He comes on a pale horse! You must embrace the tide. Do you want to live forever?

A preacher man stands on a street corner, his black tie flapping in the wind. Crisp packets and dead leaves dance around his feet, and a pigeon leans against the gust, pecking precisely at crumbs in the cracks of the paving. The urban fairies have come to hear him speak. Harried pedestrians shuffle past. A mother screws up her face against the wind, her pushchair a crutch. A child caterwauls within, ignored. Open your eyes, mother! Look to the sky and see your salvation! You can live forever. She keeps walking without turning, and a box full of chewed chicken bones, greasy and stained, bounces off her ankle and races in the opposite direction. It is as if all the litter in the city is hurrying, travelling somewhere, or perhaps running from something. A rush catches a laminated poster secured to a lamppost and the staccato rattle is lost in the surge. Theres a noise from behind the preacher man and a vagrant emerges from the head of an alley. His face is haloed with a scrub of beard and wiry black hair, streaked with grey. A red hoodie hangs loosely over one shoulder, and it is draped over a stiff brown coat, which in turn conceals the top of a knitted woollen jumper. The collar of a shirt is visible poking out from behind that. He is wearing two hats, and his fingers poke from the holes in two pairs of dolls. He is a human matryoshka doll. Somewhere under it all is a person. He walks over to the preacher man and leans into his ear, whispering conspiratorially. Im a vampire, you know. I suck blood. Ill suck your blood. They sent me to fight but they didnt know. Im a vampire The preacher man smiles beatifically. The vagrant continues. His spittle hits the preacher mans neck and his hot breath pools inside his ear. They sent me away, you know. I can still feel the sand in my eyes. I still leave the black stains on my sheets. Hang them out, I say. Im a virgin no more! The vagrants hand grips the preacher mans shoulder and his beard prickles his cheek. They sent me away and now Im a vampire. Blood is the life and my blood is black. I can still feel the sand in my eyes. Its in my eyes! Child, do you want to live forever? The vagrant stares at him with blood streaked eyes, spittle at the corner of his mouth. He leans back again, and releases the preacher mans shoulder. Im already dead. He turns and walks away down the street, back hunched over. The wind picks up, and screams at the city. It throws itself against the numb concrete blocks like waves against a cliff. It steals inside buildings and roars down the nave of a vast shopping block, and shoppers debase themselves before it. It snatches away the intercom announcement and shouts its own. Shoppers are reminded to beware of unattended packages. The end is coming. The end is coming.

The preacher man wraps an arm around a post as the tempest grows. You are not a slave to this island! Do not let this wind blow on you and blister you. Look to the sky! You can live forever! Raise your arms and salute! A rubbish collectors cart rolls down the road at pace, rattling and shaking on drain covers. A stiff wooden brush falls off with a crack and plastic bags billow like sails on a great warship. It glances off a curb and tilts, running for a second on two wheels, leaning on the precipice of collapse, before being caught in gravitys grasping embrace. It thunders to the floor and skids for a stretch further, before slowing to a halt. Its contents have spilled across the road and now they tear away, freedom sighted in the eye of a fizzy drink can. The bags make for the sky, soaring on updrafts and pirouetting, dancing to unknown rhythms like ascending angels. Glass bottles skitter along the floor, clinking a jaunty tune on the tarmac. A figure appears at the top of the road, exhausted from running, now barely jogging, clammy and wheezing. He once had a jaw line, but now his face is pale and blurred at the edges. He is indistinct; almost translucent. The inside of his jumpsuit is sticky with sweat and his name badge is smudged and worn so that the only letters remaining just read man. He sees the fallen cart and his face sags and his skin fades. The wind tears through him. He steps towards the mess and tries to right the cart. It doesnt move. He tries to pick up an apple, half eaten and smashed into the ground, and his fingers go right through it. He grasps again and this time his fingers wrap around the fruit. A seed falls from it and rests inside the groove of his filthy hand. He places it back into the bin bag inside the upturned cart. Do not despair, son! Give your life meaning! Open your eyes and your arms to salvation! He looks at the preacher man with pupilless eyes and his thinning hair is parted across his scalp, and then he reaches into the bag and picks up the apple again. Clutching it in his fist he keeps walking, the soles of his feet grazing the tarmac with every stride, until he disappears from sight.

A car starts to drag itself down the road, rubber tires locked into place but groaning in friction. Sticks and debris crack against the windscreen before flying away. The preacher man reaches into a bag and pulls out a chain, which he wraps around himself and the lamp-post, padlocking it into place into place. The links dig into his side so hard he feels like they have almost become part of him; an extension of his flesh. He is anchored to the city and the wind still rips at him.

The city has no need of the sun, or of the moon, to shine! Look up! Look up and live forever! A screaming comes down the street. An obese woman is dragged down the pavement, thick fingers clutching blindly at the ground. She slams into the lamppost and wraps her body around it and the preacher mans braced legs. She is bleeding from the side of her face and the clothes on her right hand side are torn, revealing bloody legs beneath. Her cheeks ripple in the wind like a skydiver. Her mouth flaps at

the preacher man without sound. Her shirt is pulled up and her belly hangs out onto the path. She tries to call for help, but she is mute. Her jaw just clacks, empty, as she claws at the preacher mans black trousers, but she cannot hold on. Branches crash into her and she covers her head with her hands, trying to save her face from the tide. Still she cries wordlessly to the preacher man. Help me. I can stop. I cant get away. Its too strong for me. Please. The preacher man points up at the sky. Lift your eyes. Lift your fists. Look to the sky. Salvation is coming. There is nothing left on this world. I dont know what you mean. Why is this happening? What did we do? A metal bin hurls itself down the road. It grows closer in a second and then collides with the woman with a sickening crack. Blood sprays from her head and is caught up in the gust. Droplets of crimson dart down the street. Her grip slackens and she is slowly dragged away, her fingers still grasping numbly at nothing. A street tree feels itself lifted, its tentacles insinuated between metal pylons and building foundations now coming loose, tearing apart or sliding free. The metal cage around it is pulled up with it. Roots which have never seen daylight are dragged up from their damp, polluted beds, and blink in the overpowering sensation of exposure. The seas are blood! The earth is tainted and the veins of this world leak into the sky. This is salvation. This is where you will live forever. The preacher man looks to his right hand side and sees a small girl stood where there was none before. A white bike is by her side, pristine and untouched, but the training wheels are pitted and broken. The wind howls through her as if she is not real, or else the wind isnt. The preacher man smiles. You are the fourth. The girls looks back at him blankly, and then up at the sky. It is completely clear, empty of all clouds. At the edge of hearing, above the shrieking wind, is a deeper sound, a raw sound. A sound taken away from the ear and injected straight into the bones. A vibration so deep that every cell shivers in sympathy. It increases in silent intensity until there is nothing but the sound and the sound is everything. Every atom strains in place. In the sky, reality ripples and tears, and buildings begin to collapse. The preacher man takes the girls hand, and they dance, slowly and deliberately, feet shuffling through the dust, circling around each other. His chain falls off and the wind rips it away while he and the girl trade places, stepping over debris, humming quietly. Alleluia.