London: GHOSTED

Thursday the 21st of August was, by all accounts, a perfectly normal day. Commuters from suburbia made their way into London in the early morning, powered by caffeinated beverages, self-hate and promised riches. They trampled their way through the train stations dotted all over London, leaving no coffee shops untouched in their almost sleepless wake. Even the vending machines weren’t safe from the mindless horde; those that were normally still filled to the brim with useless water bottles were ransacked due to the typically ill-timed onslaught of mid-morning August heat.

Nevertheless, the morning rush soon ended. After nine, commuters were scarce, the train stations were left bare, and the streets of London came alive instead with shoppers and a few tourists. Everyone was parched and altogether too warm to function, but still, it was within the realms of normal.

The shops opened and their employees adapted to the relentless heat. There were enough portable plastic fans to kill a small whale in any one of London’s innumerable retail establishments that morning. Seasoned employees wore black shirts to conceal pit stains, while others made the regrettable choice of wearing white shirts that soon soaked through with sweat and got them banished to the back rooms of whichever shit hole they worked in. Which wasn’t altogether a bad thing… I mean, can you imagine having to interact with customers in post-30-degree-Celsius London? You’d find less passive aggression in the fiery pits of hell.

Everything was normal. Sweltering hot, sure, but normal. Until 5 pm. That’s when everything truly went to pieces. One moment, the sun was high in the sky, blaring down heat on everyone like a righteous overlord, no clouds in sight. The next, something completely out of left field appeared just above Trafalgar Square with no warning. A timer. An almost holographic timer in the sky that appeared to be alternating between purple and red, glitching in and out of existence as if it weren’t meant to be visible to human eyes. And on it? A mere 24 hours.

You’ve probably heard what happened next countless times already on your local news stations, but let me reiterate. As you can imagine, the people of London were rightfully concerned. Concerned is perhaps the wrong word. People started panic buying toilet roll once again, theorizing online about zombie apocalypses, nukes and worldwide virus outbreaks, buying an altogether unreasonable amount of canned goods, you get the picture. There was pandemonium in the streets. Everywhere you looked, there was someone lugging around a Tesco’s bag filled with what they personally deemed as non-negotiable for future survival. Tooth brushes, sanitary pads, toothpaste, alcohol, more alcohol, over-the-counter drugs, ice, etc., etc. And those were just the boring options; some of the more creative types started preparing weapons like they were in a maximum security prison. Not many could get their hands on guns, thank goodness, but videos explaining how to make shivs were becoming very popular online. So maybe paranoid is the right word. The people of London were paranoid. And who’s to say they didn’t have a right to be?

Not many people slept the night of the 21st, but then again, not many tried. Some had booked train or plane tickets and fled to brighter horizons where there were no weird floating timers; most had decided to just wait it out at home, embodying the complacency that led to the vast British empire becoming nothing more than an island nation wracked with depression, inflation and unwarranted pride. But can you blame them? It’s just a timer after all. Despite this, everyone was up, online forums were buzzing with theories, and everyone was getting steadily more unnerved by the second. Nobody slept a wink.

By the morning of the 22nd, people were more confused than they were on the 21st. Online forums were a speculative nightmare to traverse through, with the leading theories being:

An alien invasion.

An asteroid or a nuke.

A zombie apocalypse, with the timer counting down to patient zero.

As you can tell, the sleep deprivation took a toll.

The politicians of Parliament issued a statement three hours after Parliament went into session, and it read like this:

We are aware of the mysterious occurrence in Britain’s airspace, and rest assured, we have experts studying the cause of this anomaly. We ask Britons to sit tight and trust that countermeasures will be taken to ensure the safety of Britain’s citizens. Please proceed with your daily schedules as usual.

Needless to say, it wasn’t overly comforting. It met everyone’s expectations, though. Not much gets through the red brick brains of Britain’s politicians, especially things that aren’t money-related. It is rumored that much of the conversation within Parliament on the 22nd revolved around preventing mass hysteria and keeping markets stable. The direct response to the anomaly was more of an afterthought. Eventually, a Scotsman stood up to ask that a few scientists be taken to the scene to investigate the situation, got his request approved, and sat back down again. Quite anti-climactic.

By 9 am, the majority of people were starting to crash due to the lack of sleep. Most called into work and got the day off citing the giant mystery in the skies of London. A few of the overzealous that had been haunting online forums all night long even called in and quit their jobs altogether, certain that the world was going to end. Schools still opened, but barely any students or staff came in. The majority of tourists who had planned to stay in London before the fuss had already rushed back home, but more and more seemed to arrive by the hour. Many of these were social media influencers who wanted to see what would happen and get a few extra followers at the same time. They were panic profiteers acting as eyes for the rest of the world. They roamed the streets, spectating and showing their countless curious viewers how some Londoners remained unfazed and continued their daily routine, assured that nothing was going to happen, while others seemed to come apart at the seams.

On one side of the street, there would be a bustling cafe filled with people chatting to their friends and gossiping over what may happen, like it was happening to a friend of theirs instead of themselves. It seemed like the August heat was really the worst of their issues. On the other side, Londoners were pushing tank-like trolleys filled with half of ASDA. Pizza, canned foods, soap, barbecues, barbed wire(?), bleach, knives, stacks upon stacks of cat food, literally everything you could ever imagine.

Self-defense tutorials started going viral in England close to 12 am on the 22nd. This was mostly due to the theories spreading rampantly online. From any token backyard in London, you could see at least one middle-aged mum or dad practicing ninja kicks on the grass. But who could blame them? The ‘please proceed with your daily schedules as usual’ didn’t specify that spontaneous karate lessons were out of fashion. Plus, aliens are scary.

At 2 pm, the Londoners hovering about in cafes started to get nervous. They began glancing at their now-online version of the infamous holographic countdown between each sip of their tea. The August heat seemed to be the least of their problems now. Finally, they started going into a frenzy. The trolley towers of 9 am were nothing compared to these monstrosities. Some people even “forgot” to pay. Well, just because spontaneous karate lessons were apparently out of fashion didn’t mean that spontaneous shoplifting had to be.

By 4 pm, the middle-aged mums of London had come in from their karate lessons, grabbed their kitchen knives and sat next to their front doors ready for disaster to strike. Eventually, they collectively got bored and joined emotional support Facebook groups that they texted with their left hands while gesturing broadly toward their front doors with the kitchen knives they had in their right. But can you honestly say you would do anything different? Probably, but it sounded like a good idea at the time.

The seconds leading up to 5 pm were tense to say the very least. The thrill-seeking social media vultures had gathered just below the timer. You could tell that some of them were getting cold feet, but it was a bit too late to back out now. Mothers and fathers hugged their children as they looked out the window, or yelled at their teenagers to come and help guard the front door as they eyed the online version of the timer on their phones. Politicians hoped and prayed that nothing was about to happen that they would have to deal with on Monday. And the world watched.

As the digits on the clock above Trafalgar Square lined up to become 00:00:00, everyone held their breath. And then the shift happened.

Westminster, the heart of London, the home of Parliament, crumbles first. Spires disperse and become dust, soon replaced by grand Romanesque columns. Westminster Abbey collapses from a burial ground and coronation space into the Benedictine monastery of old. From a place guided by politics and the pursuit of power, into one that stood as a protection for the community against evil. Latin inscriptions replace English plaques. The abbey becomes shorter yet wider, giving up its quest to reach the heavens. The large, colorful eyes shrink into smaller windows as more internal buttresses rise to support the thickening walls. The arches lose their aggressive points and become more rounded as the building crumbles and builds itself up again.

Those who stand inside worshipping first watch in horror as the Abbey dusts the floor with crumbs of itself and then gasp in awe at how the Abbey transforms without a single human touch. One can only wonder what is happening to the monarchs who lie beneath the Abbey.

St. Giles-in-the-Fields was next. The ordinary corner of central London, where nothing crazy ever happened. The home of mediocrity, populated by theaters, pubs and office blocks, soon follows Westminster in its turning back of the clock. The streets narrow, the buildings become shorter, and the roofs lean toward each other, creating numerous shady alleys. These newly born buildings are clearly worn; the homes of commoners in despair. Fridges disappear completely along with almost all of St. Giles’ food. The fattest rats the people of St. Giles have ever seen run from house to house as if running from dish to dish in a buffet.

The August heat reveals a foul stench as red crosses bloom on doors that were newer and cleaner a mere minute ago. The churchyard is filled with fresh earth, newly covering those who had actually passed centuries ago, as if the wrongness of these deaths warranted more than just one funeral. The modern inhabitants of St. Giles wander around like ghosts in a nightmare not of their generation. The air is thick, stifling, but there are no cries. Just a few abandoned carts that litter the streets, filled with rotting meat.

Hackney is a place of recreation, a place where things change every day. New murals are painted, the old ones cleaned away. Canal-side cafes go out of business just to make room for a few more. Warehouses become lofts and lofts become art exhibits. Reinvention is Hackney’s lifeblood. But that wasn’t always the case. Time runs out, the clock reaches zero, and everything changes. Murals sparkle and disappear as if being bleached out of existence, hours of work gone. Bricks blacken and cracks emerge in them. New buildings become skeletons that have never once been repaired or refurbished, displaying features of lives that have long since ended.

Smoke rises out of nowhere as if Hackney were suddenly overcome by a billion chain-smoking grandmas. The hum of machines makes the ground vibrate almost inconspicuously, echoing through the crust of the earth like a tiny echo across history. The canal is dark and clogged with coal. The warehouses go back to the lives they were meant for; they are heartily filled with lumber and coal ready to be traded and shipped elsewhere, though very few people will need them now. All the fingerprints that cover them no longer have owners; they no longer have purpose. The freelancers and artists watch as Hackney finishes remolding. By the end, they are aliens dwarfed by a purpose that doesn’t belong to them.

Peckham is a regular urban area burdened with poverty and then gentrification. There are corner shops and family homes. Chinese restaurants, churches and dog poo dominate the scene as well as underfunded schools and bad, teenage decisions. High rises are filled with flats rising in price, despite the stagnation of wages. People rich enough to buy houses in Peckham do not live in Peckham. Yet, this makes the place vibrant. There is diversity not found in places like Westminster, and there are plenty of rooftop bars for times like these. Just as there used to be.

Buildings shake. Then they tumble. The change is more dramatic here; the noise is like the soundtrack of a nightmare. It sounds like explosions, but there is no actual impact. The sky turns gray as ceilings disappear. People hide, sure that the end of the timer was really a notification of some type of war. Sirens wail once and then cut. Buildings and streets alike gain brand new craters. Some houses collapse, others look like they might follow suit, but never do. A newly spawned pram lies on its side by a broken lamppost. But there is no mother. There is no baby. It has no claimant. It is a remnant of a history that is well remembered and long past.

The bustling streets of Soho don’t face as sudden a change. Buildings don’t shake or crumble, they just adopt new clothing; alter their make-up. Neon signs pop out of nowhere, advertising things and places nobody nowadays knows of. Posters are everywhere, in all the buildings, some even outside on the bricks, but they don’t mean anything now. None of the people featured are recognizable. Music echoes through empty alleys from vinyl records put under the stylus decades ago. A lone lipstick-stained cigarette smolders on a windowsill. The moderners lurk around the little archive of rebellion, admiring all its brittle glamour, unsure if they’re intruding upon this long-gone world, or if they’re invited. They get none of the context they desire, just the echo of a party that ended before most of them were born. In this new landscape, they are irrelevant.

And Trafalgar Square? Well, down with the new, in with the old. The little phone-bearing vultures were treated to a nice view of the 14th-century King’s Mews. And the healthy stench of horse manure. Their reactions were documented live to the joy of citizens worldwide.

Needless to say, the politicians have a lot to do on Monday.

Written on the 22nd of August.

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BREAKING NEWS: TIMERS APPEARING WORLDWIDE. WHAT IS NEXT?