BENCH – a triptych bench noun: 1. a long seat for several people, typically made of wood or stone. 2. a long work table in a workshop or laboratory.verb: 1. exhibit (an item) at a show. 2. withdraw (a sports player) from play.A: The plaque had arrived in the post that morning. He heard as it was pushed through the letterbox with a shoving followed by a hard thud hitting the floor. At first Harvey thought someone was trying to break in and reached for his trusty cricket bat but then remembered his order and felt excited from his colicky chest to the top of his bald egg head.He left the delivery there for three agonising hours. Contamination was a killer but finally resistance was futile, and Harvey shuffled the exhausting journey from chair, to hall, to front door. A little more contamination couldn’t hurt him now surely, what was that song again ‘every breath you take? ’Maybe but he didn’t think it was about breathing really. Harvey couldn’t remember. He felt sure there were more relevant songs he could be humming but that was the problem with aging. At some point the memories started to choose you rather than the other way round. Harvey hummed the wrong song while planning his retrieval of the parcel from the front door mat. Every breath you take, lose knees bend forward. Every move you make, lean over and down. Every breath you take, every move you make, flex fingers and scoop. I’ll be watching you. Hand on thigh, back to stand and breathe. The Police. That’s who the song was by. His wife had loved their music. The package was well-padded, a mark of the quality he’d hoped for. It was always chancy buying on the computer, but the reviews had been favourable, and the company boasted a family lineage of trusted metal working. Harvey had been right to take the risk. He fetched scissors and snipped the edge of the rectangular shape carefully, not to cause any damage. Layer upon layer of bubble wrap enclosed the plaque. It was fiddly to open but fifteen minutes later and his diligence was rewarded. It was a thing of beauty, even better than he had imagined: Heavy brass. Perfectly bevelled edges. So smooth it looked like undisturbed water.‘That’s grand, really grand’. He ran his fingers over the inscription carved in the metal and despite his weathered fingertips could feel the grooves and curves it made. Following the letters, a small smile began to spread to a larger one as he read their names together again immortalised in the brassy glow. She would have loved this. Closing his eyes, he pictured her face and the joy she would have shown. He held the plaque out to this image proudly, reverently, with an intensity of purpose. ‘I ordered this. I had it made. This is for our bench Elsie. For our bench in our favourite place to remember all that we had’. He slumped back down in his wing-backed chair, carefully, slowly, still holding the brass plaque in his palm with satisfaction knowing that the journey was nearly completed. The metal warmed his hand. All it needed now was fitting. The bench was already installed. Today an anonymous bench, but tomorrow it would be his and his beautiful wife’s, their names enshrined sitting at the river’s edge as the cormorants dived and the herons stood still as statues, proudly eyeing the disintegrating world. The smell of green river, dark peaty earth and Elsie’s perfume rose inside him, and Harvey inhaled trying to breathe it in, but the stale odour of self-isolation returned him to reality. His lonely house with one man in it. It was the end of the world, the great pandemic to beat all others. It wasn’t how he imagined he would end but first there was a task to complete. This was to be his final mission; to memorialise love. Then he would happily succumb to the oblivion that Elsie already inhabited. He would join her there gladly. He leaned back in the chair and felt his death pulling at the edges of him.‘Just a few more days, that’s all I need. Please, just a little more time’.B:Beatrice half skipped, half walked, whipping a long branch of willow up and down to hear it rip the air around her. She was wearing children’s leggings with silver moons and stars embossed down each leg and half hidden by a faded yellow dress with ripped petticoats swinging round her too thin body. Her skin was dark and shiny in the sunshine, but hair sprouted from her head in a startling fashion, that wasn’t fashion at all, and quite correctly looked as if it had been untouched for months. She cut an alarming figure or would have if there was anyone to see her, but there wasn’t. There hadn’t been anyone else around for quite some time. The willow whipped around Beatrice’s bare feet as she danced her well-worn grassy paths. Tangles of Giant Hogweed and Himalayan Balsam fought the Knotweed sewing the landscape together and permeating everything. The grass became gravel, then rock, then river. Beatrice had set her traps yesterday and she salivated at the thought of a fresh fish. When had she last eaten? Maybe a day ago. Maybe more. She had prayed to the river goddess, thrown flowers into the water. If she was good, there would be fishy fish for supper. She dipped her toes in. Oh, so cold, but humming a little tune of anticipation she waded in. There was nothing. Not a single fish, traps empty or swept away. Those fishy fish had outsmarted her again, diving under or nibbling the trap strings and carrying them away to use as fish beds for their babies. She imagined all the fish babies snug with their Muma and Papa and bellies full of delicious dinner. The thought stopped the tears streaming down her cheeks quelling her frustration and soothing her like a lullaby. At least some children were being looked after and cared for. She backed out of the river and sat directly down on the bench she knew was behind her. The wood was warm after the stark cold of the water. She stroked it to dry her hands and spread her skirts out to dry. Maybe they had been wrong. Maybe this wasn’t a special place after all. She turned to the plaque on the bench to address them directly. The plaque looked back at her accusingly daring her challenge and glinting copper with intent. She spoke with a small, firm, and childlike tone to be sure that she did not offend and remind them that she was still young but what she was saying was of serious import: ‘Elsie and Harvey Tanner, I realise that I may have offended you initially when I carved that B on your lovely bench and I apologise again for that, but when you informed me that this was your special place with your writing and allowed me to catch that fish and invited me back again so gracefully, I kind of expected that there would be more fish’. It had been a while since she had spoken, and she was out of breath. She needed to slow down and remember that breaking things down into smaller pieces of information was more helpful than just talking at something. She had learned that somewhere, from someone maybe, but it was too long ago to remember. She continued:‘And it’s not that I’m ungrateful. Not at all. I was just wondering if you could be kind enough to pay proper attention in future and allow the specialness out again?’She was waiting for an answer when she had a thought. Leaning over to the left leg of the bench she saw the mud she’d used to fill in her carving and repair the damage had shrunk and cracked in the heat. The letter B was clearly visible as a blemish on the lovely dark grain of the wood. This could be why the fish were not being caught. She immediately starting to dig a small handful of mud and once satisfied with its consistency, she turned and addressed the bench formally, prefaced with a little curtsey. ‘My sincere apologies Madame Elsie and Mr Harvey’. She plastered the soft wet mud into the scarred wooden leg until the capital B she had so painstakingly whittled out some weeks ago could no longer be seen. ‘There. All gone’. The plaque glittered and winked at her, and she smiled in return. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you’ she sang knowing that they had heard her. ‘I knew you’d understand. You are so, so kind’. Beatrice swung her skinny arms out as wide as she could and turned around and around until she was dizzy, stopping stock still to watch the world continue to spin about her. She knew it: There would be fish a plenty and maybe even more in this special place because it was indeed special, and Elsie and Harvey loved her as if she was their own child and would look after her what ever happened. There may be no people, she hadn’t seen any in ages, but there were plenty of fish. Fishy fish wouldn’t escape her now. Everything was fixed and perfect and Beatrice traversed the distance back to the water in nine big, joyful skips. She would offer flowers to the water goddess and make daisy crowns for Elsie and Harvey and reset her fishy fish traps like she had all the time in the world. C: At the tail end of a civilisation craft is a corridor. The walls, floor and ceiling are an inconsequential grey. It is lit by a concealed system giving the impression of a light one might remember from early morning in spring but there are no windows, it is not spring and natural light is only a diminishing memory of a time long past when civilisation lived close enough to a star to see light at all. The corridor finishes in a dead end but there are doors running down either side of it. They are plain, industrial with white metal handles ergonomically designed for comfort and featuring outdated touch locks that may be old but work efficiently with the surety of comprehensive good design. The doors are also grey except for a large blue letter inscribed on each one in plain font. The letters start with Z crossing the corridor to Y and back to X in a zig zag of lettering working alphabetically backwards until you reach A at the other end. While they were searching, no one had thought to extend the search radius as far as this alphabet corridor. It was a mostly disused facility and there were more likely places to investigate. This was a pity because if they had looked in this corridor, they would have discovered that 9 was behind the door that was lettered C and had been for quite some time. 9 woke up on the bench again, their body immediately beginning to complain of the hard surface they had committed to for the night. 9 felt like a tight round ball that had just been whacked by a large cricket bat. At least that was how 9 imagined it. They had only seen a cricket bat once, along with the corresponding cricket ball. It was encased in the temperature-controlled sports gallery alongside an explanation of ‘cricket’. While 9 hadn’t fully understood the point, they had appreciated the aesthetic immediately. They wished they could have touched it. Sitting up, peeling themselves from the wooden surface they pulled the blanket about themselves being careful not to let it drop on to the floor and snugged their face into the weave of it. It smelled of the time and love someone had taken to embroider the tiny roses onto the wool after knitting it. It was real wool and cost nearly three month’s wages. 9 was not going to let it dangle on to the ground for a moment, even if that ground was an immaculate, self- cleaning lawn. They began a roll of shoulders in a circle, first forwards, then backwards. A series of satisfying little crunches accompanied the movement. Then a tipping of the head, ear to shoulder on the right, ear to shoulder on the left and felt the unfamiliar full weight of their shifting head and its pull floor-wards. 9 smiled. How they loved room C with its eighty percent gravity. A leaden-weighted, stiff body was a small price to pay for a sleep on real wood with a lovely blanket. 9 swung their legs, back and forth, back and forth over the sign reading: Please do not touch this restored historic object. 9 would never do anything to harm the bench or diminish the benches beauty but historic or not, it had been made to be used. Anyway, a chance to connect with the past seemed to make much more sense than this present, that the life 9 was living now. The search for 9 would discover their location in room C soon no doubt. It wouldn’t be long before they thought to trace the finger print to the key code of the door. This was 9’s special place and they wanted to keep it that way. It was time to leave. But they hesitated. They didn’t want to go. 9 savoured the pull of gravity and belonging to a long dead world. They stroked the grain of the wood with precise movements, imagining a time of trees, of breathing unfiltered air, of romanticism and the possibility of love. Then manoeuvred their pregnant belly around to face the rear of the bench to grasp the edge and lower themselves down. Gravity did make some things much trickier. Their hand caught an indent in the top edge they hadn’t noticed before. Had there been some sort of plaque on the bench? It was long worn away but a tiny corner glittered gold in the simulated overhead lighting. 9 leaned forward to grasp the leg with the carved B and lowered down with an awkward bump and cradled their belly feeling its stretch and weight. They should not have run off on the repopulation day. Everyone would be worried. This was a duty to perform to the civilisation, just like everyone else’s. 9 knew they needed to hurry to the nursery suites and apologise. They’d taken extra risk with precious cargo and it was this child’s time. Walking towards the exit door they glanced back for one last look at their beautiful bench with its tiny corner of shiny brass metal on the top edge and its worn carving on the leg that had saved them from falling. They would return but today 9 would deliver another member of the civilisation and the child would be taken for raising just as 9 had been. Then rest time before impregnation again and sleeping and dreaming, on their bench, in C. That was something to look forward to. For now though 9 must hurry, they had already wasted enough time.