ISOBEL CAIRNS
Proclamation
The city was soaked in floodlights. I ran up the stairs that were mouldy at the edges to
find the doctors that I knew were there. They were surprised to learn of the earthquake
and I shepherded them off the fifteenth floor. Outside I found you. We fished a way
through the puddles left by the floodlights, away from the army coloured buildings to a
city of fabric. After the first day I wished we had brought a bigger tent. By the second
day someone had broken their neck falling over a guy rope in the dark, so one of the
others painted a white line to show where it was safe to walk at night. After that we
couldn’t move the tent. On the third day I began to forget it all and sometime after that
the buildings fell down. The old man said the rats had finally been allowed to eat what
they wanted, but I didn’t understand, because I didn’t know what the buildings were
made of.