True Love
By Niamh Brown / Spinebreakers Crew
My youth by the True Love seems so recent, but for you, it must be ancient history. All you know of it are my memories and your imagination but for me, those days were my happiest.
The True Love used to be called the Thames, years before I was born. But when the barriers broke and so much was destroyed, some wit decided in all the turmoil to rename the Thames, the True Love-‘The course of true love never did run smooth’, see? And it worked so well that no-one ever bothered to change it back. I grew up by the banks of the True love-it was my life.
By the time I was born, London had managed to spring back on a far smaller scale. No more electricity, obviously, and for some of the older people, learning to make do without technology was challenging. But for most of us, it was simply life. We survived well enough, living on the vestiges of past glory. Sometimes the great clocktower which was half-submerged a few miles upriver would laboriously strike an hour, its plangent tones reminding us of what was. There were problems, but we dealt with them, and got on with our lives. I found a husband, and we had Kaylee and Finn, and also Morys who you’ve never met - because the course of true love never did run smooth.
We’d noticed that the Love was starting to creep up, and the July storms were intensifying. Morys was only 15 months old. It was a particularly heavy storm that week, and Matt and I had been sure to secure our doors and reinforce the stilts. But we forgot one place, a spot where the floorboards lifted to see the ground below. And we forgot the curiosity of young children finding their feet. Matt saw him bent intently over something in the corner, and then he was gone.
That summer marked the last time I looked on the Love with affection. Before then, it had been like a parent-sometimes harsh, but ultimately loving, giving more than taking; a part of life. But after it took Morys, I could no longer love it. People had been leaving London for years, going to the cities which hadn’t been so affected, to towns, villages, anywhere to find a new life. That September, we joined the trek. We walked for nearly a month, until we found ourselves here. Matt always swore blind that it was Finn that guided us here, and it did seem that he was only content when we walked the path leading northwest: he grizzled and fussed whenever we took a different way. Now Matt’s gone, I’m old, and the world has ended and begun again. My memories, and what I remember of other people’s memories, are all that remains of our history. But that may not be such a bad thing. If the past stands aside, you are free to create your own memories, your own tales, your own tomorrows.