THE LAST SHOW ON EARTH. By Kathy Halliday, 2014. Laura walked down the beach to where the pebbles held against the sand and created a wet border. The foam came up yellow and dragged pouches of kelp and dead cuttlefish with it. She let the water sluice her naked feet and her moss green toe nails slipped into the algae. Something nipped the soft mesh joining her big toe to her left foot and drew a little blood. Laura's hair caught in the wet join of her mouth and stayed there till she laughed it free. She used to suck her hair until her mouth dried up with the taste of blueberries and metal. It was a warm day that made her skin tacky beneath her fingers as she rubbed her shoulders. At first it was only the birds flying over the Atlantic that grew cold and dropped from the sky. As Laura pulled her legs through the shallows she kicked up a storm of cockles and blue crabs. Then an orca pod of eight washed up on the shores of New Zealand and no one knew why. The sea creatures were coming up to the surface and unravelling their knotted bodies at night. Trawler boats dropped from radars and came up as wrecks off the coast of Bothnian Bay. Laura wore a blue and white nautical striped swimsuit with gold anchors and black swallows. She shaded her eyes and looked out over the ocean to where Jupiter's cusp met with Mars. An albatross that had spent three years of its life airborne wheeled overhead in new patterns . Laura watched as the albatross tightened and collided with the fat body of water below. When Jupiter passed over the Sun her shadow swallowed pockets of light and heat and air . End of Transcript.

• published: 23 Apr 2014
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