{"id":3866,"date":"2023-09-29T15:55:31","date_gmt":"2023-09-29T05:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mountainashchapter.com.au\/?p=3866"},"modified":"2023-09-29T15:55:31","modified_gmt":"2023-09-29T05:55:31","slug":"a-little-ray-of-sunshine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mountainashchapter.com.au\/?p=3866","title":{"rendered":"A Little Ray of Sunshine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There is no light through the window to waken him\u2014no sign that the sun has risen\u2014there is only darkness when it should not be. He comes to consciousness out of a long, dreamless sleep and into a gradual realisation that there is no sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He moves to turn on his bedside lamp, instinctively finding the switch with his right hand. He presses it on and off, on and off, firmly and in increasing and fearful exasperation, trying to get a responsive small glow from its solar-powered globe which would normally gain in brightness and light the room. There is nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His partner has gone from their bed; he can feel the warmth of their sheets as he flounders around feeling for something familiar and normal in the intense darkness. He shouts out to her and she finds him, and together they lie huddled together to share their body-warmth, and talk quietly about the plans they had made together for when this reality happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There have been warnings for some time that this day would come. Their sun was now too hot and too bright, and there were signs that the predicted billions of years remaining of its life had been wrongly calculated. Their sun was rapidly becoming a \u2018white dwarf\u2019 as it exhausted itself: while Jupiter and Saturn might escape this inevitability, their earth would not. They have been told that only nine minutes will elapse after the sun dies, its core eaten up, and it will leave them in complete darkness. Their earth will then start to freeze over, and all living vegetation will wither without the photosynthesis that is its\u2019 life-blood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cartoon-illustrated handbook\u2014specifically for a two-person household\u2014told them that they must rest and remain warm for several hours after the sun goes. They were told they must do this to build up enough energy to operate the pedal-powered generator in the yard. This will provide them with some light and heat for the next days and nights, they had read. There would be a small chance\u2014a very small chance\u2014that the space-crafts waiting to transport those surviving the next few days, to outlying planets would be available to them as a two-person household. But they must wait to be summoned. They read these words with trepidation. No cartoon-characters in their handbook disguised the dire warning it contained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It will be very cold, but you must take it in turns<\/em> to pedal for six hours a day; one person must rest, and one person peddle. Your energy will soon wane without light from the sun\u2019<\/em>. This direction was heavily stressed in bold typeface in the latest nine-page handbook which had been delivered to their door, personally signed for, and containing instructions to keep its contents secret. They had not wanted to ask how long they would have to complete the cycle of pedalling and resting\u2014it was too frighteningly daunting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Without sunlight your bodies cannot produce Vitamin D to regulate our circadian rhythms, but Melatonin will be released from your pineal glands in copious amounts as a response to the darkness, leaving you sleepy and lethargic\u2019, <\/em>the handbook told them. \u2018You will be sleepy and lethargic\u2019<\/em>. They had heard that again and again at the community meetings over the past weeks where all talk was of impending doom. No one disclosed the contents of their personal handbooks, but everyone knew with scientific certainty that they only existed on earth because of sunlight, and would become extinct without it. The fate of the sun had been predicted many years before when the state of the economy over-rode any other real-life concerns such as the future of their universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a> The next days would be a fight for their lives, of that they were well aware, but they had tried so hard to not think of it as a fight to their deaths. The sun had died, but they wanted desperately to stay alive. They knew that the sun would never return, never re-ignite its hydrogen core, nor light the earth and centre it once again in the solar system. Without the gravitational pull of the sun, their earth would spin off into outer space in a line behind most other planets. They knew and understood all this, and so much more besides. They were determined people, and wise beyond measure and they shared the will to do something\u2014anything\u2014and they knew they must do this alone. In these times there was no community- action as there had been in the past; in this Now<\/em>, everyone acted for themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were prepared to conserve every bit of energy they could, even thinking would burn too much; they would pedal, taking turns, in the faint hope of being called for rescue; they were prepared to be calm and care for each other and keep each other warm; and they were as committed to implementing their plans as they were to each other. Their will to survive was too strong to just lie and wait for the inevitable, and so with a final embrace they knew it was time to begin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is no light through the window to waken him\u2014no sign that the sun has risen\u2014there is only darkness when it should not be. He …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":3867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[327,482,422,481],"class_list":["post-3866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-barbara-mccarthy","tag-dystopia","tag-sci-fi","tag-sunlight"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pff1uY-10m","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3268,"url":"https:\/\/mountainashchapter.com.au\/?p=3268","url_meta":{"origin":3866,"position":0},"title":"Low Tide","author":"Kel White","date":"February 14, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"His hands crease around his empty coffee mug like old leather. 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