The End of Everything
For years Phillip Tennent lived at the edge of the sea, where artefacts were washed up every day.
菲利普·坦南特（Phillip Tennent）多年来一直住在海边，每天都有文物被冲上岸。
Scavengers, professional and otherwise, came and went.
拾荒者，无论是专业人士还是其他人，来了又走。
Turnover was higher than you’d expect given the relaxed lifestyle, the constant good weather, the ease with which some sort of existence could be pursued.
考虑到轻松的生活方式、持续的好天气以及可以轻松地追求某种生存，营业额比你预期的要高。
Most of the beachcombers took away the first item they could easily carry and sold it on elsewhere.
大多数海滩流浪者拿走了他们可以轻松携带的第一个物品并将其出售到其他地方。
If you had contacts in the hinterland, there was no doubt about how slickly that could be done.
如果你在内陆地区有联系，毫无疑问，这件事可以做得多么巧妙。
But the hard core like Tennent hung on, out there dawn and dusk, shine or shine, throwing the small ones back, waiting for an item that would give them pause for thought.
但像坦南特这样的铁杆人物却坚持了下来，不管是黎明还是黄昏，不管是晴天还是晴天，他们都把小孩子们扔了回去，等待着一个能让他们停下来思考的东西。
They were committed.
他们很坚定。
They could be seen from orbit.
从轨道上可以看到它们。
Their living structures glowed at night a hundred miles up and down the coast.
他们的居住建筑在夜间在海岸上下一百英里处闪闪发光。
By day you saw that temporary qualities had defined over the decades a permanent aesthetic: bothies and benders made of whitened sticks; mirrors and bits of rag; almost anything the tide left, although to incorporate an artefact would have been considered bad taste as much as bad luck.
白天，你会发现，几十年来，暂时的品质定义了一种永久的美学：用白色棍子制成的小屋和酒杯；镜子和碎布；几乎所有潮水留下的东西，尽管将一件人工制品纳入其中会被认为是糟糕的品味和厄运。
The beachcombers had their limits.
海滩流浪者也有其局限性。
Their superstitions gave the tideline its social structures and distinctive quality on the palate.
他们的迷信赋予了潮流线其社会结构和独特的品味品质。
Further back from the shore, the hinterland was dark, a little more threatening, with its flattened hashmark of streets and its differing sets of rules.
离海岸更远的地方，腹地一片漆黑，街道平坦，规则各异，更具威胁性。
There was a lot of poured cement and half-functioning neon, a lot of territoriality; you had to talk your way through the bars, blockhouses and abandoned car parks to get your item out to market.
那里有很多浇筑的水泥和半功能的霓虹灯，有很多领土性；你必须穿过酒吧、碉堡和废弃的停车场才能将你的物品推向市场。
Coming up from the intertidal, out of the dusty salt wind with his latest find under one arm, Tennent met a woman on her way down.
坦南特腋下夹着最新的发现，从潮间带、尘土飞扬的盐风中走出来，在下山的路上遇到了一位女士。
She looked at the object – which was at that time about the size of a baby, and which he had wrapped in some bleached-out rags – and nodded with a kind of measured approval.
她看着这个物体——当时它大约有一个婴儿那么大，他用一些漂白的破布包裹着它——然后带着一种有节制的认可点了点头。
They studied the horizon together for a moment, and she asked him what condition the sea was in down there that day.
他们一起观察了地平线一会儿，她问他那天海底的情况如何。
‘Eventually it’ll turn into speech,’ Tennent said, without knowing why.
“最终它会变成言语，”坦南特说道，但不知道为什么。
She was carrying a week’s groceries in a bag for life with a broken handle.
她一生都把一周的食品杂货装在一个袋子里，但袋子的把手坏了。
No one was eating much down there.
那里没有人吃太多东西。
He thought he’d seen her before, living mostly on her own in a hut a hundred or so metres south of his.
他以为他以前见过她，她大部分时间独自住在他以南一百米左右的一间小屋里。
‘I’m off,’ he said.
“我走了，”他说。
‘Take anything you want of mine.
‘你想要什么就从我这里拿走吧。
If you need anything, it’s yours.’
如果你需要什么，那就是你的。
Loose white sand blew into the air and whirled around at the edge of the sea like a fog.
松散的白色沙子被吹向空中，像雾一样在海边旋转。
They turned to face it with similar body language – expectant, alert, anxiety tempered with what could only be described as longing.
他们转身用相似的肢体语言面对它——期待、警觉、焦虑，但只能用渴望来形容。
For a moment Tennent had a sense that something huge was approaching over the water; something fast, which hadn’t been there – or indeed anywhere – a minute or two before.
有一瞬间，坦南特感觉到有什么巨大的东西正在水面上靠近。某种快速的东西，一两分钟前还不存在——或者实际上任何地方都不存在。
But it never arrived, and the woman shrugged.
但它从未到来，女人耸耸肩。
‘You’ll be back,’ she predicted.
“你会回来的，”她预言道。
‘No, I won’t.’
“不，我不会。”
They laughed again and she walked away towards the tide across the perfect sand, the sound her feet made reminding him suddenly of the sound of feet on snow.
他们又笑了，她跨过完美的沙滩，朝潮水走去，她的脚发出的声音突然让他想起了雪地上的脚步声。
She waved without looking back.
她头也不回地挥手。
The strip was another kind of tideline, facing both the ocean and the dry land, the way they always do.
这条地带是另一种潮汐线，既面向海洋又面向陆地，一如既往。
Tennent had a relative there, an aunt of his called Marnie, a painter who occupied an old terraced townhouse on an elbow of raised ground at the outer edge of the town, where the cross streets turned to dirt tracks and fused themselves into the dissected chalk plateau inland.
坦南特在那里有一个亲戚，他的姨妈玛妮，是一位画家，她在城镇外缘的一处高地的拐角处拥有一栋古老的排屋联排别墅，那里的十字路口变成了土路，融入了内陆被分割的白垩高原。
By day, you could look out to sea from the top floor of the house, or, landward, across the curve of a narrow little estuary, at mudbanks, a bridge, an island, levels of water according to the state of the tide, and on the far bank, ruderal scrub from which emerged the remains of buildings.
白天，你可以从房子的顶层眺望大海，或者向陆地看，穿过狭窄的小河口的曲线，看到泥滩、一座桥、一座岛屿、根据潮汐状态而定的水位，以及远处岸边的灌木丛，那里有建筑物的遗迹。
At night, you chose between the faltering neon messages of the Strip, or, in the other direction, darkness.
到了晚上，你可以选择拉斯维加斯大道摇摇欲坠的霓虹灯信息，或者相反的黑暗。
Marnie had washed up there from London a generation ago, when the Strip was still a thriving arts community, before the crashed airliner raised its buckled starboard wing like a temporary modernist shelter across the gardens on the other side of the road.
一代人前，玛妮从伦敦被冲到了那里，当时拉斯维加斯大道还是一个繁荣的艺术社区，随后坠毁的客机升起弯曲的右舷机翼，就像马路另一边花园上的临时现代主义避难所一样。
Seventy years old now, still in some way the repository of Tennent’s adolescence and the social structures which had supported it, she seemed lively and determined one minute, precarious the next.
现在她已经七十岁了，在某种程度上，她仍然是坦南特青春期和支撑青春期的社会结构的宝库，她前一分钟看起来活泼而坚定，下一分钟就变得岌岌可危。
Fragility had set in behind the skin of her cheekbones, but she still made art.
她的颧骨皮肤变得脆弱，但她仍然创作艺术。
Her eyes remained clear and she retained an unimpatient sense of her own worth.
她的眼睛依然清澈，对自己的价值保持着一种不耐烦的感觉。
‘It’s sad to think,’ he remembered her saying when he was seventeen or eighteen, ‘that people have stopped making full use of you as a human being.
“想到人们已经不再充分利用你这个人了，”他记得她在他十七、十八岁的时候说过的话，他就感到难过。
You feel as if you’ve let them down by somehow not being persuasive enough.’
你感觉自己好像因为缺乏说服力而让他们失望了。
Now she stood stiffly at the door and for a moment it seemed to Tennent as if she might not invite him in.
现在她僵硬地站在门口，有那么一刻，坦南特觉得她似乎不会邀请他进来。
‘What’s that you have with you?’ she said.
“你身上带了什么？”她说。
In the confusion following the arrival of the iGhetti, he had found his way to her along the coast as if blindfold, relying on some internal compass of nostalgia.
在伊盖蒂到来后的混乱中，他仿佛蒙着眼睛，依靠某种内心怀旧的指南针，沿着海岸找到了通往她的路。
As they emerged from the months of collective trauma that blunted the country’s understanding of what had happened, unsure where – or perhaps even who – they were, the two of them had been able to do little but sit and talk.
当他们从几个月的集体创伤中走出来时，整个国家对所发生的事情的理解变得迟钝，不确定他们在哪里——甚至可能是谁——，他们两人除了坐下来交谈之外几乎什么也做不了。
It had been a comfort to rehearse their memories of his childhood holidays in Marnie’s house when the world was still good, still intact – ‘Still blown,’ as she had put it, ‘like a stream of bubbles, by all that money.’ But in the years since he went to live on the tideline, things had changed between them.
在玛妮家里回忆他童年的假期是一种安慰，当时世界仍然美好，仍然完好无损——正如她所说，“仍然像一串泡沫一样，因为那么多钱。”但自从他搬到潮汐线上生活后的这些年里，他们之间的事情发生了变化。
For him, the house’s value lay in its proximity to the sea, and in its basement – essentially a garage, with good lighting and an inspection pit – which connected to the coast road along a short steep concrete ramp.
对他来说，这所房子的价值在于它靠近大海，以及它的地下室——本质上是一个车库，有良好的照明和一个检查坑——它沿着一个短而陡的混凝土坡道连接到海岸公路。
He kept some of his belongings there, and called in only rarely to check on their condition.
他把他的一些物品放在那里，很少打电话来检查它们的状况。
‘It’s nothing,’ he said.
“没什么，”他说。
‘It’s just something I picked up.’ ‘But now it’s in my house.’
“这只是我捡到的东西。”“但现在它在我家里。”
‘You haven’t even seen it,’ he said.
他说：“你甚至都没见过。”
‘All you’ve seen is a pile of rags.’
“你看到的只是一堆破布。”
‘We agreed you wouldn’t bring anything here.
“我们同意你不会带任何东西来这里。
It’s more than what you see: it’s growing.
它不仅仅是你所看到的：它正在增长。
It’s grown in the minutes you’ve been standing at my door wondering whether to knock.’ They stared at one another, both rendered uncertain by the strength of her feelings.
当你站在我的门前考虑是否要敲门的那几分钟里，这种感觉就在增长。”他们互相凝视着，两人都因她强烈的感情而变得不确定。
Eventually she stood away to let him enter, adding: ‘I never go near the sea.
最终她退到一边让他进来，并补充道：“我从不靠近大海。”
I know what you do down there.’
我知道你在那里做什么。
‘It’s just some kind of flotsam,’ Tennent reassured her.
“这只是某种废弃物，”坦南特向她保证。
‘Or is it jetsam?
“或者是废品？”
I can never remember which is which, can you?’
我永远记不起哪个是哪个，你能吗？
‘You’re not a teenager any more, Phillip.’
“你不再是青少年了，菲利普。”
Later, she gave him baked beans on toast.
后来，她给了他烤豆面包。
Squalls swung in across the north bank and obscured the river.
狂风横扫北岸，遮蔽了河流。
They sat looking out of the window, listening to the rain and talking in low voices.
他们坐在窗边，听着雨声，低声交谈。
Evening came on; behind the remains of the summer house, the tide could be heard rushing up the estuary.
夜幕降临了；在避暑别墅的废墟后面，可以听到潮水冲上河口的声音。
The artefact lay under its wraps in a corner, shifting occasionally as they talked.
这件文物被包裹在角落里，在他们谈话时偶尔会移动。
Every so often, Marnie glanced at it and shuddered, but after a while, appearing to lose interest, she closed her eyes and fell silent.
玛妮时不时地看了一眼，浑身颤抖，但过了一会儿，她似乎失去了兴趣，闭上了眼睛，陷入了沉默。
Tennent got to his feet.
坦南特站了起来。
‘I’m just going down to the garage,’ he said.
“我正要去车库，”他说。
At that, she clutched his arm.
这时，她抓住了他的手臂。
‘One of the things I find myself thinking about,’ she whispered, ‘is how wonderful it would be to fly.’
“我发现自己在想的一件事是，”她低声说，“如果能飞翔该多好。”
He stared down at her.
他低头看着她。
He wasn’t sure if she was actually awake.
他不确定她是否真的醒了。
‘This morning,’ she went on, ‘my kitchen doorway was crawling with ants.
“今天早上，”她继续说道，“我的厨房门口爬满了蚂蚁。
A bird came in to eat them.
一只鸟飞进来吃它们。
It was – what?
那是——什么？
– one of those little birds with a red breast.
——其中一只红胸小鸟。
Such an opportunist!’ The creature had whirred in and out of the kitchen all morning, she said, making itself quite at home.
真是一个机会主义者！”她说，这个生物整个早上都在厨房里进进出出，显得很自在。
It was on the doormat, on the refrigerator, on the back of a chair, cocking its dark little eye sidewise at everything.
它在门垫上、冰箱上、椅背上，用黑色的小眼睛斜视着一切。
‘Sharp as its own beak!
‘像它自己的喙一样锋利！
Now, tell me: what kind of bird is that?’ Memory loss was both a curse and a blessing to her.
现在，告诉我：那是什么鸟？”失忆对她来说既是诅咒也是祝福。
Sometimes she offered it with a smile – not as an explanation but as a habitation, the place she was speaking from – at others, it simply left her impatient.
有时她微笑着提出——不是作为解释，而是作为一种居所，她说话的地方——而另一些时候，这只是让她不耐烦。
‘A robin, Marnie.
“一只知更鸟，玛妮。
You’ve always had robins in the garden.’ She nodded thoughtfully; then, after a pause, said in a completely different tone of voice: ‘I have my own problems, Phillip.
“花园里一直有知更鸟。”她若有所思地点点头。然后，停顿了一下，用一种完全不同的语气说道：“我有我自己的问题，菲利普。
I’ve had to work quite hard to keep this place.
我必须非常努力地工作才能保住这个地方。
I’ve sometimes had to be tougher than I wanted.’
有时我不得不比我想要的更坚强。
Down in the garage he pulled the dust cover off the bonnet of the vehicle he kept there.
在车库里，他把车盖上的防尘罩拉下来。
Its patchy, matt grey bodywork absorbed the strip light and didn’t give much back.
它不规则的哑光灰色车身吸收了条状光线，但没有产生太多反射。
Everything still seemed dry and good.
一切看起来仍然干燥而美好。
Tennent smiled.
坦南特笑了。
He fetched the escape kit he kept in a tarpaulin duffle under some carefully curated rubbish in the corner; while he was stowing the bag in the boot of the car, he thought he heard the front door open.
他取出了放在防水布行李袋里的逃生工具包，放在角落里精心整理的垃圾下面；当他把包放进汽车后备箱时，他觉得自己听到了前门打开的声音。
‘Marnie?’ he called.
“玛妮？”他喊道。
‘Marnie!’ When no answer came, he went back up into the house to collect the artefact.
“玛妮！”当没有回答时，他回到房子里去收集文物。
‘Marnie?
‘玛妮？
I’m going now.’
我现在就走。
He thought she had fallen asleep again, but she was waiting for him in the hall by the front door.
他以为她又睡着了，但她却在前门的大厅里等他。
The door hung open.
门开着。
Damp night air was blowing in.
潮湿的夜风吹了进来。
‘I set it free,’ she said.
“我把它释放了，”她说。
‘It didn’t want to stay and – Phillip?
“它不想留下来——菲利普？
– I didn’t want it here.’
– 我不想在这里。
‘Christ!’ said Tennent.
“天哪！”坦南特说。
‘Free?
'自由的？
What are you talking about?’ And when she looked away from him: ‘Which direction did it go?
你在说什么？”当她把目光从他身上移开时：“它去了哪个方向？
Did you see?’
你看到了吗？
She shrugged.
她耸耸肩。
‘I know what you’re doing down there.’
“我知道你在下面做什么。”
She wouldn’t say what she meant by that, and he returned to the basement, where he got into the car and started it.
她没有说这是什么意思，他回到地下室，上了车并启动了它。
It wasn’t until much later that he discovered that the tarpaulin bag had been opened since his last visit, and one of his pistols was missing.
直到很久以后，他才发现防水布袋自从他上次来之后就被打开了，他的一把手枪也不见了。
From The End of Everything by M John Harrison.
摘自约翰·哈里森 (M John Harrison) 的《一切的终结》。
Copyright © 2026 by M.
版权所有 © 2026 M.
John Harrison.
约翰·哈里森.
All rights reserved.
版权所有。
No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
未经出版商书面许可，不得复制或重印本摘录的任何部分。