As to whether this one cheered me up? Not hugely. But it was interesting none the less...
The One With The Polarised Lightning
The lectures had abated for a lunch and the poster session wasn't starting until 14:30. Chris and I took the opportunity to slip out of the beach-side hotel and conference centre to wander on the sand and skim stones in the surf.
Walking through the coarse grey sand, Chris and I expressed the exact same opinion at the exact same time: We sighed. To be alone, without the 5-10 students and professionals asking questions everywhere we stood was bliss. Without being asked to pose for photos or shake the hand of the 10-year old winner of such-an-such a science prize. Just...alone with our thoughts. Not a word was said.
Chris and I had given the last one of three keynote lectures at the symposium. Scientists from all over the world were in attendance and listened enraptured as Sir David Attenborough outlined an ambitious conservation plan that relied on emerging power and energy technologies and was so crazy it just might work. After this, my brother and I took Stage One. Between us we detailed a renewable energy system that used polarised lightning to power the cities and countries of the future. The watching audience had erupted into applause and questions and at 14:30, our posters would further explain the mechanics of the system. Until then though, our time was our own.
(The conference centre looked a lot like the Apple Campus, but it overlooked the sea)
Five hundred metres or so down the beach there was a small café. We reached it and met our mother and grandmother for lunch. They'd not wanted to come up to the hotel. We ate and as we were all about to start the short walk back to the conference centre. I spotted a very interesting beetle (yeah, that bit is a LOT like real life). It was the shape of a soldier beetle, black and yellow striped like a Colorado potato beetle and had a bright purple head, making it one of the most striking insects I'd ever seen.
I walked closer to see it, but was distracted by finding Sir David sitting cross-legged in the sand, holding a fistful of grains and letting it flow slowly out as if from an hourglass. He looked up for a second, his worn face crossed with the lines of a long and illustrious life, and said "I am old. What good is life without productivity?", before letting the last of the sand run out of his fist and closing his eyes.
I knelt down to talk to him, to tell him that every person in that hall had thought him productive, that his life was *so* full of meaning to so many, but I stopped. Partly because I couldn't think of the words. And partly because I'd just put my hand on a thistle and biting my tongue to prevent my crying out also prevented me from saying anything.
I stood back up, picking long, brittle thorns from my palm and strode after the three members of my family. I looked at my mum and thought that she would love life even if she were a disembodied brain and a jar with a single eyeball. Her phrase is where there's life, there's hope. And I was sure she'd say so if I asked her. I saw her catch Chris' attention and point offshore. And then I turned to look. And my heart raced.
About two kilometres offshore was a towering storm-cloud. The winds ahead of it were whipping up ocean froth and the waves were increasing in size. Neither of these thought meant much too me though. I knew that Chris had set our machine running before we gave our presentation. Without any lightning it had been a very dry demonstration, but if this storm became electric then, if our calculations had been correct, we would see something new.
At once the sky was split with lightning. Chris whooped and yelled. He had his polarised sunglasses on and screamed for me to put mine on as well. I did so just as the sky was lit again. The lighting was a myriad of colours. Some parts blue, some green, some crimson red and purple. I fell to my knees with relief and joy. It worked!
Exultant with joy, Chris ran into the surf still in his smart trousers, shirt and tie. I did the same. We splashed and shouted and grinned like idiots. Nothing could bring us down now.
Until I saw granny, our frail octogenarian granny, enter the water at the same time I felt the character of the surf change. The first of the big swells ahead of the thunderstorm were reaching the beach and they carried a lot more power than she could stand against. The sky had darkened under such heavy cloud, but in a flash of lightning I saw her swept out. By the next flash she had sunk. I swam to the spot and dived, but was unable to reach her. I could barely make anything out in the gloom, but her pale skin and white hair helped me to see her. Every time I tried to swim down, the air trapped in my shirt would buoy me up. I knew she was gone.
And as I surfaced and gasped for breath, salt water turned to cotton and I stared at a blank canvas of plaster by my bed. I whispered to the darkness (very quietly for fear of alerting waiting grues to my presence) "No." And closed my eyes again.
The same first swell came again. The same unstable second preceded my grandmother's disappearance to sea. This time I swam harder, faster. This time I didn't have to dive twice. I knew the spot, and I knew how fast she was sinking. This time there was no shirt.
With Granny back on the beach, shaken and bedraggled, but alive, I considered the dream. It was falling apart now, I was mostly aware of cotton sheets and the fact I'd had most of the duvet stolen, but I could still see the multicoloured lightning and feel the pride in a machine well built. One thought stayed with me: A life without productivity is no life at all. So why had I fought so hard to save it?
