*

Inside the burning structure Valiant and Plaster meanwhile found they could not hardly run no further, so bad and thick with tumult was that air, and so dark and hot it was down there where all the safety systems flickered and no backups in place. They had been calling for Broth and Suzette but to no end/no success. And Valiant thought to herself again, for the second time ‘Oh this is surely the place of my death, this must be surely the place of my death, here my body will surely nourish the children of the Ghouls’. And indeed, of all the many possibles it seemed at that moment as if that scenario was the one most likely to prevail.

Finally, too out of breath to run further and too scared to watch the flames advancing toward them, the 2 girls barricaded themselves inside a small building or structure as lay close to where they’d stopped, an inadequate shelter nestled against a mighty pillar that ascended to the Wheel of Misfortune. From without it was just like basic portacabin/prefab and from within it had the appearance of some temporary builders’ office or whatever with coat hooks, store for boots and hard hats, electric heater, shit desktop computer, fluorescent lights that no longer functioned, two filing cabinets, papers here and thereabouts, the latter of which Valiant used to stuff the cracks around doorways and windows as a guard against the toxic smoke. The very air in there was heat, the crashing sound around them from outside already all but unbearable.

Anyway. It was there in the office, doors sealed as best they could be, that Valiant thought to try the phone on the desk, thinking she might speak to someone in Olympia, or just speak to anyone at all, but the phone was not working it was only the sound of the fire on the line, the flames cracking in the earpiece, the burning and turning. And now she thought to herself for the third time and spoke aloud into the phone ‘Oh this. This is surely the place of my death. Here my body will surely nourish the children of the Ghouls’. But the fire gave no answer. Or none in her language. Only the cracking and the burning and the turning and she replaced the receiver.

Later, as the heat grew very great and Plaster fell ashen to the floor Valiant brought her upright again and seated her at the desk, once more taking out the book they had found back @ that place in the underside called The Old Gods of Endland, placing it on the desk against the wall of the portacabin and sitting herself there beside her friend, the 2 of them taking turns to turn over the pages, reading the short texts that went with the pictures. The old story of Ajax and Domestos, the tears of Electrolux, the brave deeds of Sabrina, Detox and Rabbit Nose. The story of Idris Elba and how long it took before he got to play James Bond. Now and again – when they got to the more blatantly ludicross bits of the narratives – Plaster would ask a sceptical question to Valiant as if to say in so many words did it really happen like that, or is that possible, did it really happen in that exact way as described. And Valiant would always nod and assure her yes, it was all just as written, it was all justly rendered, all true and most accurate, it all happened just as described.