One

And I asked you, what would you do if you were the last person on Earth, the One, and you said you'd get into a rocket and fly off to another place to live. And I asked you, what if there were no rockets, and you got upset and started crying and it took me a long time to get you to calm down and your mum gave me a hard time for it, but I cuddled you and you stopped, you fell asleep in my arms and I held you for ages. I was going to put you to bed, we were on the stairs, and you woke up and smiled at me and gave me a kiss, and you said to me, Stan, you said to me that it would never be One, because we were together all the time. You said we'd been meant to be together all the years I'd been me without ever knowing you. And it's true. Ever since you came into my life I can't remember before it. Which sounds silly. I mean, I know I lived for thirty-odd years before we had you, but they seem so pale and pointless. I came into being at the same time you did, my gorgeous boy, my Stan. And you are always with me. You kept me alive for so long. You keep me going.

So we're here and it's now, maybe ten years since I last saw you, you a big boy now, already at the end of school and thinking about sixth form, maybe, and we're playing One for real. Well, it's not properly One, because there are some of us left. You too, I'm hoping. You and Mum, I'm praying every day that's the case. Things are dangerous, Stan.

And sometimes I hope you went fast. Right at the start of things. With no danger of ever being alone and afraid, your innocence being torn to meaninglessness. I hope you did not suffer.

Jane's pen hovered above the journal; he was unable to form into words what he doubted his son would ever understand anyway. Instead, he returned to his survey of this corner of the city. For maybe the thousandth time he counted the cars and buses that were ranged around Trafalgar Square. Forty-eight cars, including taxis; nine vans of varying size; one coach (what a day trip that turned out to be); twelve buses. Seven motorbikes. He remembered photographs he had seen of various parts of London, miraculously free of traffic. Dogs and horses and carts. One or two automobiles driven by people who had nowhere to go and few roads on which to take their shiny toys. Sheaves of mud and dung peeled to one side by thin wheels. Now, unless you were walking at night and alert to possible hiding places, you could easily miss the vehicles that cluttered the streets. Even if somebody could be bothered to shift them, their ghosts would remain in the parts of the road shielded by metal and cellulose like the outlines of bodies at the scene of a crime.