The moonlight is bright enough not to need the torch. The lunar eclipse is not yet upon us. We stumble through the bushes and low scrub, Dylan leading the way, whiskey bottle in hand. It is a steep climb. We weave our way towards the top of the ridge. Do we move in these independent, meandering, ululating paths because there is, in fact, no one true path? Are we merely irreducible individuals seeking our way - chaotically, fractally, fatalistically - toward that same, ultimately unattainable goal? Or are we unable to walk a straight line because of the alcohol? It's difficult to tell. "Don't tread on the snakes," i warn, as i crash sideways through a melaleuca.
Dylan stops briefly to fortify himself with a drink. He stares down at us as we lumber up the slope towards him. He gestures expansively, taking in the moonlit beach, the vast untrammelled scrub, the granite-peaked mountain in the distance. "Sweet baby Jesus," he cries. "We are at the centre of nothing! We are nowhere - nowhere! What fresh hell is this?" He takes another draught from the Ballantine's. "I came to this beleaguered land and the God in me evaporated! If the end of the world is to come, let it come now!"
I pause with the others to catch my breath, and survey the land below us. The saltbush tang is sharp in my nostrils. A dark, tea-coloured inlet separates us from the hills beyond. We can sense, rather than hear, the rolling swell of the Southern Ocean, as it expends its energy further refining the fine white sands of the long crescent beach. Arcs of phosphorescent foam sketch a bright impressionist pattern eastward as far as the eye can see.
"That's the building over there, i reckon," says Lorenzo, pointing to a light-coloured smudge atop a distant ridge. "No," says Bing the Googlemeister. "It's this side of the inlet. We get to the top of this ridge, and we should be able to see it." We crash onwards and upwards, relentless in our quest for this Japanese doomsday cult compound. Up the hill to our right, two large water tanks loom into view. We crest the ridge, and as one, we come to a sudden halt.
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" says Dylan. There, below us to our left, perched on the edge of the vast ocean, is an enormous, sprawling construction. There is no other human habitation for miles around. Nothing. This sudden, almost alien signal of civilisation is surrounded by glass pods, and oddly angular, curved white surfaces. Long strips of white light blink at us in slow pulses. It looks like some interplanetary settlement, sprung from the mind of Chris Foss, the cover art designer of Isaac Asimov's 1970s science fiction novels. It looks simply as if, as Roland Barthes said of the Citroen DS, it has fallen from the sky. We stare at it in stunned silence. Its architectural semiotics are totally alien to us. It is dark, eerie, and … silent. Silently crouched upon this remote coastal ridge as if waiting for … what?
"Let's go, Hardy boys," says Martine, grabbing the torch and setting off towards the compound. As we get closer, it begins to look less alien, and takes on the characteristics of a suburban shopping mall. Curved concrete. Glass domes. A white roadway looms, and we scramble down to it, making our way to the large front door, oddly shrouded in darkness. We come right up to it. I reach out my hands and feel vertical strips of wood, secured to the massive doors. Jarrah. Smooth. I tentatively push and pull at it, but it does not give. Martine turns on the torch.
"Holy Mary, Mother of God!" says Dylan. There before us, nailed to the doors, are an immense number of sandals and thongs. Nailed singly, not in pairs, to the woodwork. A wooden sign hanging from a string says "Welcome."
"Welcome to the end of the world," i mutter. We climb a low stone wall to our right, and find ourselves on top of one of the curved, pod-like spokes that radiate out from the massive circular centre of the building. The building is constructed like a giant ring, or arena, and we can see down inside to its centre. This is dominated by a large, flat-topped rock. Around this is a pond, and innumerable, tropical-looking plants. There is no sign of human life.
"I was told it had a dome on top, a huge geodesic dome," i say to the others. "But it's gone." Martine climbs out along a galvanised-iron rib to the very rim of the circular wall and peers down into the innards of the death cult. Running along the rim around her, large jarrah posts thrust upwards in a ring, pointing like silent fingers into the night sky. "It's gone, and so are all the people."
The relentless waves crash against the moonlit beach. The interior of the compound is surrounded by walls of glass, and the pod-like structures that radiate from it appear to be living quarters. A communal kitchen and living area is on the opposite side, and we can see right through this to the scrub beyond. There is no sign of any doomsday cultists, no sign of any human habitation whatsoever. Only the empty living quarters and the flat-topped, sacrificial rock.
It seems as if there was never a dome on top of this incongruous structure. But it shows clearly on the satellite imagery, a shining curved surface. It has simply vanished into thin air. And with it, all the people who lived in this bizarre compound. It looks like we missed our flight. I stare upwards at the moon. The stars. Other worlds...
to be continued
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