By Dennis Walkling
“Y’know, it’s still pretty cool to look at,” Gil said, as another solar flare flickered out across the night sky. “You can see splendid patterns, roiling changes that resemble wind direction, and a fantastic purple-orange hue to the sky. It’s a bit like the Northern Lights, I think.”
He turned and pointed upwards and to the left of where I was standing, as if to indicate we were anywhere near where we could see the Northern Lights, even if the palm trees and sea grapes weren’t in the way. The waves of the Atlantic lapped at the Cocoa shoreline, adding a soothing sonic backdrop. It was so soothing, I momentarily considered sleep. I doubted Gil would have noticed.
These last couple nights had been like this. Gil would come over, crack the first of many beers I had stashed in the old specimen fridge, and regale me with his astronomical knowledge, interstellar musings, and the significant work the field team had been doing with regard to the sun. It was all rather futile now. I’d have been more bored with it if I hadn’t worked on the first phase of the project with him. I’d failed to see the necessity of it, so I requested reassignment and sort of ignored it—to my ultimate regret.
Everything over at the Cape had been going according to plan, or at least that’s what Gil had been saying until the incident. Before that, he tried to get me interested in the third StarBlazers Expedition—the one he thought could save us all. The experiments they were conducting around the corona of the sun suggested as much. As interested as I might have been, I had other ideas.
Maybe Gil was trying to make himself feel better in spite of it all, because he knew I understood the physics of trying to control the solar flares, even if I didn’t believe it could be done. I always wondered how effective our puny little probes could have been on that massive flaming orb in any case. But I humored him, because he needed the support. So did I.
As Gil rambled, he waved his hand in a sweeping motion, then stopped, as if to point. “If only we’d found a habitable planet in the Trappist System,” he said, harkening back to ’17, when the probes saw those rocks floating around that dwarf. “There were even rumors that one of them might be able to be colonized, or at least that’s what AURA thought after seeing the Hubble images. If only we could’ve gotten there.” He sighed. “Man, wouldn’t that have been something?”
He was starting to philosophize now, as he usually did after beer six, but this time it was different. Gone was his usual optimism, replaced instead with remorse and resignation. Thanks to a miscalculation, man’s meddling in astronomical matters was increasing the proximity of the flares to Earth. All in the name of trying to speed up “saving the planet.” If only we’d just worked within the time parameters we had and not rushed things. It wasn’t like Earth’s demise was right around the corner.
Until it was.
But there was no way Gil could have really known what would happen; he was just following procedure down at the hololab like any experimental physicist would, given the data from the old Parker missions back in the mid-Aughts. I guess at that point it came down to belief systems more than scientific ones. Honestly, I couldn’t blame him for that. Hope has always been at the foundation of all of humanity’s greatest achievements.
“Dave,” he asked rather pensively, “what would you have done? I mean, you read the reports, you saw the results. You watched the news transmissions sent out by NASA and the ESA—we all did. Did you believe it really would happen?”
Whether I’d believed it or not was irrelevant now, as another solar flare lit up the sky. And it was beautiful, in a way so much greater than anything mankind had ever achieved artificially. No firework, no neon light, no planetarium show could ever compare to the real illuminations from space.
Each flare’s approach was a reminder of the awesome power of the sun. I guess I’d never really appreciated it before, being a scientist whose “job” it was to study it. Now it was hard not to be awed. Of all the things I’d seen in space, this particular view was unmatched.
I focused on each flare’s natural beauty as it licked and sparked against the stellar background. The ocean acted as an infinite mirror expanding the cosmic show. The reflection made the flares much easier to see.
Well, that, and each one was decidedly closer than the last…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I like the grounded aspect of the main character’s voice and the cataclysmic surroundings. Thank you for sharing!
Thank you for reading!
Fun to read! The descriptions are great!
Nothing says “fun” like the end of the world at mankind’s hands!
I thought it was very well written and although it was a bit bleak, it was the theme after all. I felt a connection with Dave. It may be the end of the world but at least there is beauty in it.
Indeed, there is beauty. It’d be nice if we all realized it before the end sometimes.
What a way for the world to end! 0.o
Let’s just say man’s meddling in the affairs of nature was on my mind at the time. For better or worse, it’s just the way it wrote itself. And big thanks to the folks at Havok for their insightful suggestions.