“My position?”

“Yes, sir, your position.”

“I hold no position. Well, none at present.”

“Mr Chairman, if the witness is not willing to cooperate then…”

“Oh, I am, I apologise. Please could you repeat the question? I am, I assure you, here to cooperate.”

“Ok then, let’s try again. Mr Speaker, if I might be afforded a little more time?” A nod, no objections from the distracted fools, handpicked cronies all.

“For the record, what was your position prior? I mean your purpose for being here presumably is because of your position, is it not?”

“Oh, oh, well yes, I see what you mean; and no, I am not being, well, coy.”

He was frightened, as he should be.

“What I mean to say is that, well, I’ve come here to assist you, well, help as best I can with, well, what I know and what, well, I fear you believe may also come true.”

And there it was again; the violence subsumed his field of view. Musa’s shifting consciousness, his enhanced dream state, mind in lockdown. Projections muddled as dreams by the self-administered analgesic cocktail. Visions of before, or was this yet to come? Blood spattered, limbs flailing, arms ripped from sockets, eyes locked in terrified atrophy before the wall of flames and fury. The assault mounted from every aspect, there before the great assembled armies of the nations united, the legions of languages and cultures flocked as one mass to meet the great threat.

This final rotation of Sewell’s last deployment had been as fascinating as it was arduous. The experience had torn him from the comfortable world so removed from reality and into the belly of a fraught deployment. The initial feelings of awe at the scale of the operation were soon tempered by the sheer magnitude of the problems they faced. Sewell quickly understood how even the mightiest of armies could be rendered impotent in the face of vast human suffering.

Musa’s awareness drifted, barely conscious within the blackened vestige of the shattered capital.

This strange accident of birth, this lottery of destiny that divides us so.

His thoughts threw him back to that moment during his childhood. Even now, as the latest wave of forces arrived, he sensed the scratching of excavators from far above. But for now, helpless, crushed deep within rubble, no doubt losing blood, waiting for an externality, a variable of change that could transform his present circumstances. Discipline prevented self indulgent introspection; survival demanded that thoughts of others be demoted. The immediate danger was to self and any remedy required his survival as its prerequisite. Was it truly time to retreat into distant thoughts? Musa’s every instinct yearned for introspection, perhaps its distraction might sustain him long enough to survive.

I am the Circadian Witness. I will, as best I can, share the memory of humankind’s penultimate chapter. From this awkward perch, far, far removed from that potholed canvas, a forgotten corner that like so many before became legend, sanctified perhaps by the blood of so many, faint and yet to be etched upon the collective conscience. For this task I am dedicated, a task to remedy the imbalance.

The unfinished Capitol Building loomed majestic, encircled by the dust of deserts past. Its towering white facade dappled black with mesh tarpaulin alluded to a completion once again set back. The wrangling over nuance within the anticipated founding documents was made physical through the strange synthesis of ancient Constantinople and neo-classical Capital that now stretched across the horizon. The twin chambers already nicknamed with the English ‘Houses’ conjoined within a twisting web of mesh tarpaulin-wrapped scaffolding surrounding vast concrete risers. Several cranes loomed around the core, towering like vast insects, the tallest rising far into the cloud line. Materials swung gently into place as the centrepiece for The Capital began its inexorable ascent in anticipation of the inaugural session. The half-finished “Tower”, with its allusions to Babel, humbled even the most sceptical of audiences.

The tattered man shook violently from the biting cold o f the desert night. His sharp eyes were long since caked as crags with dust. Countless lines carved across the wrecked features; the tributaries of struggle tattooed within dappled skin. Fruitless experience marked permanently. The floundered endeavour come to naught, its pain etched as indelible scars. Each pore an epitaph to a comrade lost, a friendship expunged. With hope vanquished amid the anarchic chaos, astride a vehicle that had, through sputtered sighs, afforded late respite from that seemingly endless trek necessitated by the retreating danger that still loomed large. His soiled khakis blistered from the ruin of each step from that long journey that had brought him to the threshold of his home.