Fantastic Metropolis

Another squeak and the table was off her shoulder altogether. The bearded man was crawling carefully towards her. “We’re going to make it. We’re going to make it, love.” He seemed to be reassuring himself. She wasn’t worried at all. She had faith in her furniture.

But when he reached her she almost cried, gripping his lovely warm hand.

“Now we’re both under the table,” she said. He smiled, checking this, feeling that.

“Nothing wrong with me, doc.”

“Amazing.”

He murmured rapidly and calmly into his mobile phone.

“We shan’t have any trouble getting you clear. The explosion blew most of the heavy stuff away from you. This table formed a sort of shelter. You’re a lucky woman, Mrs Corren.”

“Oh, I know that, dear,” she said. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been stuck in a bit of rubble. Could you ring my husband and tell him I’m all right?”

“He knows by now, love, don’t worry. He’s out there waiting.”

“It’s done terrible damage, hasn’t it?”

He was bleak. “You wouldn’t recognise anything. All in ruins. Your chances were a million to one. Like winning the lottery.”

The big steel arms were dragging the concrete back, as if a curtain lifted. Dawn light. Dawn breezes on her face. It was like being born.

“Oh!”

Suddenly she could see her rescuers, the sky, the broken landscape, the vast, shallow crater, the rubble beyond.

The light revealed more and more. Through a smokey haze she could see all the way to St Paul’s.

“It’s a miracle,” he said. “A genuine miracle.”

She watched as the sun began to rise, a radiant harmony of pale golds and reds, behind the cathedral’s glittering dome.

“Yes,” she said. “You can always rely on good furniture.”

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This short story first appeared in Nature, December 2000. “Furniture” was first broadcast by the BBC, October 1999, with additional lines put in by the editor with Michael Moorcock’s agreement to clarify it for listeners.