Doggerland Rising

First there was the rain. And the rain was dust. 

It rose up from the deserts and the low plains of a dozen countries. Whipped by winds and breezes – some soft as sighs, others heavy as heartbreak – which had themselves been born from slight or drastic revolutions in heat and cold drifting across various oceans and high valleys, with various names and characteristics. The heat and cold pulled the wind which drew the dust which sat, for a while, in the sky. 

Except, the dust was not dust, it was mountains. Stone from the body of the earth, ground down by age and time. Older than the first clay statues made by firelight with human hands. Older than the oldest brick, which sat upon the ground, meaningless, until another was placed upon it to make the first city. Older than the memory of the ruins of that city. Older than the idea of civilisation. Older than the creation of fossils. Older than the evolution of evolution. Older, even, than life. These were the ancestors of the dust that sat in the sky. 

Despite the weight of untold ages, the dust drifted with contentment in the atmosphere until it was joined by a body of thin moisture, drawn by the same currents in wind and heat. This body wanted what all bodies do: to touch. To connect. It clung to the dust motes in the wet embrace of slowly-forming raindrops. Clung, as the wind and heat pulled them along, above borders, beaches, billboards, and the dreams of eight billion human beings. Until eventually, it rained. 

It rained and it rained, and it kept on raining. 

Even in places which had an affinity for wetness, this amount of rain was unusual. It came down in torrents. In sheets so thick and heavy you could have tucked them around the mattress of the world. After a month of this, things began to crumble. Lands slid. Rivers burst. Cities and homes flooded. Politicians talked, as they do, and people died, as they do. And still it rained. Still the clouds sat heavy and moody, blanking out the sky while the dust came tumbling, and the people wondered why the water dripping down their windows was the colour of blood, when everything else was black and white. 

More and more, they asked the question: who is in charge? Surely someone must step up to take control of this mess? Why is nobody doing anything about all this disaster? 

And just as this question was becoming really rather loud, the rain stopped. 

Just like that. One day to the next. And people relaxed again. They assumed that something logical must have been behind it. No doubt they would be informed of the reason soon; someone must be studying it at this very moment; tallying up the numbers and applying the proper scientific calculations. No doubt soon enough they would read about it in the papers, or online, or on the TV. No doubt. 

Everything was fine, just as it always had been. 

But then a few people, in a few towns and villages, which had been coastal – woke up on the day the rain stopped and looked out to where the sea had been, and saw through the softening mist, not water, but land. 

The first bird to land on Doggerland was a very confused seagull. It splattered down into the quickly drying mud and began scooping up fish. There were a great many fish, twisting and gaping on what had once been their home, but was now an alien landscape. They would rot quickly, in the sunshine that poured out of the parting clouds. The birds would grow too fat to fly before the first fish rotted to nothing. 

Some said they’d felt it in the night. That it was like the planet was turning over in its sleep. A few said they only woke up for an instant or two, to check their phones or stare blurry-eyed at the ceiling, before dropping back into slumber. Others claimed they rose completely, walked to their windows and stared longingly at something they couldn’t see. 

Nobody knew why Dogg had risen. Some said it was climate change, divine intervention, or even some kind of joke from a billionaire or government body. All kinds of theories were put forward, but all of them were wrong. 

8000 years ago, Dogg had turned its back on the world, tucked a duvet of glacial meltwater around itself, and gone to sleep. Now it had risen. It was as simple as that. 

Not long after the first seagull landed, the pilgrims started walking. 

None of them could have told you why they did it. But all agreed they had no choice. 

The pilgrims – who became known as The Walkers – came from all walks of life. They flocked to the new territory with a single-minded zeal, regardless of class, country, skin colour, or credit card status. Many were already homeless due to the disasters of the storm, and so had nothing to lose. Others walked straight out of their office meetings, their annual report presentations, forgetting the passwords to their laptops instantly. Thousands flew in from all corners of the world. So many that the planes seemed to form an orderly queue in the air. Flying above the new continent and landing as close as they could get. Everyone felt compelled by the sight of the thing, the sheer presence of it. So real, yet impossible. 

The walkers began their walking shortly after dawn on the first day, as the brittle sunshine broke through the mist. There were no roads, so people left their cars on what had been the shore. Doors hanging open, keys in the ignition, radio playing to nobody. They walked in ragged lines across the landscape, in boots and sandals, trainers and barefoot. 

They didn’t walk for anything in particular – not any reason that made logical sense. Instead, they walked because nothing made sense any more. They walked because of the price of milk. They walked because of the smiling man on the screen who told them everything was going to be ok. They walked for the death of religion. For the stagnation of sex. They walked across the barren landscape because everything they had left behind was worth less than the nothingness ahead of them. 

And, clustered around each person like water around a dust mote, was a story.