David is going to the shops

Standing by the door, trembling, David jangles his keys in his pocket.

Any minute now, he is going to step out with his head held high and a smile on his face.

Julia always wanted flowers for the table on Sunday, especially since the children had left. She could do with the boost today. She'd been so listless recently, so anxious. It’s almost noon and she isn't even out of bed.

He is wearing his Sunday best. A blue pin-stripe suit, freshly pressed, and black brogues polished to a reflective shine.

His hair is slicked back with so much product a 20-megaton blast wouldn't shift it. It reveals more about the gradual retreat of his hairline than he'd like but he won't allow anything to bring him down today.

Nothing is going to get in his way.

Julia had begged him all week not to go outside. Don't take the risk, she'd said. But he was going stir-crazy and she was starting to sound like one of them.

The naysayers and hand-wringers. The snowflakes who would use any excuse to sow fear and doubt in the heart of a strong Englishman.

Uncowed by their scare-mongering, David is going to make a success of this.

He is almost clean-shaven, apart from the bit just below his ear. He can never quite reach it. But there aren't as many cuts as usual. One or two little squares of toilet tissue are wallpapered to his cheeks, soaking pillar box-red.

He takes a deep breath and fires it out, spraying the door with spittle. When he touches the handle, it's warm under his grip.

Another deep breath is taken in and held. Then he steps over the threshold and into the bright glorious day.

On his front step, a warm, delicate breeze brushes one of the tissue squares from his cheek. His skin begins to tingle.

The street is empty except for the litter and leaves skittering across the pavement. Grey dust coats the fences and cars and swirls gently as it blows in the breeze.

His vision becomes a purple haze of static before he realises that he's still holding his breath.

He breathes out and the static clouds everything momentarily and then dissipates. His next breath is hot like an oven and smells like rotten eggs and electrical fire.

Setting off down the path, his steps make tracks in the dust as he exits through his creaking, iron gate. He leaves a layer of skin on the latch and steps onto his leafy, residential street.

He won’t hurry. Just a brisk pace. The satisfying, rhythmic click of his heels on the concrete helps to ease his anxiety. With each step, he feels lighter, like he could float away.

This was a good idea.

The sky is bruised purple over identical rows of semi-detached houses and modestly-priced family cars. The wind rushes in his ears and the trees creak above the street.

A throbbing ache starts in his feet and with each step it crawls up the rest of his body.

Up ahead, there is a figure on the other side of the street. Four doors down and half-hidden behind rows of withered and dying hedgerows, Mr or Mrs. Bray is coming along their garden path toward the road.

With their head covered with that ridiculous mask, he can't discern which of them it is, and he doesn't much care. Either will do. Whichever of those bleeding-heart liberals is around to see him complete his journey, he'll be satisfied. He's out here for them as much as anything. Here to show them what courage looks like. How to seize the day. Demonstrating that famed resilience, that blitz spirit.

He wants to wave cheerfully and greet them with a wide, triumphant grin. But when he tries to raise his arm it's heavy and stiff like a tree branch in his sleeve. His hand begins to curl inwards towards his body.

He tries to smile, tries to speak but his face is numb.

When Mr or Mrs. Bray spots him moving towards them, they freeze for a moment and then back slowly through their front door.

As he passes, he sees them staring out the window, still suited, making a sign of the cross. Ridiculous. Hysterical.

David presses on, footsteps sliding through the papery debris that blows across the ground.

As he begins to lose feeling in his legs, his walk becomes a shuffle. His toes turn to stone in his shoes. Keeping balance is a problem and he has to keep his eyes on the ground to stay upright.

Little streams of sweat begin to run down his face, dripping to the floor as he shambles along. Each drip an angry and insistent shade of red.

They said it couldn't be done, that we'd conjured disaster. But he is more than halfway there now. And just like any proud English gentleman, he is going to the shops to buy flowers for his table.

Maybe he'll pick up a paper, or an ice cream. It's a hot day, after all.

The streets are empty, but he looks up just in time to see a tree lay across the pavement, blocking his way. His vision is now blurry but he can still make out the desiccated and lifeless trunk.

He tries to avoid it, but he keeps shuffling straight toward the tree. He's shocked when his desire to turn away does not translate into movement.

With mild surprise, he continues until he falls face-first over the dried-out carcass.

It melts away like wet sand under his weight and his cheek hits the stone with a wet slap.

Lying there for a moment, his arm pinned painfully beneath his chest, his breath blows hard and a thick, warm liquid runs from the corner of his mouth. A dark pool spreads at the bottom of his field of vision.

This isn't quite going to plan. But setbacks are part of life. You take the rough with the smooth sometimes. A small sacrifice today will be worth it tomorrow.

He can't get up. He has the distant sensation of being inside an oven, the sky burning red like an element. Dry leaves and debris float on the breeze.

With the one arm not crushed flat beneath his body weight, he reaches out and begins to pull himself along.

He slides a short distance along the path. Every inch more difficult than the last. He raises his arm and drops his hand palm down on the baking hot road surface and then pulls until he can see his fingers in front of his face.

Up, drop down, pull. Up, drop down, pull.

His face drags along the concrete, wet and sticky. He is sliding down a road lubricated by his own bodily fluids.

Each time his hand appears again in front of his face, the ground is stained a deeper shade of red. After 10 minutes, he loses the first fingernail.

He won’t give in today, no matter what. They'll get no vindication from him.

He can see the opposite side of the corner. He's almost there.

He reaches up to pull himself along again and instead of the hard stone, it drops onto something clammy and cold. Like meat left out too long on the counter.

His fingers curl into a damp, malleable void filled with tiny dice that clink together.

It’s blocking his way and he will have to crawl over it. With his final ounce of strength, he pulls his cheek away from the surface of the path, leaving tendrils of skin and flesh trailing behind it.

He sees his hand, hooked into the mouth of a body, lying just in front of the shop doorway. He has reached his destination. Success. He’d proved them all wrong.

His elation is short-lived when he tries to smile and his teeth rattle onto the floor. Viscous liquid drools from an open wound in his cheek.

David allows himself a moment of disappointment as he looks at the face on the floor before him and through the haze of the returning purple static, recognises the corpse as that of the shopkeeper, Mr. Kominski.

A chuckle bubbles in his throat and he chokes on it. Fluid is now running freely down his chin. With each breath, his ribs settle lower in his chest than they should.

His neck begins to feel rubbery and he slides back down to the pavement onto his side.

Fluid leaks from everywhere and there is a rotten taste in his mouth. He is liquifying inside his best suit.

Looking up towards the impacted sky he sees clouds swirl and churn like the surface of Jupiter.

Settling slowly to the ground, he catches sight of the rows of flowers arranged in front of the window and the revelation of his ultimate failure.

Only then does he feel defeated.

They'd be loving this. The woke brigade. All those negative, unpatriotic champagne socialists, who wallowed in failure and self-hatred.

Their negativity infects everything. Too afraid to stand up for themselves, their heritage and their homeland. Too fearful to see the truth, to trust in their inherent greatness.

With his final breath, a sigh that sums up his life, he focuses on the shopfront and thinks about everyone who failed to make this a success. A simple trip to the shops, a right and privilege of every upstanding Englishman, undermined.

You can't do anything these days.

Dead roses hang limply over the rack and petals flutter gently to the ground.