AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

WARNING: This novel contains fake Welsh.
In the last episode, potential survivors gather for the denouement at Dddwwchyllff’s as waters rise and land sinks. HERE – the END of the penultimate chapter, soon to be followed by a short final chapter and a surprising epilogue, so now on to the apocalyptic hoedown at the plas y Ddwwchyllff!
The Cardiff Grandma Chapter 72: LAST PART!

The Vice Chancellor was nobody without Everyone else. He was a broken man, a husk of a shell of a shadow of his former self. Now Everyone had gone and there was nobody left he became an insignificant figure. Stripped of his influence, his power, his underpants and socks, the former dictator was left to rattle around the now empty corridors of the now subterranean top floor of the Welsh University. Would he ever recapture his former position? Was there any way back for the man so forcefully sidelined by Everyone else? Would he find some new underwear?

It seemed a lonely, chilly existence awaited him now.

The impromptu party in the deceptively luxurious home for the insanely criminal was in what could be lazily described as ‘full swing’. The partiers were having a good time drinking, chatting, scoffing little ‘bone’ shaped biscuits kindly supplied by Lassie and a friend : good for the coat and teeth apparently. A few of the assembled crowd began to ponder how unlikely it was that they should all be in the same party together, be in their current shared location. The distances they had traveled. The means by which they had arrived. The unfeasibly lose and deeply vague sense of any kind of coherent plot. Everything seemed conspired against them and yet here (there) they all are (were)(will be).

None of it seemed to matter anymore. Such was the general sense of relief and hilarity that most of them failed to notice the rising water levels. Ever so slightly, with a gradual sense of impending wateryness, a translucent, odourless combination of H2 and O was once more on the move. It’d all be alright though...Just so long as the H2 and O didn’t mix with
the D ¥ A!

In the main hall of the grand mansion frivolity abounded. A few of those present, as yet not so drunk as to fall over / asleep, but certainly not sober, moved beyond discussing their respective journeys to the venue. Instead they began to ponder how unlikely it was that any of them even existed at all. Philosophical pontificating. But most of the revelers were happy to sip Hamilton’s™ gin, gather round which ever Steinercroft® teenage grand piano happened to float past, and sing a few old songs. Missing even the merest kint of irony one especially vocal partier lead some guests into yet another rousing chorus of Stevie Ray Vaughn’s ‘Texas Flood’, arranged (badly) for the Piano Forte.

Yet not everyone was relaxing. There was still at least one score to be settled and a couple of ‘Contracts to Inconvenience’® still to be completed. The room was packed with hired killers, bursting with assassins and full of suspected targets. Around the room suspicious looks were exchanged, knowing winks were given, daggers were being sharpened. And the water level kept on rising.

Mere seconds later a startling revelation was to be revealed! It would probably have a significant effect on at least one of those involved. Would it clarify anything of importance? It may be too late to say. Earlier ago two members of the group had quietly splashed away from the main party and sought privacy in one of the luxuriously nearby rooms. She was deep in thought (and shallow in fluid…for now). He was deceptive.

‘I’ve been keeping track of things,’ came the bombshell. It startled her companion. He’d been napping at the time. He hadn’t expected her to utter such a tenuous anaphoric reference. Not just yet anyway.

‘Good!’ he yawned as he sleepily awoke. ‘I’m deeply confused about things… really not sure what the hell has been going on… but then I have slept a fair bit recently.’ He yawned again. ‘And then there’s all the drugs I seem to have consumed,’ he added.

‘There’s a pattern. I’ve seen a pattern!’ She continued to reveal, ignoring his unhelpful comments.

‘I see.’ He said. ‘Have you got five minutes I could have?’, he added, trying to buy some time.

‘I stumbled across it really. I was just doing some quick research into… well that doesn’t really matter… The pattern - it’s all very erratic and unpredictable… chaotic even’, she persisted.

‘What is the pattern then?’ he added with all the false interest he could muster at such short notice.

‘It’s got something to do with…’ She stopped suddenly.

‘With unfinished sentences?’ he chipped in. But she was distracted by something… or someone…some…

Truncation followed truncation. A passenger on top of a flotsam chest played strip poker with... He played his cards close to his vest –or at least as close as he could maneuver the crate to the drawer it was bobbing alongside in. He continued to dwell on Largest Hill. It must have been called that for some reason...

His cherry-lipped opponent flicked down a card. " I believe I have won." She donned her secondhand winnings winsomely. "I'm especially going to enjoy the fob."

He picked up the card she’d played. My god. It was the card, the card of all cards, the one with -- "Where did you get this?" he wanted to know, judging by the question. But no answer was really necessary – she was wearing someone else’s shoes: red leather Italian gecko skin (size 9).

For most of Cardiff, it had already sunk in, but not up there on the promenade of the miasmal minaret where the twelvesome and two dogs had gathered for further debauchery. The revelers raged on, tossing more words on the burning chapter, topping it off with liquid refreshments, kiddy rides, pie games and raffle tickets. The rest of the world remained unaware of their awful fete. Drinking and dancing in the murky pall, they themselves were oblivious to the demise of the last remaining light shining out over the waves, the sweeping floodlight of the watch turret of Welsh University. Silently, slowly, it arced back and forth over the dark still waters that crested around it even as it sank ever deeper, until finally it was gone and all was dark save the brightly lighted gazebo on the insoluble hill. This unilluminated state of affairs lasted only some minutes, then the sky began to gradually lighten in the east, the fog became visible once more. The celebrants had sung, argued, gambled, invented portable handles and mock-slain each other the night away.

And now, in the gloom that accompanied the sunrise, nothing could be seen.

Nothing but water in all directions, and rising out of it a complex sytem of overwater bridges all leading to Largest Hill. Someone stood. Someone fainted. Someone awoke and rose to somebody else’s feet. Everyone else tired of this and slapped someone sharply. It seemed to do the trick. Someone lifted a finger, hand and arm and held them out like an arrow directing a traveler to a destination. All eyes followed the invisible line it indicated and at once everyone - everyone - was grasping the railing and pointing out to see in the general direction of Beer™.

There on the horizon, a flotilla, an armada, well, ok, a navy, was headed their way.

Only one of the ten was co-ordinated enough to clamber up on the balustrade and declare: “I hereby pronounce this the Fiercely Independent Republic of New Omnidirectional Southeast Northwest Wales!” A determined resolve to remain unconvinced was etched in every feature of every face. And then, miracle, coincidence or cruel joke, at that precise instant, at that exact second, a bit of flora sailed in on the salt spray and landed stemfirst in a half-full bottle of ‘s®‚ Gin.

When they saw what it was a mighty chorus of cheers was stifled but nonetheless there despite their combined efforts to remain utterly pessimistic. There, because of what that bit of flora was, their one last hope of remaining free and at large. If anything could save them from the impending colonialists it was this humble blue flower, Iris versicolor.

One of their number , the most Welsh of them all, lifted the flower high and brandished it defiantly at the oncoming ships.

“We’re ready for you this time, you skeeving bastards! We’ve got a – ” **

**flag: a plant of the iris ffamily

To be finished...