<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Listen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hear that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Exactly. You can\u2019t hear anything. No wind, no gulls, nothing. That\u2019s the drones; for every sound they make, they make a sound wave which cancels it out. It means they\u2019ve started again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There. Do you feel that? No, don\u2019t say anything. There it is again; you can feel the ground shaking. And again, there. Now listen again. No, not like that, move your head. Like this. Hear that? Turn your head again. Sounds like whistling, doesn\u2019t it? Got it? Now you\u2019ll hear properly. That crump-crump from \u2013 over there?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Look, and you\u2019ll see it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, that\u2019s the Law gone then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No, there\u2019s not much of Dundee left anymore. It\u2019s smoke and dust these days, all covered in a blanket of silence. They think it hides what they\u2019re doing. Makes it easier to deal with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
D\u2019you know I once had a dream when I was a boy? I was hiding in a ruined room in a bombed-out city. I remember it all so clearly, right down to the scurry of the rats in the walls and that distant crump-crump we just heard. I remember because, in my dream, I had the face of an old man. It was a white-bearded face, lined and sick and afraid. It\u2019s the face I\u2019m looking at now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I thought I\u2019d be far away when it happened, lost in a foreign land, or caught in a war zone somewhere. But just the other day I caught sight of my face in the window, and I knew. It was always going to happen here. In a dirty room in the middle of Dundee, overlooking the Nethergate. Staring through a pane of broken glass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No, I\u2019ve not been out in weeks. Why should I tell you? Why am I even talking to you, anyway?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everything I said would happen, happened. First, they took our livings, then they took our pensions, and then they came for us. Why? Why not? It was all insults and beatings and \u2018who killed the world?\u2019 That was before the squaddies came, handing out their suicide pills, and the ambulances with their \u2018assisted release\u2019. They did her in that way. You wouldn\u2019t think that I\u2019d be scared after that, would you? Well, its habit–<\/strong>forming, let me tell you; you know that. Once you start being afraid, no, really afraid so that you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re doing, you find that you can\u2019t stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Turn away from the window. I don\u2019t want to see you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stop looking at me like that. You know how it happened. It was obvious; it was obvious to anyone with half a brain. But no one wanted to listen, no one wanted to face up to it, no, not even when it was right in front of us. We didn\u2019t kill the world, that\u2019s bollocks. We killed ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Want to know more? The full story and other like it can be found in<\/em> The Low Road: A Celebration of Dundee\u2019s Nethergate available on this website.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Or you can download a PDF of this story below: \u2013<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n