Month: July 2022

Categories
Short Fiction

Meltdown

Don’t we just love the school holidays?

Short fiction by Heather Allen

Listen out for the wasps, they’re on their way. Picture: Adobe Stock

Hooray, they squeal, hooray! It’s the summer holiday!

Hooray, I growl. Hooray. Now make it go away.

Six summer weeks feel like forever. One hot, horrible day after another, another, another. Hot outside, hot inside, hot inside me. Hot flushes, hot washes, washed all over with sweat dripping, red-faced skin burning, mind melting, blood boiling torture!

Summer! Oh, how we British love it, don’t we just love it? Squeezed into clothing to burn ourselves in, showing way too much skin, slathered in slime to stop that melanoma – mela no, ma’am! This hat is meant to keep my brain from liquefying, perched on my sweating head like a slab of fruit on a knickerbocker glory. Nobody ever looks good in the sun. Nobody with my DNA.

Candles in a jar on her windowsill, melted to a twisted mass. That’s my bones, I think. It’s funny, daughter says, but I’m not laughing, nothing is funny (it is, but) nothing will ever be funny again. Or so it feels to me. At least, not until the beautiful, cool schooldays of September. Summer will roll on, like a mass of molten wax. Thick, slow, hot.

Here we go, then. First day trip. The conservation park. Oh to be a meerkat, they’re made for this weather. They stare as we go past, up on their hind legs, their beady black eyes seeming to judge us. Yes, I think, we may well be idiots, but we are out here and you are locked in there.

Around us, black and yellow warriors circle like fighter pilots, buzzing the bins and the sticky puddles, buzzing our heads. Children run from stinging peril, screaming and flapping. I hold my head. Too much noise.

I stop the rampage with a damp hand, and hunker down, all adult-like. ‘Do you want to get stung? Those wasps, they’ve spent their lives feeding and guarding their young, so now they just want to find some sugar and eat it before they die.’ (Which, sotto voce, is just how I feel). ‘Don’t hurt them and they won’t hurt you. But if you flap your hands at me again, Heaven help me, I will sting you and then we’ll all be bloody sorry.’

In the wire enclosure, the lynx paces, back and forth, up and down. Shouty kids point grimy fingers and squeal. I watch the beast for a while, pacing, pacing, trapped, bored, hot. For a brief second, I catch the creature’s eye. I know you, I think. I am you. Blink, turn, pace.

Pace, pace.

Another bright idea, another bright and burning day. Hey, Mum, let’s go to the farm. Fabulous, I say, I cannot think of anything I’d rather do on a day hot enough to melt your eyebrows off than catch a bus to that grimy West Midlands town, then stroll through its picturesque delights to the urban farm. More miserable animals. Great idea. I’ll make the sandwiches. No, we’re not going to Greggs.

Baggy old town brings me down, whatever the weather guaranteed, holding the heat like a firebowl, the pavements and buildings covered in brown dust, radiating back the furnace heat. I want to tear off my skin. Been here too often but I always get lost. This way, that way, don’t know, it’s over there, keep going, stop arguing, leave your sister alone. I know you’re hot, we’re all flaming HOT. 

Finally, out to the green space, and the farm. In the shop, the lady takes the money and her weary eyes meet mine. ‘Three weeks,’ she says. I nod. ‘Yes.’ Solidarity.

In the farmyard, the usual collection of local families, cheap-tats dads and legging-trousered mums yawping at their spawn to ‘Get here!’ Cute kids, not yet fully conditioned, giggle and gawp at the listless beasts. We three trudge around the yard, peer over the wooden gates into the darkened stalls. I marvel at the unique, separate stinks of alpaca, goat, horse, pig, duck, chicken, rabbit and sheep. Parfum de Farmyard, with mid-notes of armpit and vape smoke, and a redolence of nappy and sick. My two stand and coo over disconsolate sheep, while I sway in a six-inch strip of shade, praying, please God, just a little breeze? A drop of cool rain? Is this my penalty for not going to church, this putrid personalised hell?

And so it drags on. A barbecue – what, now? What fresh hell is this? Kill me, so I may be spared this torture. I said that last time, he reminds me. I promised I’d go this time. You like these people! Yes, I argue, but I hate the heat. But…sigh.

Lo, just like yesterday, it’s going to be the hottest day of the year. A short walk, but a long way with the sun burning. No shade, no cover en route. Yes, this is an umbrella, but today it is a parasol. Thank you for noticing that it is yellow, like a banana. Do not judge me. I must not melt.

Arrive, exhausted already. Take stock, assess survival strategy: I grab a large glass of iced water, place my seat in the shadiest corner of the garden and stay there, listening to other people’s conversations, until I can reasonably sneak away. Only then am I forced to speak, my price for leaving early: ‘Thanks for inviting me,’ (pause for exaggerated yawn), ‘I’m a bit tired, the kids will come home with their dad.’ It’s lovely walking alone in the post-sunset cool. I have half a bottle of wine in the fridge at home, a book to finish, and zero guilt. I’m too old for guilt.

Another day, a home day, even bloody hotter. I am hiding in my office, the coolest room in the house. My brain is cheese. I have done, am doing and intend to do NOTHING which involves me moving from this seat. But hark, here are my darlings! They barge in. This is my sanctuary, my sanctum sanctorum, my sanitarium – yet they are definitely very much in here, and I can’t pretend they are not. Loud voices, eager faces, sweaty bodies standing far too close to me. Right in my face. I can smell them. I feel sick.

‘WHAT?’ Hoping my voice is carrying an adequate measure of menace.

‘We’re hungry! What are we having for dinner?’

I spin round in my chair – it squeaks – and give them the death glare. 

‘I’M BUSY.’

They look at the screen. I’m Googling ‘murder in a heatwave’. They glance at each other.

I turn back to the screen and adopt a sing-song, mistress-of-the-orphanage voice. 

‘Did you know, children, that more murders are committed at 92 degrees Fahrenheit, than at any other temperature?’ 

‘N…no…’ says daughter, her eyes sliding across to the thermometer on the wall.

I snap my head round, look her in the eye, and smile with my teeth only. My throat burns with bile.

‘Do not expect me to cook. I am already cooking. There is ample food in the fridge, the freezer, the cupboards, the fruit bowl, and the breadbin. There is a microwave, which I know you can operate.’

I turn my empty eyes to the boy child, who squirms under my gaze.

‘You are intelligent and resourceful children. You know where the crisps are, and you know where your father is. Now go.’

The door bangs as they leave, and I pick up my pen.

Bank holiday Monday. They said it would be cooler today, but they are idiots. It is 7am and my brain is melting. What to do today? Not another day out. Think. Think. Idea.

I should have bought it in July, when I first thought of it, but he said, don’t get one, we’ve got nowhere to put it when we’re not using it, it’s a waste of money, blah blah and what do I get for listening to him? What?

HOT.

Decision. Click, in the basket, reserve, thanks very much, sweaty trudge down to Argos, sweaty trudge back up the hill, lay out the tarp and open the box.

Bigger than I thought. Oo-er missus. Too hot even for mental innuendo.

Pump it up, pouring with sweat – blimey I’m hot! – never mind, it will be worth it. Wow, it is big. Nearly takes up the whole patio. Not bad for thirty quid. Splendid. Get the hose, turn on the water. 

Tell the kids. Screams of delight.

Cold drink, sit in the shade and watch it fill up. Out they come, cossies on, clutching pool noodles and plastic toys. Climbing in. Squeals. Fun. Job done.

Set the hose to dribble, grab a gin and ice, sit in the pool with the nozzle balanced on my head, water dripping down my face. Coolest I’ve been in weeks.

Lie back and think of Svalbard. And breathe.

Categories
Science

‘Strange’ deep space radio signal detected

Cosmic heartbeat offers clues to expansion of universe

By Heather Allen

Cosmos calling: The CHIME radio telescope (source: CHIME/MIT)

Life on Earth is beginning to look like the opening pages of a science fiction novel, and a dystopian one at that. We’ve had an unprecedented heatwave in the UK, with parliament fiddling while London burns. The ice caps are melting as the poles heat up, we’ve had a devastating pandemic with rumblings of more to come, plus a smorgasbord of anomalous floods, earthquakes, wars, political unrest and other unsettling shenanigans across the globe. Business as usual in the 21st Century.

Meanwhile, in chapter two of 2022: The Novel, a whole host of fascinating and occasionally alarming scientific discoveries and innovations are emerging. Google’s AI chatbot has been accused of gaining sentience, quantum computers are in production (although as yet prohibitively expensive for the likes of us), and nanobots are being developed which are capable of crawling around inside the cells of your body. Asimov would be rubbing his hands together with glee (while no doubt nervously reminding us about his Three Laws of Robotics).

On the astronomical level, it seems only a matter of time before life is discovered on other planets – or it discovers us. We all gasp at the shiny images from the James Webb Space Telescope, obviously superior to the Hubble, in a world where anyone who lives in a city can barely see any stars in the night sky. It seems pure arrogance to assume that there’s no other sentient life out there.

Into this landscape comes the latest discovery by astronomers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the same educational institution which in 1972 predicted that society would collapse in the mid 21st century (we’re ahead of schedule on that, but that’s another story). Astronomers at MIT, along with colleagues in Canada and across the USA, have detected a fast radio burst (FSB) coming from a distant galaxy which appears to be flashing with surprising regularity. The signal persists for up to three seconds, which is around 1,000 times longer than the average FRB. Within this three-second window, MIT astronomers have detected bursts of radio waves that repeat every 0.2 seconds in a clear periodic pattern, like a cosmic heartbeat. Researchers have given the signal the snappy label FRB 20191221A, and it is the longest-lasting FRB, with the clearest periodic pattern, detected to date.

This unusual, persistent radio signal originates from a distant galaxy several billion light years from Earth. What that source might be is uncertain, but astronomers believe that the signal emanates from either a radio pulsar or a magnetar, both types of neutron stars – extremely dense, rapidly spinning collapsed cores of giant stars. Whatever it is, it’s certainly got the attention of Earthlings.

“There are not many things in the universe that emit strictly periodic signals,” Dr Daniele Michilli, a postdoc in MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, said. “Examples that we know of in our own galaxy are radio pulsars and magnetars, which rotate and produce a beamed emission similar to a lighthouse. And we think this new signal could be a magnetar or pulsar on steroids.”

The team hopes to detect more periodic signals from this source, which they say could be used in future as an astrophysical clock. The frequency of the bursts, and how they change as the source moves away from Earth, could be used to measure the rate at which the universe is expanding.

Since the first FRB was discovered in 2007, hundreds of similar radio flashes have been detected across the universe, most recently by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment, (CHIME), an interferometric radio telescope consisting of four large parabolic reflectors.

CHIME is designed to pick up radio waves emitted by hydrogen in the very earliest stages of the universe. The telescope is sensitive to fast radio bursts and has identified hundreds of new FRBs. The vast majority of these FRBs are one-offs. However, FRB 20191221A, first picked up on December 21 2019, was not. This signal consisted of a four-day window of random bursts that were then repeated every 16 days. 

After analysing FRB 20191221A’s radio bursts, Dr Michilli and his colleagues found similarities with emissions from radio pulsars and magnetars in our own galaxy – except that FRB 20191221A was more than a million times brighter.

“It was unusual,” Dr Michilli said in a classic astrophysicist understatement. “Not only was it very long, lasting about three seconds, but there were periodic peaks that were remarkably precise, emitting every fraction of a second – boom, boom, boom – like a heartbeat. This is the first time the signal itself is periodic.

“CHIME has now detected many FRBs with different properties. We’ve seen some that live inside clouds that are very turbulent, while others look like they’re in clean environments. From the properties of this new signal, we can say that around this source, there’s a cloud of plasma that must be extremely turbulent.”

The astronomers hope to catch additional bursts from the periodic FRB 20191221A, which they say will help to refine their understanding of its source and of neutron stars in general. The James Webb Space Telescope will be a big help in this enterprise, just as the Hubble space telescope has been in the past, and reveal new clues about the origins of the universe.

It’s only a matter of time before we discover that something in the universe is looking right back at us. Hopefully they will send a message if they’re popping over for a visit, and a fast radio burst seems the ideal way for a space consciousness to get in touch. True, FRB 20191221A is unlikely to be an alien ‘Hello’, but it’s proof enough that the technology exists to pick up communications from deep space. Let’s just hope that, when it happens, we recognise it for what it is and are able to act appropriately.

Categories
Short Fiction Uncategorized

Snow and Ice

A short story for lovers of winter

By Heather Allen

She wore a long white coat, with a white woollen hat pulled down over her ears. Her long straight hair flowed out from under it, which was the palest blonde, almost, yes, white. Translucent skin the colour of spilt milk, eyes the clean blue of the sky on a clear January morning, pale as chips of glacial ice. Tall and thin, like Jack Frost’s younger sister.

Her name was Erica, but her friends called her Snow, although it was nothing to do with her colouring. People still talked about the day when, back in infants school, at home-time on a day when it had snowed steadily since lunchtime, she had run out onto the snow-covered lawn, stripped off all her clothes and rolled around in it, giggling. Her mum had swept her up into her arms and taken her inside to the school nurse, who pronounced her unscathed by her adventure. All she really remembered from that day was how delicious the snow felt on her skin; how much herself she had felt, how liberated and free, during those precious few moments. 

She walked, now, or to be more accurate, stomped, through the six-inch-thick white carpet that spread in all directions from her parent’s house and across most of the British mainland. Her Samoyed dog, Ice, hauled on his lead, his fluffy white fur almost invisible against the snow. This was his weather, and his wide smile showed it. Hers, too. So rare it happened here. Why had she ended up in the home of a family in the English Midlands, she often asked herself, where it snowed but rarely? There was sometimes a short spell of snowy weather in January, and maybe the odd flurry through winter, if they were very lucky. Some years, nothing at all.

Erica knew she didn’t belong here. She looked Scandinavian, everyone said, and she felt it, too. When she was a little girl, people would often ask where she got her colouring from, looking doubtfully at her dark haired parents and narrowing their eyes critically at her mum in particular. That stalwart matriarch would fold her arms and stare defiantly back. “From the angels who brought her to us,” she would reply, daring them to say more. When Erica was a little older, her parents took her aside for a talk. Told her that, yes, it was true, Mum hadn’t actually birthed her. Erica had been (and this was where it grew vague) a gift. What kind of person gives a baby as a gift, she had wondered? Who or whatever it was, they had blundered, they had brought her to the wrong country, even though she loved her parents dearly and wouldn’t wish for any others. She would dream of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Greenland, even Svalbard in the High Arctic, with its reindeer and polar bears. That was paradise as far as Erica was concerned.

It could be worse, she told herself often. At least they had some snow, sometimes. But Svalbard’s two-and-a half-month-long darkness would be preferable to this tepid, damp place, which, for the months between May and September, became a living hell for her. In those long, painful summer months, when not enduring the purgatory of school, she would hide indoors, the electric fan blowing over her damp skin, reading about cooler climes. On the hottest days she would lie in a bath of cold water, sucking ice cubes and longing with all her heart for the winter, picturing frosty days and bitter nights, the moon surrounded by a huge ice-crystal halo. She could only ever be truly herself when the snow came. She thrived in the cold, she loved the feeling of it; ice did not hurt her skin but cooled it so she felt comfortable. Most of the time she was burning. She only wore clothes at all because it was what society demanded, and she only wore outdoor clothes in winter to keep her parents happy. Her instincts screamed against it, but she had learned the hard way that some things had to be borne.

Erica never smiled in the summer, or even spring or autumn. In fact, she would only break into a smile when snowflakes started to spiral down from the white winter sky. Then, her face would light up, and she would run out, laughing, to welcome their cold beauty, arms stretched wide, head flung back, staring up into the heavens where they seemed to come from impossibly far away, going on forever, cascading down on her, masses and masses of them! Resisting the urge to strip off, she would stay outside until her parents called her in. Only then, reluctantly, would she come indoors. 

This afternoon, after months of waiting and hoping, it had finally happened. It was mid January and the snow had finally arrived, silent and pure. She had stood resolutely in the back garden this time, letting the snow cover her hair and clothes, and come in only when it suited her. It had been a few years since they had had a decent snowfall, and she had yearned for it all that time. Now she was sixteen years old, although she looked a lot younger. Although she was still under her parents’ jurisdiction, she was allowed a little more freedom, and she took it.

This was why she and Ice were out now, walking in the snow-bright, moonlit evening, to the park where the beautiful snow would be covering everything, and where she could (hopefully) be alone. Through the park gates, and it was as she had hoped and imagined; what she had dreamed about through the long, slow, torturous summer months. There was no-one else in the park; she and Ice were utterly, wonderfully alone. In front of her and all around lay a wide expanse of moonlit whiteness, pristine and glorious. Ready for her.

Ice strained at his lead, his breath coming in excited snorts, so she released him and he took off, bounding through the snow like a puppy, frolicking, barking with sheer happiness, rolling in the snow with an expression of pure doggy joy. She watched him for a few minutes, then checked in all directions. No-one else about. So, she took off her coat, laid it carefully on the snow, then began to take off her other clothes and place them on top of it. Her heart pounding, she peeled off her gloves hat, scarf, then her jumper and blouse, her boots, jeans and socks. She laughed, a childlike sound, as the cold air hit her, and Ice bounded up to her, thrusting his snowy nose against her shin. She lunged for him, but he was off again, a fluffy white snowball of a dog. 

Her pale skin was almost as white as the snow itself. She ran after her delighted dog, bare footprints following his paw-prints across the pristine whiteness. She chased him for a long while, her skinny legs lifting high, kicking up the snow in great plumes, then stopping to throw snowballs which he jumped and caught, barking happily. Eventually, when she grew tired, she threw herself to the ground and rolled around, rolled and rolled until the delicious snow covered every inch of her, then lay, Ice sprawled next to her, panting steam into the night air. She gazed up into the night sky as the cold burrowed into her bones, the beautiful cleansing cold, into her very soul, taking away the despicable, painful heat. She lay, absorbing the cold until the horrors of the hot days had been purged, then lay some more. Only when Ice grew restless, jumping up and running round in circles, nudging her with his nose and whining, did she stand up, shake the snow off herself, and slowly put her clothes back on. 

Maybe, she reflected, as she and Ice set off once more in the direction of home, maybe she could persuade her parents to get a chest freezer, so she could cram it full of this marvellous snow and lie in it when the agonising heat of June, July and August became too much. Now she must fix this night in her mind, so that she could return in her memory to the snow falling, snow blanketing, the wide white expanse in the moonlit night, and the marvellous feeling of the cold snow on her skin as she rolled in the night in its pure white delight.