My name is Zak. I am 11 and a big bit. I hav not seen the sun. I want to grow up. I know the tooth fairy is really my mum.
"Too many 'I's," said Grandpa, "and there's an 'e' at the end of 'have,' you're not on a mobile now, and 'never' might be better than 'not'."
"What's a mobile?" asked Zak.
"It was a portable telephone for people to talk to each other while on the move, they could send messages to each other too, and would abbreviate things so their thumbs wouldn't get sore from pressing the buttons. Your parents had them, you must've inherited their grammar and it's in your genes."
"But my legs are in my jeans."
Grandfather smiled. "No, genes not jeans," and spelt the words aloud, "they're different words. Jeans are your pants and genes are what you're made of, a combination of mummy and daddy's parts that make up you."
"Oh," said the boy, not really any the wiser. "What's wrong with my 'I's?"
"It's too repetitive, you need to mix your short sentences up into a long sentence or two, it's a bit like breathing, you only need a new sentence when you take a breath, something like - 'I am eleven years old but closer to twelve, and one day when I am older I will see the sun and feel its warmth on my skin, and if I am sensible, pretend the tooth fairy does exist, and get the gift.'"
"But isn't that lying?"
"If it keeps everyone happy then it's not lying; it's pretending; it's fun."
"I meant about the sun not the tooth fairy. I can't see the sun it will toast me, so you told a lie."
"Maybe the scientists will fix the weather and things will get back to the way they used to be. It's possible, they're working very hard, and they're very intelligent people."
"And if they don't the world will end?"
Grandpa sighed. How could he lie to an eleven year old? How could he tell him the truth? "Do you really think someone so young should be worrying about such big worldly issues?"
"Yes. I want to live. I want to grow old and see the outside proper."
Grandpa went to correct his grammar but hesitated, it was hardly the moment. "We'll just have to wait and see and hope and pray they get it right this time," he nodded reassuringly to the boy and smiled.
"What does the sun look like?"
"Oh it's glorious, magnificent, but difficult to look at even when you could, you had to wear dark glasses and even then it made you squint. Here, I'll show you…." Grandpa rummaged through an old box, "these are dark glasses, try them on."
"Oh don't be silly Gramps, I can't see through them! I can just see the candle flames, but nothing else."
"Well years ago everyone wore them outside and could see ok, they were supposed to be 'cool,' but even with these on looking straight at the sun was foolish."
"You could walk about outside in the white daytime and see stuff through these glasses?" asked Zak incredibly.
"You bet you could, life was good then."
"So what made the weather go wild?"
"Oh you know. Everyone was too busy making money not realising they were poisoning the planet, or if they did the money was more important, so they just lived for the present and didn't think too much of the consequences, someone else could sort that out in the future. Then the earth just got fed up and decided there was no room left for greedy people and fought back."
"Did they try to poison the earth Gramps?"
"Well yes I guess they did, quite a lot. Back in the last century when all the insects were eating the fruit and vegetables they decided to cover it with poison to kill the insects."
"But no one would eat the apples and potatoes then, they'd be no use."
"Oh but they did, the government said it was safe to eat and they all did. And because it was such a small amount of poison it slowly built up in their bodies and poisoned them too, but so slowly they didn't die, just got sick; sicker in the head than the body if you ask me, but I'm only guessing, I was a teacher not a doctor."
"Wow! People must've been really stupid back then."
"I guess if everyone's doing something then it kind of seems normal."
"And the poison made the weather go bad?"
"No, that was all the chemicals and pollution humans were putting into the atmosphere, it killed the ozone layer at the top of the sky and that's why the sun's so dangerous when you see it, the ozone layer was a filter, it's much more powerful now to be out in."
"The sky broke and the weather went crazy?" gasped Zak.
"That and other things, they cut down most of the trees and that made the temperatures rise so the weather changed, became more extreme, more violent. It's very complicated."
"And now they're trying to fix the sky," said Zak, more a hope than a question.
"Yes. We'll just have to wait and see. I think they will."
"Can I have something to eat?"
"Mum and Dad will be home soon and we'll have dinner, but I guess a cup of tea and a biscuit will do no harm to your appetite. Let's go into the kitchen." Grandfather lit some small bits of wood and paper on a little stove and measured some water from a bottle into a cup twice for the kettle. "It won't take long." He opened a box and took out a biscuit for Zak. "Eat it with your tea," but of course it was too late, the biscuit was gone.
"Use electricity, it's faster."
"No, we need to conserve it; these bits of waste wood will be enough for hot water."
"So where did all the animals go?" mumbled Zak pushing a final crumb in from the corner of his mouth.
"Oh they're not all dead; quite a few are still alive and kept in protected places. Which is your favourite?"
"The elephant, it's so big and fat," laughed the boy.
"I'm afraid they're all gone. The drought killed them off, it's such a shame; they were a magnificent proud beast. What do you think of the giraffe?" asked Grandpa changing his sigh to a happier tone.
"I don't believe in them," stated the boy looking at the picture in his animal book.
"But it's real, and there's still some about. Why don't you believe?"
"Oh come on Gramps, look at that neck, nothing could look like that and be real."
"It's real, that was so they could eat the leaves at the tops of the trees. There's sillier looking animals than that one, is there a duck billed platypus in that book? Look under D and P." Zak flicked through the alphabetical pages and was disappointed not to find one. "Never mind, I'll describe it to you, it had a body like an otter but had a big beak for a mouth and webbed feet like a duck, and a flat tail like a beaver."
"No way!" squealed the boy. "Stop telling fibs Gramps."
"It's true; believe me, whoever thought that one up was having a good laugh at the time."
"Is it dead too?"
"I don't know, it lived in the wild and was very illusive. When we get the planet fixed we'll go looking for a platypus. It will be our little adventure." Gramps poured out the water and dunked a tea bag in each cup several times.
"What's 'illusive' mean?"
"Secretive, hard to find," he answered.
"Why did the telephones stop working? That couldn't be the oozy layer in the sky?"
"Ozone layer, and yes you're right that was something different, the lottery virus, it collapsed the computer network in 48 hours. A simple e mail that told people they'd won the lottery and they were so greedy they opened it without checking and it passed itself on to all their mail addresses and corrupted almost all the world's computer drives. It all happened so fast anti virus protection had no time to update, it spread like butter. If you have one e mail sent to ten people and then those ten people send to ten more each how many computers is that?"
"Twenty?"
"One hundred, in fact 111 in total in a chain of three, and then one thousand and next ten thousand etcetera, be a million in an hour, a billion in two hours, see how it wiped out all the computers in two days?"
"Couldn't they just make new ones?"
"Oh they tried, but they didn't seem to know how anymore, they couldn't make computers without computers. It was jut impossible in the computerised world they'd created around them."
"But they didn't have computers when they made the first one."
"Yes, that's true, you precocious little monkey; I think they just lost the plot a bit."
"So how does the electricity get here without computers?"
"Not all the computers were affected; the stand alone control computers that weren't connected to the internet - that was a network of telephones and cables that let computers talk to each other - were ok, because if the virus couldn't get at them they still worked. But modern industry collapsed severely from a lack of computers, as did civilisation. The electricity we get these days is made in a different way, all the old fuels were running out, oil, gas, coal, it was like everything was going wrong all at once, within a year, it all had a kind of domino effect, like when you set your dominos up in a line, knock one over they all fall over, there were lots of conspiracy theories about it."
"What's….." queried Zak looking puzzled.
"…a conspiracy theory? Just some fun, people deciding it was the governments' fault, or some secret organisation in a destructive plot for world domination, or an alien power or even aliens themselves," laughed Gramps.
"No. What's butter?" corrected Zak.
"What's butter?" queried Gramps looking confused.
"You said the computer virus spread like butter."
"That's a simile; I used it as a comparison, the virus just spread all over the world like butter on a slice of hot toast, as in fast. It's like margarine; the virus wasn't butter, butter came from cows, a farm animal, there's still a few left, but they killed most of them off, so foolish, they were our main food source, meat, milk, cheese and quite a few other bi-products."
"They weren't killed by the crazy weather?"
"No, scientists decided that one of the causes of ozone depletion was methane gas and cows were a big source of that."
"What's methane?"
"Gas that comes out of your bottom," admitted Grandpa.
"Farts!" yelled Zak, ecstatic to get away with using a naughty word. "Oh come on Gramps, you can't kill the cows for farting too much, they'll come and kill me too," he giggled.
"It was the last government, I think they were pretty desperate by that stage, and of course they still are, they tried everything and anything to arrest the problem."
The outer door opened and the howl of the wind let them know Mother and Father were home. They came in fighting the weather back, latching both doors.
"Hello Zak," called out Mum. She threw open her arms to greet him as he ran to her.
Father ruffled the child's hair. "Hello son. Hello Father. Was he good today?"
"Of course, as always, too inquisitive for his age if anything, how was work?"
"Oh as always, we did what we could against the elements. We have some carrots and a cabbage; we'll heat them up with some beans for dinner."
"Is the weather very bad?" asked Grandfather.
"No worse than usual," replied Mother taking off her coat, "very windy, but no lightening," she replied. She took off her breathing mask and kissed her husband.
"I'll get cooking," said Gramps.
"No, let me do it tonight," said Mother, "I managed to scrape together a few extras in wages; I think I can put a tasty sauce together with them. Remember garlic and parsley?"
"A whole garlic?" asked Grandfather.
"I wish, just 2 cloves. I'll use one and save the other."
"No, let's enjoy, use both, they're so healthy," added Father.
"Daddy, if I fart will I be killed?" asked Zak, desperate to be childish caught in a grown up world.
"I hope not," replied Father looking confused.
"Modern history, we learnt about the demise of cows in school today," added Gramps. "Like I said, he's just too inquisitive for his years."
Mother busied herself in the kitchen preparing the vegetables. "How's our electricity quota for today?"
"No worries," replied Grandfather, "we have been very sensible; candles and wood have been the order."
"Daddy, what do you miss from the past?" asked the child sitting on his Father's lap.
"Oh I don't really know of anything specific, just that it worked then until we got it all wrong, I'd like it all back and working again."
"Not any one thing, not even your mobile?"
"Definitely not my mobile, that was what was wrong with the world, time was money and mobiles meant you couldn't escape work pressure, not even for five minutes, work really was a sixteen hour day seven days a week demand. No I think I miss the beauty of a blue sky, white fluffy clouds, even the rain, not like today's rain that tears at your face, it used to be nice, felt good on your skin, and to see a beautiful rainbow across the sky."
"What's a rainbow?"
"You know son it's been that long I'm not really sure anymore, Grandpa will know. All I can remember is when I was a boy they stretched across the sky in three colours like a giant archway to heaven."
"Seven." Father and Zak looked round at Grandpa. "It had seven colours, and it was the sun shining through the moisture in the air that refracted the light causing it to split into its colour components, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet."
"That's six," shouted Zak.
Grandpa counted through them again in his head. "Oh my, you're right Zak; I'm getting old and forgetful." He puzzled again, "I can't remember the seventh colour of the rainbow, guess we know what tomorrows school work is going to be," he said with a mischievous grin.
"I don't want to wait till tomorrow, is there a picture of a rainbow in my books?"
"I don't know. I don't think so, but I have something better." The old man rummaged once again in a tattered old box and pulled out a small triangle of glass and looked at it like it held so many childhood memories and secrets. "Look through this Zak, hold it up to your eye and look at the candles."
The boy held it up cautiously and peered through the scratched glass, his mouth fell open in awe. "There's like two flames, a red one and a blue one, it's like they're on top of each other but not quite. But shouldn't I see seven flames?"
"The light's not strong enough, you can't expect a rainbow from a small candle compared to the brilliance and power of the sun; remember the sun was so bright you had to squint at it with dark glasses, you don't do that with candles, you could just see them and no more with dark glasses."
But the boy was not put off; he gazed on in amazement at another world, a different dimension, a world more beautiful than today's horrors. A dream world to escape to, a place where magic comes true, where animals don't just live in books but for real, a place with yesterday's colours shining through today's grey.
"This is going to be gorgeous," called Mother, and they all came eagerly to the table. The meal did look good; maybe not what you'd expect at a restaurant of days past or from a cookery book, but in today's world you worked for your food and were glad to have it. You didn't nor couldn't follow any rules of cuisine, what you had went in, and what came out you ate; and ate they did, heartily.
After the meal Zak watched Grandpa through the prism. "You have seven eyes!"
"Shouldn't I have fourteen?" queried Gramps. The boy giggled, school was over for one day.
"It sounds like dark now," said Father, "shall we?"
The four of them left the table and went outside, the storm had gone, the winds subsided, the black sky shone with a million stars, more than were ever seen in the days of cars, planes and industry. A full moon shone down on everyone and they held their faces to it almost believing it was warm.
Mother and Father held hands, "Ironic isn't it that the sky can be so beautiful at night and so wild during daylight," whispered mother. They breathed in the crisp fresh air like it might be their last time. Zak was looking at the moon through the prism, a boy with a new toy.
"Tomorrow we'll do rainbows, find out more, try and find the seventh colour, and duck billed platypuses."
"Platypussies," shouted Zak.
"If you insist," smiled Gramps, "I don't think the platypus would mind. Who knows? They're so odd there might be a bit of cat in there too."
They gazed on at the clear night sky not wanting to give it up, just about the only normal thing left on the planet, hard to believe in a few hours the sun would come up and ravage the earth and weather for another day. What disasters could it punish them with next?
2. ultrawhite infragrey