and was in the process of doing the caves. All that were left were the cities. These had far more to see in them than I had imagined, and I had an exceptionally good guidebook. In Georgia I picked up Mary who was hitch-hiking back home in New Jersey. She had run out of gas coupons and, with no other means of travel, was thumbing to the cars on the slip road of a large service station complex.
She put her stuff in the back seat when she got in, and then happened to glance at my gas coupon counter on the dashboard. Her eyes seemed to light up like someone who has just been given a diamond. At the time I thought it was due to her relief of finally getting a lift after six hours of standing on the pavement. Two days later when she was proclaiming that she wanted to marry me, I convinced myself that it must have been her moment of 'love at first sight'. Later, I formed another opinion when it finally dawned on me the full scope of what was going on. Not that it mattered by then.
The coupons I had were not very much; only enough to get the combination of me and my car another four or five hundred miles. In other words to New York City without much to spare. If someone stole the car, the coupons would be lost. They were associated to the car, not the driver. This wasn't a problem when they were in plentiful supply and you could easily get more than enough to satisfy your basic needs. They didn't cost, they were only a means of distributing the remaining gasoline and other oil derivatives fairly and evenly among the public. The worldwide squeeze came into effect only when the oil in all its raw forms from coal, to crude, to shale, began simultaneously to run out.
It still surprises me how much the International Legislature was able to see forward into the future in time to install the coupon system. They saw all the problems that would arise as the oil ran low. When it became scarce it would become more and more expensive to buy (despite costing more or less the same to extract from the ground and process into the finished product). The profits would go up at the distribution companies and other middle men at the expense of the rest of society. And as the problem became clear, individuals and some larger organisations with cash to spare would probably hoard oil in their basements or underground reservoirs and have to guard it from thieves.
The doomsday scenario they predicted was of a world in darkness, dimly lit up around small pockets of left over oil sold at excruciatingly high prices. These supplies of oil would almost certainly come under the control of gangsters who could run their criminal organisations quite effectively off it. Once oil, which is directly convertible into effective transport, is no longer available equally to everyone, those that have it have power over those who do not. A relatively small number of thugs could maintain control over a vast population simply because they could group themselves at short notice and outnumber and overpower the ordinary people at any given location. A society of this kind was not one that anybody wanted to see.
I travelled at a gentle pace towards New York City with Mary in the car. My plane wasn't due for another five days, so there was no rush. The roads were not yet empty. Everybody still had enough coupons for their needs just as I had enough for mine.
We were cruising along the winding back roads in the Appalachian Mountains one day until we got stuck behind a slow truck. After an hour of getting bored I overtook it on a straight bit. I whacked the car up to seventy miles per hour and drove flat out for a stretch. Mary got out her cigarettes and lit one up. A little while later there was a clank in the engine and the car lost all power. We rolled onto the verge. We were on the approach to the Pennsylvania border. I sat there for a few minutes with Mary silent in the passenger seat like a load of old baggage, and then reached over lap to pull open the bonnet release.
There seemed nothing particularly wrong with the engine, so eventually I started it up again. It sounded terribly off balance, as if firing on three cylinders, but I was able to drive it for another ten miles before it conked out again. Smoke wafted out the front.
I grinned sheepishly. "How far is it to your home?" I asked Mary.
"I dunno. Maybe another fifty miles."
"It won't go that far."
"Don't you know what's wrong?"
"No. Maybe something in the engine has seized," I said. Then I added, "I can probably drive this car for another ten miles, and it will stop again. And then if I wait a bit, I might be able to drive it another ten. After that it probably won't go again. It has to be fixed."
"Well," she said. "I got some cousins who live near Cumberland. Let's go there and take it to a garage in the morning."
I started the car and managed to drive it a whole seventeen miles before it stopped and smoke poured out the sides.
Mary's cousins made us unwelcome. She was a little rude to them in my opinion, which didn't help. They let us sleep in their caravan on the drive, but didn't offer any food. I was trying to save money for the garage bill in the morning, so we had to eat cheaply out of tin cans that night. I had three days before my plane flight.
It was slightly less than two hundred miles to the airport. If it had been closer than a hundred miles I'd have considered abandoning all my belongings and walking the distance. No garage mechanic seemed interested in looking at my problem in the morning. In fact hardly any of them even bothered to answer the telephone. I got through eventually to one friendly chap who called himself "JD" and proclaimed very loudly that he was "Retie-yad!" But, he said, I could come down to his workshop and borrow his tools and service manuals any time I wanted. He would let me ask him for advice, "But don't expect me to do nuttin'," he said.
By lunchtime Mary seemed to have got the job of housecleaner for her cousins. I told her the situation and she made them lend me one of their children's bicycles to get me to town.
Down at JD's garage, JD was sunning himself on a deckchair across the driveway to his workshop. I introduced myself and he asked without getting up, "Now what kind of car do you got?"
I told him is was a VW Passat. "Oh," he said. "I fixed one of them last summer, or was it the summer before? Its engine blew up and I had to put another one in. What's the problem with it?"
I told him the symptoms, and added that when it stopped for the last time oil started dripping out the air filter onto the road.
"Did you take the air filter off to see what was inside?"
"No."
"That's the first thing you should do. If you had done that you'd have had a better idea. Sometimes that kind of engine throws gobs of oil upstairs and blocks your carb and stops the car from running. I'd say it's a broken piston ring then."
"Is that bad?"
"Pretty bad. You might have been able to fix it if you hadn't driven that extra twenty miles. Now the cylinder's probably scored too deeply for a rebore.
"Don't worry," he continued. "You can always put a new engine in. Does the gears still work?"
"I think so. It's automatic."
"That'll be easier for you. There is less to go wrong if they work." He pointed behind him as he slouched in his deckchair. "Go into the back in there and find the shelf underneath the workbench on the far wall. My manuals are in alphabetical order, so look under 'W' for 'Volkswagon'. Make sure you get the right year."
It was dark in his garage. The tools were locked neatly in drawers and the work bench was extremely tidy. The manuals, although lined up nicely, were terribly grubby and well used.
"Where was it you lived?" JD asked.
"Two-two-seven, Waterbeach Way. Up in Shell Woods."
"You are in luck! This is your good day. I know someone with a VW about five miles away from that location. He'll probably be willing to sell it to you at a reasonable price. Here, would you be so kind as to fetch me the telephone from the office. I'll give him a call him for you."
The phone socket was behind the desk and the cable only reached a few feet out the door. JD dictated Mark Wood's number, the man he was referring to, and I stretched the twirly cable almost straight just to get the receiver to his hand. Then JD yanked it to his ear with so much force that the phone base was lifted off the ground.
"Hello Markie. It's JD here. How are you doing for gas coupons?" JD paused as Markie answered. "So you're all run out. That's too bad," JD said and winked at me. "Seeing as you can't use it anymore, would you be kind enough to sell your engine to a very good friend of mine? I have a gentleman here from England who was needing to get back to New York when one of his piston rings blew."
"Well, I don't know," said Markie through the phone. (I was crouching beside JD's deckchair.) "How much will he give for it?"
"Let's say fifty bucks."
"Nothing less than seventy-five."
"How about sixty?"
"... Fine."
"My friend can probably get round to you in about two hours if that's okay by you."
I put my hand on the receiver so that JD didn't let it go for it to spring back and crash through a window.
I asked, "How am I going to get the engine to my car?"
"That's a good point," JD said. "Markie? Are you still there?" he said to the phone. "Is there any gas whatsoever left in the tank?"
"I'm not driving it anywhere," Mark said. "The needle says it's empty, but there might be a few drops left in the bottom of the tank."
"Thanks very much."
I put the phone away in JD's office.
"If you run out of gas on your way home, You can always siphon a couple of pints from your old car through the engine without interfering with the anti-siphoning devices," JD said and then stopped talking for a little while.
I asked, "Could you tell me where this guy lives?"
"Oh yeah. To get to his house you turn left down this road and follow it all the way through the centre of town, past four traffic lights until you reach a railroad. Turn left on the second road after the railroad and you'll see it there. It's a big green house. Number seventy-nine, Raritan Road. That's the place. You'll be able to recognise the car because it'll look exactly like your own."
"It's in the opposite direction to Shell Woods," I said.
"Is it?"
"Yeah. I could drive past here on my way back and pick up your tools."
"I suppose you could."
I set off on Mary's cousin's son's bicycle which developed a puncture in the middle of town when I rode over a nail. A passing cyclist stopped and let me use his puncture repair kit, and then tried to offer me a job. I told him I already had one and he cycled off without another word.
Mark Wood handed me the keys to his car for seventy dollars in cash and asked if I could tow it back once I had stripped the engine from it. It had some good seats he wanted to put in his kids' rooms. I drove back to JD's garage.
JD was still slouching in his deckchair in front of his garage, but now in a different place because the sun had shifted. He said, "It's important to remember that a VW is a German car, so you'll have to make sure you get the metric set of tools. Those are the ones that say 'mm' on the side for millimetres, not inches. You'll need spanners, a socket set, two sets of Allen keys, and a couple of screwdrivers. You can also borrow the winch if you want, but I haven't got a tripod to hang it from: I suggest you park your car under a tree and pull your engine up on a branch. And last, but not least, don't forget the manual."
I drove back to 227 Waterbeach Avenue and started to read the pages of the manual to do with removing the engine. After an hour of preparing my mind for the task ahead, I found a suitable tree down a nearby dirt track in the woods and set to work.
I hate fixing cars. As far as I am concerned, garages don't charge too much for the work they do. There is no reason why such terrible work shouldn't pay well. By sun- down I had the old engine out and on the ground. The engine in the other, perfectly-functional-if-it-could-get- some-gasoline, car had its engine more or less completely detached, but I wanted to wait for the morning before lifting it out. I had the idea of winching it up, rolling my car underneath it, spinning it round, and lowering it into place all in the next morning. I should have known: nothing is ever quite that simple.
Mary was in the caravan playing with her cousin's son when I stepped in all greased up to my elbows. I made a mess of the sink as I washed my hands.
"You had a good day?" Mary asked.
"A hard one," I answered, and began to recount the events to her. Her eyes glazed over when I told her about how to unbolt an engine, and what I was going to do in the morning.
"When will it be done?" she asked the straightforward question.
"Oh, about lunchtime tomorrow, I guess."
"You'll drive me the rest of the way home then?"
"Sure."
"And then what?"
"I don't know. I'll have to think about that."
"I still want you," she said, not very convincingly. Her cousin's son nearly tripped over in his rush to get out the door. Mary put her arms around me. This was more convincing than her words. Her attempts at seduction were slightly less amateur than my car mechanics. But who cares: if it works for a few days it would be more than enough. My hands were still covered with grease which didn't come off with any more soap.
Contrary to Mary's apparent suspicion, I had no specific connection with any oil supply which could outlast the global drought that was about to occur, and thus make me as desirable as a man with a really fat wallet. My relative abundance of coupons was only a reflection of my needs, that being that I was going back to England, unless I somehow missed the plane. If I missed my flight it would probably be years before I persuaded someone to take me across the Atlantic on a sailboat or something. No way was I going to stay in the United States forever if I could help it. Not one of my close friends or family was here. An American woman angling after a bit of extra gas would be no compensation.
Back in the woods with the cars and engines, I ran into severe difficulty after only an hour of work. The gearboxes of both cars were different, and the linkages of the engines to them were different to the extent that if I dropped the new engine into the old engine's place, it would physically not have fit. I sorted out most of this incompatibility by spannering auxiliary items off the new engine and replacing them with items from the old one, but I then reached a problem with a certain internal bearing shell seated in a hole at the end of the crankshaft.
Mary came by while I was pulling at this stubborn object with a pair of pliers, and folded her arms and watched.
"I've got a problem," I said. "It's this internal bearing shell. It won't come out." I jabbed at it with a screwdriver. She peered into the hole.
"So it won't be ready by lunchtime."
"No. I think not."
"What are you going to do?"
I sighed. "I got to go down to the garage and get a tool."
"Oh," she said.
"So I'll be needing the bike again," I said.
"That's unfortunate."
"What's the problem?"
"It'll take some trouble to persuade them. They don't like you being here."
I was cross. "Now there is no need for them to get difficult about it. I'd like to leave here just as much as they want me to go. The best way to get this to happen is to help me fix the car."
"I know," Mary said as she walked away.
I packed the tools and spare parts into one of the cars, locked it and left the engine dangling from the tree.
JD's garage was all locked up when I got down to it. JD was nowhere to be seen. "Shit!" I shouted, and went to look for another garage.
I found a gas station in town, left the bike on the sidewalk and tentatively walked across the forecourt with both hands visible since the attendant, who looked like he was in the army, was holding a big gun.
"Excuse me sir, I was trying to fix my car but the garage I've been borrowing my tools from is closed. Do you know where I can find someone who has an internal bearing shell puller?"
The man with the gun, who could see I was genuine by the black grease on my hands and face, clucked at me. He put his elbow up and lent on one of the gas pumps. "Isn't it a little late for that sort of thing?"
"Yes. But my car's broke down and I am changing the engine over so I can get back to New York. I have enough coupons to do that. I am catching a plane."
The man whistled at that. "Well, good luck to you," he said with admiration.
"So do you know where I could get this necessary tool?"
"Oh yeah. I suggest you try Wensleydale's Auto Parts. It's up Route 18 by the Y-Mart. That's this road here," he pointed where my bike was. "Turn left and follow it north."
"How far?"
"About fifteen miles."
I went back to my bike and set off. Route 18 was horrendous. There were cars everywhere on it. It was hot and smelly and dangerous. There were no sidewalks anywhere once I got out of town. There storm drains had slots wide enough to swallow a bike tyre. The car drivers were being particularly antisocial that day. At one point at a huge junction with another major highway, I had to carry the bike and hop from one litter strewn traffic island to another across thousands of slip roads and divided lanes.
At last I reached a stretch of road fully lined with shopping malls where I could cycle safely through the car parks which unfortunately didn't join up but were divided by broken chain link fences and collapsed ditches.
I had gone for miles through this area when I stopped for a rest in front of a great flea market hoping to find a tap somewhere for a drink of water. The sun was being intensely hot.
A young fair-haired man with a moustache walked by and asked, "What kind of bike is that?"
"Umm. Not sure," I said.
He stood back and looked at it as if making an appraisal. "It's a 531 double butted alloy frame you got there. And those are quite a good set of wheels. I wish you could tell me what it is. I don't recognise it. Have you come far?"
"All the way from Shell Woods."
"Hmm," the man said as if not very impressed.
"It's been hard work. This road is atrocious."
"No, you don't want to go on Route 18, it's death. There's a road that runs down the back of all these malls you should use. Wait till next week, then the big roads will be safe. I'm Matt, by the way. Matt Brunswick. What's your name?"
We shook hands. "Peter Burke," I said. "Do you know anywhere I can get a drink of water?"
"Sure," Matt said. "You can get a drink in that McDonalds."
"For free? I'm low on money."
"They can't charge you for water. Water is always free. I'd bring your bike in with you if I were you. It's valuable."
Together we walked across the nearly empty tarmac car park. "You mean inside?"
"Sure. The manager doesn't mind very much. He's quite friendly to us cyclists. What brings you here, by the way?"
I began to explain my situation including the plane I had to catch back to England, the broken car and the quest for an internal bearing puller. From what I could gather, Matt was the first American I had met who seemed to fully comprehend the impending crisis. All others ignored it to the extent that I had doubts occasionally that it was not all in my imagination. The lack of available gasoline to increasing numbers of people was taken as seriously as the disappearance of all the golf balls at a golf club one Sunday afternoon -- so everyone just hangs around the club hut all day and drinks while a few keen members who have retrieved a handful of soggy balls from the lake with a fishing net play a fun game around the course on their own until they disintegrate into a shower of rubber on the sixteen hole. No one seemed worried or prepared about the future of what was merely a few days hence. When the food in their pantry runs out in each of their homes and the supermarkets are too far away to get to on foot in a day, and the trucks that supply those markets can't get to them either, then they might realise their predicament.
Matt said, "This is part of the reason I was interested in your bike. I am in an organisation which specialises in human powered goods vehicles. I wanted to see if I could recruit you."
"Oh?" I said. "What organisation is this?" I sipped from my paper cup of water and ice with a slice of lemon.
"It's called Shamweb. Up till now we've been into network marketing, but that's about to die out. The future, however, holds out great promise once the cars are gone and there is room for bicycles and rickshaw."
"What's a rickshaw?"
"They're a sort of pedal tricycle with a back seat for passengers. They use them in Asia a lot instead of taxis. But we're not looking so much at carrying passengers as carrying goods. People, if they want to go far, can rent their own bike and pedal themselves."
"Unless they're too fat," I said.
"Cycling is a great way to lose weight and stay fit."
"Just a moment." I got up and went to the counter again. Feeling a little guilty, I bought some Coca-Cola flavoured water on ice, instead of the plain, free water.
"At Shamweb," Matt continued, "they've been perfecting a bicycle trailer. They've leased me one of the prototypes at a discount and I am expecting it to arrive here today on the back of a truck." He paused and licked some sweat out of his moustache with his tongue.
"Does this Shamweb organisation do anything apart from hire out cycle equipment?" I asked.
"Sure. Most definitely. They coordinate everything. Whenever you or I negotiate a transport deal, we have to report it to them. Usually it will involve far more than any one person can carry in the available time, so the job gets shared among everyone who volunteers to help out. And the profits get split between the person who got us the deal and the people who carry the goods.
"Shamweb also have had the foresight to stock up on bike parts like puncture repair kits, pumps, inner tubes and new spokes. Such things are free to registered members because they are absolutely essential."
We talked for some time about bicycles and similar things, but I had one more question to put to him before I left. "Why put so much effort into bicycles? Why not just use horses?"
Matt laughed. "What horses? I don't see many horses? Have you got one? Anyways, a bike is better than a horse -- when you have a good road." He waved his arms towards route 18. "Which is exactly what people didn't have back in the old days of the wild west. Horses can't run on roads, it knackers their knees. We will have no competition from them for many years. In fact, for as long as these highways exist. By the way, how long do you think these highways will last?"
"I don't know?"
"Go on, take a guess. Fifty years? A hundred years?"
"A hundred sounds plausible."
"Five to eight hundred years. Many of the bridges will still be standing over a thousand years from now. There is nothing to pull them apart or wear them out. No fifty ton trucks or half million cars a year. They were built properly. In the future people will look back at history and see that the most enduring legacy of the age of the automobile will be the most incredible road network anyone could ever imagine. And the cars will have ruled it for only five percent of the time. Don't you think that's amazing?"
"Yes. Quite striking," I agreed. "Do you know where Wensleydale's Auto Parts is? I'm told it's beside the big Y-mart."
Matt explained to me how much further along it was, and wished me luck, and then added that I should try and join the UK branch of Shamweb when I got home since it would be a wise move for my career. I set off. According to my watch it was getting late.
I parked my bike against the front of Wensleydale's when I eventually found it after a further fifteen minutes of car-park hopping nonsense. The sign said closed, but the door was open. Inside it was dark, so I turned the lights on. A hastily scrawled note on the desk said, "Dear customer, this is store is closed for business. Take what you want as long as you don't bother me about it. Signed Clive Wensleydale."
I moved my bike inside and then walked through the door behind the desk. There were aisles of metal shelves stacked to the ceiling with boxes of oil filters, air filters, spark plugs, fan belts and so forth. Further along were racks of more obscure parts, many in clear plastic bags: pistol rings, oil sump gaskets, throttle cables, clutch plates, points, radiator caps and catalytic converters. I couldn't locate the tools, but came across a rack of drive belts and decided to help myself to one of them; as I was having the engine out, I thought I might as well put in a new one of them, for it would be embarrassing if the old one snapped while I was on my short journey. It was evident someone had been at the cylinder head gaskets because much of the contents of that shelf had been tossed on the floor. I kicked an inlet manifold out of my way as I walked past searching for the special tools section.
Two hours later I had deduced that obscure things like bearing pullers were in a special drawer, which was locked. Reluctantly I broke it open and got to them. I wasn't sure what size I needed so I took all eight of them.
I had to pedal very fast on the way back to beat the sun setting and got quite tired. Back at 227 Waterbeach Way, Mary had been worried for me primarily with regards to her cousin's bike, which she was relieved to return. Nonetheless, I got a hug and a kiss and a hot meal before I went out into the darkness with my torch and collection of bearing pullers. Earlier in the day, some horrible children had played a game of throwing stones at my engine hanging in the tree, but fortunately there was no irreparable damage.
The bearing puller pulled the bearing out a treat, and I fitted the engine. It was not until two o'clock the following day that I finally had my car up and running. Note that this was the day of my plane flight and things were beginning to get quite frantic, so I wasted some valuable time towing Mr. Wood's car back to his house and returning JD's tools to his garage (he wasn't in, so I had to leave them in a pile beside the door) and fill up with gas. That gas station man with a gun was waiting for me. "It's about time you got here," he said. "I've been waiting for you. This can is the very last ten gallons I have, and it's all yours."
I held the funnel as he poured it in to my tank, then he said goodbye, have a pleasant journey, and disappeared.
As I pulled out of the station I asked Mary for a route to the airport that would take me near her house. "Remember, I've neither the time nor the gas to spare," I said.
"You're not staying?"
"What?" I said. "No way."
"Can I keep the car?"
"Sure, you can have the car. But I'll leave it at the airport."
"I can drive it back."
"If there is enough gas."
She peered at the coupon counter for a moment. "You've still got at least another tank coming your way," she said.
"If we find a gas station which can fill me up!"
We didn't and the fuel situation got so close I had to take a detour down the main road of her town and drop her off. I didn't take her to her door because I was so short of time. My watch was by then flashing 'low battery' on its display and I didn't trust its accuracy. We kissed goodbye. She left me her address and invited me to stay with her in case I didn't make it on time. I drove off through the rapidly thinning traffic not stopping for any more hitch- hikers.
On my way into New York there was a traffic jam. Lord almighty, I said to myself. Someone had run a red light and crashed into an oncoming car, partly blocking the road. I eventually made it through the gap and stormed towards JFK airport where I could see planes in the twilight overhead coming into land with their tail lights blazing. I recklessly drove into the short stay car park because it was closest to the terminal building, and left it in the middle of a lane with the keys in the ignition and the doors open.
"Last call for flight 309," it said over the tannoy. "Last call at gate 13."
Shiiiit. I ran and panicked across the expanse of the entrance area. I had to find my ticket and my passport -- immediately -- before the security guard would let me through the departures barrier. After two and a half seconds of digging for them in my bag, I poured the contents onto the floor to find them. Then frantically stuffed the clothes back in the bag out of sheer habit instead of abandoning them.
The guard at the barrier took my passport and ticket and coolly leafed through both. "Where's your boarding pass?" he said. "You haven't got a boarding pass."
I realised I hadn't checked in. The check-in desks were on another floor.
"There's no time," I panted. "My plane leaves in a two minutes."
"I can't let you through without a boarding pass."
"Please!"
A cop who had been watching me came up beside us. "Go on, let the guy through," he said. "If he's got a ticket, don't waste his time."
The guard sighed, closed my passport with my ticket in it and handed it back to me. "Thanks," I said to the pair of them, and dashed through into the gate area, past the duty free shops and into the long wide tiled hallways where my shoes skid.
Gate 22 from which my plane was departing, was still full of people, fortunately. There had been a last minute delay: a faulty fuel gauge on one of the auxiliary tanks had caused it to under-read. The excess fuel had to be drained out because it was needed elsewhere. Calculations on remaining oil resources were becoming so tight that no amount could be overlooked.
The stewardess at the entrance to the partitioned waiting room section started being awkward about my lack of boarding pass. Failing to check in meant I might not have been allocated a seat on the plane; someone else could have bought the seat without me. What did I care? Didn't she realise that I'd be quite happy to sit in the aisle? Nevertheless, she insisted on checking my ticket number and reserving the space.
After a few seconds of this, the electrical power went down for a moment and the lights and computers went briefly dead. The lights came back on, but the computer could not, at least for the next half hour. She thumped the keyboard. "Could you wait here a few minutes, Mr Burke," she said, and promptly walked off.
I was kept in limbo until the very last passenger was seated comfortably on the plane with their seat buckles on and their tray tables in an upright position. Only at the very end, just before the pilot braced the door, was I let on board. The plane was in fact moving off as the door was shut. The stewardess showed me to my seat which was a window seat. I was not one to complain.
Time passed quickly from then on. I hardly remember the take-off. No sooner was I through popping my ears, they handed out the packaged meals and showed the film. I did not rent any head phones and instead fell asleep while the images of men firing hand guns at multiple car chases flickered over my head in silence.
I woke to a beautiful day. The sun had risen and I opened the window shade to a spectacular cloudscape. There were gaps in the clouds through which I could see what I guessed was Ireland, or perhaps the west coast of Britain. My face was pinned to the perspex until they served breakfast. I kept watching out the window while I ate breakfast, hardly noticing the food. I vividly remember the stewardesses clearing away the trays and proceeding down the aisles with their trolleys. The 'Fasten Your Seatbelts' sign came on ominously while we were still at altitude. That moment stuck in my mind. We were approaching the outskirts of London and the plane began to climb upwards at a bit of an angle. It went that way gently for about half a minute, then suddenly tilted and nose-dived. Everyone in the compartment shrieked. It came as such a shock. My stomach rose into my throat and my hands gripped the plastic of the seat in front with white- knuckles. I stared out the window. We were flying vertically downwards towards the ground like a V2 rocket. The wing was actually flexing up and down like an Olympic diving board. Then, suddenly, it bowed upwards as it caught the air. We did a huge loop in the sky, with the engines roaring and everyone screaming at the tops of their voices. I almost passed out, not from the g-forces, which were not extreme, but from the fear that the plane would fold and split apart at any moment.
The pilot executed another, much tighter loop, and then a number of barrel rolls which scattered everything in the cabin not tied down. He finished with a wing-over and an incredibly steep turn which brought us into the landing approach of the main runway.
I sweated with my heart thimping as the pilot performed a totally smooth landing on the tarmac. I could not believe I was still alive and just lay in my seat like everybody else, totally stunned.
We were the last plane to land at Heathrow. The baggage collection halls were deserted and there was hardly anyone in customs except for several airline representatives profusely apologising for our ordeal and dishing out free half-litre bottles of duty-free spirits to all the passengers who were on the plane. Apparently the crew had locked themselves in the cockpit for their own protection. Who can blame them for having fun on their last flight ever.
The bus company was down to running minibuses. There were so few that there wasn't a time-table anymore, just a bus company manager negotiating with the people in the ticket area about where the next bus was going to take them. Thirty-five of us packed onto one bus meant for nineteen which went through every conceivable town and village between London and Kings Lynn.
I got home in the end in quite a bedraggled state. After the wait for the bus and the bus ride itself, it was now late afternoon. I got dropped off in town with two other people and managed to telephone my mother at home. She couldn't pick me up in the car because she was out of petrol, so I had to walk the five miles along empty roads. She promised to have some food ready on the table by the time I arrived.
The sun set leaving darkness due to the lack of streetlights. No cars passed by to light the way as I plodded along the verge.
With immense relief I reached the gate of my mother's house. The lights were on behind the curtains making it look warm and cosy inside, which it was. I knocked on the door.
"Peter, it's good you got back," my mother said, and we hugged.
"I was pretty lucky to make it," I said.
"Come inside, take your shoes off. You look worn out."
I left my bag in the hallway and we went into the kitchen where I sat down at the table.
"Would you like a beer or anything."
"Just a glass of milk, if you have any. It smells good, whatever is in the oven."
She poured out some milk from the fridge and I noticed that on the counter beside the cooker was an apple crumble all ready to be popped into the oven for dessert. On top of the cooker two saucepans, one of potatoes and one of green beans, were merrily boiling away. I sipped my milk and told her of my adventures over the past few days. Then, without warning, the gas flames under both pans went out and the water stopped boiling.
"What's gone wrong?" my mother said as she pressed the sparker button and failed to re-ignite the burners even though they were hissing. I stood up and found an almost empty box of matches, and lit one. I held it beside one of the burners and could see the flame being blown away from it as if the gas company were pumping air down their pipes instead of methane. Perhaps they had run out of gas at source and this was the only way to make use of the vast reservoir still present in the system.
With the final match I lit a candle just in time for all the lights to go out.
"Oh no," my mother said. "It's a black out."
"Correction," I said. "It's the black out."
"Sugar," she said.
"Never mind." I gave her a hug. This was it, this was finally the moment when the oil ran out. I tried to check the time on my watch, but the batteries had gone dead.
"We can't have crumble and custard now," she said. "I'm sorry."
"Don't worry about it." I put the candle in a candlestick holder and said, "I'd better go upstairs and take a bath while the water in the tank is still hot. There won't be any more."
<END>