The Human Condition

increasingly bleak future. Maybe he should just accept where he was and who he was and do his best to live with it? Stick with what you know, that had always been one of his father's sayings. Don't take risks and don't take chances. We're not all made for great things. Stick with what you know.

    Walters got up from his seat and shuffled out into the hallway. He paused to look out at the dark crowd of bodies at the end of his drive before wearily climbing the stairs to bed, a final tumbler of whiskey in his hand. He undressed, put his dirty shirt in the washing basket with all the others, and then put on his pyjamas. He could still hear Matthew banging around in his bedroom. Bloody teenagers, he thought. He should be sleeping or resting or at the very least studying. If only his son knew what he had to put up with every day. His attitude would soon change if he was the one who had to face the daily indignities and humiliations of office politics. Christ, he hoped Matthew didn't make the same mistakes he had. If only he'd worked harder at school and not just taken the first job he'd been offered after leaving...

    No point dwelling on all that now, he thought as he climbed into bed behind June. She had her back to him. She was still in the same position as he'd left her this morning. She hadn't done the washing or the shopping. In fact, it looked like she'd been in bed all day again. Bloody hell, she didn't know how easy she had it. If she'd had to put up with what he'd faced today...

    He wrapped his arm around his wife's cold, lifeless and rapidly putrefying body and pulled her close. He wished she'd talk to him. He didn't want to go to sleep yet. He wanted someone to listen to his problems and reassure him that he was doing his best and that it was the rest of them who'd got it wrong. The silence was deafening.

    Walters felt humiliated and let down by everyone, even those closest to him. He'd tried so hard today but, ultimately, all he'd done was make matters worse for himself. Christ, how was he going to face them all at work tomorrow?

THE HUMAN CONDITION Part i � GOING UP 
    Barry Bushell sat at the dressing table in his wide, palatial executive hotel suite and fixed his make-up. He wondered whether this was just a fad � just a phase he was going through � or whether he was destined to spend the rest of his life dressing as a woman. He wasn't gay and he wasn't transsexual. This wasn't something he'd always wanted to do. He wasn't a drag queen or lady-boy in training. Barry Bushell was just a typical, red-bloodied, heterosexual man who happened to have recently discovered that he felt comfortable wearing women's clothes. And when the rest of the world lay decaying a couple of hundred feet below him, why the hell shouldn't he wear whatever he damn well wanted?

    The last seven days had been the strangest, darkest and longest seven days of Bushell's life so far. Everything had been changed forever. If he was honest, his problems had started long before last Tuesday. A few months ago he'd been happy and settled. He'd moved in to his girlfriend Tina's flat with her and, for a time, life had been good. Their relationship had abruptly ended on what had, until then, been the worst day of his life. Out of the blue Bushell lost his job when a huge black hole was discovered in the accounts of the company he'd worked for and they were forced into administration. Gutted and penniless, he'd returned to the flat unexpectedly to find his brother Dennis in bed with Tina. She'd proceeded to tell him that Dennis was better in bed than he was and that their relationship was over. By three o'clock that afternoon he'd lost his partner, his brother, his job and his home. That nightmare day had, of course, seemed like the best Christmas ever in comparison with last Tuesday. Last Tuesday morning Bushell had helplessly watched as the entire population of the city (and, he later presumed, the country and perhaps even the world) had fallen and died. After the cruel and unexpected hand that life had dealt him recently, there was a part of him that found some slight comfort and solace in the sudden isolation and quiet. His pent up anger and frustration with the world made the pain, fear, confusion and disorientation slightly easier to deal with. Subconsciously he blamed the inexplicable trauma which had unfolded around him for his sudden `gender-realignment' (as he had labelled his drastic change in appearance). And now here he was,