Dot (Araminta Hall)

girl and boy of about her age.
    ‘Don’t go no further,’ shouted the girl, so Dot crossed the road to speak to them, pleased at least that someone had noticed her.
    ‘What’s happened?’
    ‘Are you tripping?’
    ‘No, I just woke up.’
    ‘Man.’ She whistled through her teeth.
    ‘What’s happened?’
    ‘Al-Qaida, innit,’ said the boy. ‘Has to be. It’s all over, man.’
    ‘What d’you mean?’ Dot could hear her own desperation.
    ‘Like, bombs everywhere. The police say there’s more. They could be anywhere.’
    ‘Are the tubes shut?’ she asked, now wanting only to be at home.
    The boy laughed at this. ‘Of course they’re shut.’
    ‘D’you have a phone I could borrow?’ Dot tried. ‘I need to call home and mine’s not working.’
    ‘No one’s is working,’ he answered and as he spoke Dot saw the gold in his teeth. ‘Like I said, it’s all over. Civilisation as we know it and all that shit.’
    ‘Anyway, don’t call,’ said the girl. ‘It’d be bad luck. I walk there every day.’ She held her hand up to her face. ‘I was only late this morning cos my mum was freaking cos I forgot to get her script last night.’
    Nothing was making any sense to Dot. All she knew for certain was that somewhere out there was a coach which could take her home. ‘Can I walk to Victoria from here?’
    ‘Are you mad, sister?’ asked the boy.
    ‘But I need to get to the coach station. I need to get home.’
    The girl sighed at this. ‘You got a pen and paper?’
    Dot rooted through her bag until she found one and the girl rewarded her with a basic map. Her boyfriend nudged her. ‘Something’s happening,’ he said. ‘My cousin told me something big was gonna go down. He’s psychic, you know.’ Excitement rippled through his voice, jangling the words he was saying, which Dot could see he barely understood.
    Dot took the girl’s rudimentary map. ‘Anyway, thanks for that.’
    ‘You take care,’ said the girl, her eyes already back up the street.
    Dot walked away from them and it felt lonely. The walk looked doable. She noticed that halfway along the girl had drawn an arch and on it a lady in a chariot. Next to it she’d written: ‘Some warrior woman, can’t remember her name, but you’ll know it when you see it.’ It was oddly well drawn and Dot was touched by the attention to detail. She wondered what the girl did, where she went every morning, why her mum needed a prescription.
    There were policemen everywhere, but still fear marched along the streets next to them all. Dot recognised the fear as she walked. She realised that she had been frightened all her life: of sitting in the wrong chair, of upsetting her mother, of not doing well enough at school, of being laughed at by her peers, of never meeting her father. But this fear was different. This fear was visceral, it swept through her blood, confusing her mind, blocking her ears, drying her throat, heating her body.
    Dot’s country had been at war for over half her life in places that seemed as far away as they were on the map. Language that she didn’t understand was shouted out of screens, politics she didn’t listen to spouted by men in suits. She had marched against wars; she had spoken the right words. But in the end she was a child of conflict and that conflict had finally tracked her down, just as it did, on a daily basis, to the people of those hot, desert lands.
    The streets were thronged and most people were on their own, but still everyone kept their eyes down because who could you trust if people were prepared to stand next to you and blow themselves and you to nothing? Often roads were closed and the police wearily directed them down another street, into which they filed like proverbial sheep. She heard people talking as she passed them: hundreds were dead, no, thousands, more bombs were imminent, the skies had been closed, the government had already been evacuated. It was impossible to tell what was real and what wasn’t, but Dot believed everything she heard because in the end it seemed better than not believing anything.
    Dot stopped after a while and tried to buy some water and chocolate but the man behind the counter waved her money away, as her landlady had done, his eyes glued to the TV above the counter.
    ‘Thanks,’ said Dot, but he didn’t hear.
    She ate as she walked and the sugar filled her blood with enough energy to stop her from crying. More than anything she wanted to call home. There was