(set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
London-Cape Town flight day 3.
Somewhere above the Sahara.
A plane crashes in the desert.
[[You are the pilot]]
[[You are the plane]]
(set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
The current state of things:
Your head is bleeding.
Your leg is broken.
You have very little water.
What do you want to do?
[[Go on.->go on]]
[[Go back.->go back]]
(set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
<img src="https://immaterialarchive.org/ruins/youareplane.jpg" width="475" height="400">
London-Cape Town flight day 3
Crash site
What happened?
You are so brittle. Impact shredded you: you had wings, now you have a sprawling tangle of wood and wire.
Your fuselage is ripped away. Your frame is crumpled. The crash tore through even your bones.
[[Take stock]](set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
She told you to stay with the plane.
They will find you.
They'll be looking as soon as morning arrives.
[[They will find you.->they will find you]]
[[The road can't be far.->the road can't be far]](set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
London-Cape Town flight, day 2
The Turkish border
<img src="https://immaterialarchive.org/ruins/goback.jpg" width="375" height="300">
[[SEE ME]]
You're running late. You had the wrong papers. Now the time you lost sits like a brick in your chest. You can feel sleep bleeding away from you like a punctured sandbag.
[[How did you get here?]](set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
The desert freezes at night. It's too dark to see how bad the wreck is.
Where's your torch?
Where's your water?
Nothing to do now except [[wait.->wait]]
Unless you decide to [[go back.->go back]](set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
Sorry!
You don't have access to that future.
She told you to stay with the plane.
You'll have to [[go back.->wait]]
Or you could [[go back further.->go back]]
<img src="https://immaterialarchive.org/ruins/roadcantbefar.jpg" width="300" height="375">
[[SEE ME ]](set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
London-Cape Town flight day 4
Crash site
Morning in the desert. They'll be coming soon.
Here are the things you found when the sun rose: your water bottle, your logbook, your torch, the chocolate bar your mother gave you, your compass.
You write a little in the logbook, because it's important to keep a record.
You don't eat the chocolate yet.
[[They'll be coming soon.->they'll be coming soon]](set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
London-Cape Town flight, day 1
Croydon Aerodrome
<img src="https://immaterialarchive.org/ruins/howdidyougethere.jpg" width="375" height="300">
[[SEE ME ]]
You're at the aerodrome. The plane is very small. No passengers.
Your mother hands you a chocolate bar and you hug her. There's still dew in the morning air.
Are you excited?
She's not here. Your mother wouldn't let her come.
You'll talk to her at the border.
[[Time to go.->time to go]](set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
Before.
<img src="https://immaterialarchive.org/ruins/timetogo.jpg" width="375" height="300">
[[SEE ME ]]
You see the prize advertised in a newspaper.
Take it. [[It could be everything you're looking for.->a plane crashes in the desert]](set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
London-Cape Town flight day 6
Crash site
What do you look like from the distance of the road?
A cloud of smoke.
A smudge.
Nothing, the desert has swallowed you from sight.
The skin of your plane would make good flares.
[[Burn it.->leave it alone]]
[[Leave it alone.->leave it alone]](set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
A plane crashes in the desert.
You are the pilot.
[[Wait->they will find you]](set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
<img src="https://immaterialarchive.org/ruins/takestock.jpg" width="375" height="300">
London-Cape Town flight day 3
Evening
Crash site
Your engine ticks cool in the freezing silence.
Sand drifts between your splintered bones.
[[The night is up there, but not for you]] (set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
London-Cape Town flight day 6
Crash site
Morning on the ground.
He is ripping your skin away to make flares. Any rescue coming is for him alone, he has given up on you. But you draw them to you all the same.
[[Burn.->burn]]
[[Decay.->burn]]
(set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
Days wheel across the sky above you. The earth's grip is strong, it won't relinquish you easily. You don't sink
[[but you don't fly either.]](set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
What is ruin?
Better to ask: what does it do? He has stripped you of canvas and the hidden forgotten moisture leeches from your frame moment by moment.
His too.
[[It may be no rescue is coming]]
[[Ruin leaves you where you lie ->ruin leaves you where you lie.]](set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
A plane crashes in the desert.
This happens moment by moment, all the time, everywhere.
You are the pilot.
You are the plane.
<img src="https://immaterialarchive.org/ruins/ruinleavesyou.jpg" width="475" height="400">
[[MEET US IN REAL LIFE]]
[[Acknowledgements]](set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
London-Cape Town flight day 9
They're long days, with nothing to dilute them. Flies constantly droning around your head. You write to your family often, but the logbook is running out of pages.
[[Eventually you send up flares->eventually you send up flares]]
[[They will find you soon->they will find you soon]]
<img src="http://immaterialarchive.org/ruins/leaveitalone.jpg" width="375" height="300">
[[SEE ME ]](set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
London-Cape Town flight day 11
Crash site
No water left.
No food.
No paper.
You lie under a splintered wing and the stars glitter uncuriously at the speck of you in the sand.
They'll find you. [[You'll be here when they do.->ruin leaves you where you lie.]](set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
A plane crashes in the desert.
This happens moment by moment, all the time.
[[You are the plane.->The night is up there, but not for you]](set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
<img src="https://immaterialarchive.org/ruins/andoneday.jpg" width="300" height="300">
[[SEE ME ]]
One day, there they are. You draw them in. They are strangers and the weight of years has drilled you down into the burning sand. But they come, and they talk about taking you home.
[[Where is home? ->do you have a home?]](set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
<img src="https://immaterialarchive.org/ruins/haveahome.jpg" width="375" height="300">
Stasis, after frantic decades of burn-freeze-burn. Do you feel the gentle pull of cotton across your frame rasped dry by the stinging wind? Do you feel the dark and cool?
[[Do you feel yourself airborne again? ->do you feel yourself airborne again?]](set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
When they unmuffle you, in all your separate parts, they say you're home.
<img src="https://immaterialarchive.org/ruins/airborne1.jpg" width="375" height="300">
What is home for you?
They weld you back together until you feel yourself newly rigid in the porous air.
<img src="https://immaterialarchive.org/ruins/airborne2.jpg" width="375" height="300">
[[Then they put you back in the sand ->then they put you back in the sand.]]
One day, they decide you have been found enough. Where they mended you, they unmake you again in neat familiar crunches. Cool cotton, and gathered bunches of darkness. No more eyes. No more people.
You're good at this by now.
[[You wonder how long before they find you again.->ruin leaves you where you lie.]]
(set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)[[Not this time.->give them what they want]]
(set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)<img src="https://immaterialarchive.org/ruins/backinthesand.jpg" width="350" height="375">
Hundreds of people walk past you now. Day by day you are found and found again.
And you [[understand]].
(set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)They have not taken you away from desert. They have brought the desert with you. You wear your moment of impact with the earth in every line of your buckled frame, and you will never leave it behind. They were looking for it-and-you together.
[[PROVE IT]]
[[Give them what they want.->give them what they want]]
[[Do you have a choice? ->do you have a choice?]]
(set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)(set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
(open-url: "https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/132457361")
[[Back to the story->ruin leaves you where you lie.]] (set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
RUINS
A tragedy and an adventure
(This is a fictionalised account of real life events and does not represent the actual thoughts or experiences of those involved.)
[[Click to play ->ruins]]
(set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
[[Back to the story->understand]]
(open-url: "https://collections.qm.qld.gov.au/objects/SH55012/southern-cross-minor-wreckage")<img src="https://immaterialarchive.org/ruins/norescue.jpg" width="375" height="300">
Years drift by above you.The world moves on.
But it does not forget, and you do not disappear.
[[And one day]]
(set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)(set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
[[Back to the story->go back]]
(open-url: "https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/94212358?searchTerm=94212358")(set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
[[Back to the story->the road can't be far]]
(open-url: "https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/48427700?searchTerm=48427700")(set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
[[Back to the story->How did you get here?]]
(open-url: "https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/94212316?searchTerm=94212316")(set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
[[Back to the story->time to go]]
(open-url: "https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/94211746?searchTerm=94211746")(set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
[[Back to the story->leave it alone]]
(open-url: "https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/170279393?searchTerm=170279393")
(set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)
[[Back to the story->And one day]]
(open-url: "https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/136979668?searchTerm=136979668")All historic images provided courtesy of the Thomas Macleod Collection, Queensland Museum.
All historic news articles provided courtesy of Trove, National Library of Australia.
Thanks to the Queensland Museum, the University of Canberra and the Australian Research Council.
Thank you for playing!
(set: $storyStyle to (background: "#F9F9F9") + (color: "#CB7838") + (font:"Raleway"))
(enchant: ?Page, $storyStyle)