Forever Young

Chapter Eighteen. Summer Snow

Chapter Eighteen 

Summer Snow

Marilena glanced up at the kitchen clock, 9.40 a.m. Twenty minutes until Serena's press conference, time to clear away the remnants of the syrup drenched alphega pancakes. Serena had been so secretive during their HED session the previous day. What had been discovered in their lab? It had to be something very important to warrant a national announcement.

Marilena inserted a solar disc. The screen remained blank. A faulty disc? No. It powered up the other kitchen appliances. It had to be a faulty HED.  

A ten minute scamper brought Marilena to the solarium where her parents had planned to watch the press conference. The numerous HEDs suspended form brackets above the sensitizing pool were blank, not even a flicker. From conversations with others arriving for their morning ritual, Marilena learned that the HED problem was widespread. Something had to be wrong at the broadcast centre in Myranda. Things had really deteriorated since she resigned. At least the exposomats still worked. 

"Lena, what's going on?" queried her invigorated mother as she emerged from the exposomat. 

"Nothing to worry about. I'm sure it's only a temporary glitch." 

"But what if it's not? I'll miss my morning chats, my quiz shows, tonight's game and what about dream time?" 

Dream time proved impossible without the hypnotic effect of the HED program. Marilena spent the time reading over Dr. Hertz's journal. It was a difficult read as he cast aspersions on her life's work, warning of the danger of dependency on one energy source. He also argued against the adoption of the alphega diet, correctly predicting the increasing popularity of extreme sports and military life. This he claimed would be a consequence of what he termed the death wish syndrome.  

Marilena had never thought of her activities in those terms, but she couldn't deny the thrill she experienced from shooting the rapids in her canak or from high speed skiing on steep ungroomed trails.  

That evening, Marilena and Gina put in their weekly stint as volunteers in the emergency room of the local hospital. As usual it was filled to overflowing with patients suffering from the effects of self inflicted injuries. Most were sport's related but there were several cases of drug overdoses and attempted suicides. Marilena, in light of Hertz's writings, began to suspect that many of the latter were accidental, a consequence of macabre experiments that had gone astray.  

The tiring shift over, Marilena and Gina walked home in the cool of the early morning hours. 

"Do you notice anything?"

Marilena looked at her friend suspecting that she might have missed some subtle change in her hair style, or more likely a new tattoo.

"Not me silly. Look at the sky. To the north." 

"Wow! I've never seen a bank of cloud, so huge and as black as that. Must be a cold front coming through. You wouldn't expect that in midsummer. We'd better hurry." 

The house was silent, the HEDs still inoperative. Marilena, exhausted from a day without dreamtime, had difficulty going to sleep. Something was seriously wrong. Why no communications from the capital? The pattering on the roof that signalled the arrival of the cold front eventually lulled her to sleep. 

She awoke early the next morning and rushed to her HED. Again no response. What was happening? She stepped outside to collect her solar discs.  

Snow in summer. Impossible.  

It wasn't snow but a fine grayish white powder.  

What was that smell?  

Where was the sun? 

All that day the gloom persisted. Still no HED programmes, and the solar discs were failing at an alarming rate. If this continued there would soon be no power for the exposomats. 

That night the rattle of what sounded like hailstones hitting the solar panels on the rooftop woke Marilena. She rushed outside to inspect the damage. The ash was now ankle deep and contained small chunks of rock that had shattered the solar panels. It was difficult to breath. Every gulp of air brought a sour taste to her mouth. The air reeked of sulfur.  

Marilena suspected the worst. Back inside, she tested her appliances. Nothing worked. Probably the exposomats were no longer functional. This was exactly what Hertz had predicted. 

Marilena was 128 years old. By evening her hair had become sparse and white; her flesh was loosening, wrinkles appearing and age spots developing. Her parents were in agony and immobile. Relief workers, much younger and less susceptible to the ravages of alphega withdrawal, appeared at the door bearing stretchers. They offered a choice. Stay at home and gamble on an eventual return to normality or accept a lift to the Cabot College gymnasium where relief was available. Marilena knew what relief meant. She felt they had no choice. 

"I'm still able to walk. Give me a second. I have to get something." 

Marilena retrieved Dr. Hertz's briefcase from her room. She meant to honour his last wish, something Gramps had failed to do.  

Under normal circumstances the gym was a brisk ten minute walk away but the stretcher bearers were weakening. Marilena decided to go on ahead planning to rejoin her parents at the gym entrance. 

The short walk was almost too much. Not only were her legs cramping but she was gagging at almost every intake of the foul air. The briefcase seemed to be increasing in weight with every step. After climbing the stairs to the main entrance of the college, and then up to the second storey she collapsed in a heap on the tiled floor. A brief rest gave Marilena the strength to struggle to her feet and then shuffle along the corridor dragging the case behind her. The door to room 238 stood ajar. She lifted the case on to the desk, wondering why Dr. Hertz had asked for it to be returned to his  former office. 

She noticed a leather luggage label attached to the briefcase handle.

Dr. G. Hertz, Room 238.  

What a good idea. She removed the label and wound it around her right wrist. 

The stretchers bearing her parents had just reached the gym entrance when Marilena came alongside. No one in the long lineup of relief seekers complained as she joined them. A young officer, so like Serge in his blue uniform, handed Marilena three yellow pills and then led the stretcher bearers to three unoccupied exercise mats laying on the gym floor.

One of the bearers transferred Marilena's mother on to a mat. She held up a feeble hand beckoning the young man to bend over her. She whispered in his ear. He nodded, then with the aid of his colleague moved her husband on to the same mat. Marilena kneeled down beside her parents, kissed the tear-stained faces and handed each of them a pill. No explanation was necessary.  

Marilena lay down on an adjacent mat and stared at the ceiling, desperately trying to block out the escalating screams reverberating around the room. She took one last glance. Her parents were locked in a final embrace. 

The pill tasted sweet, but there was no favourite music, no slideshow, just a feeling of loneliness and failure.  

"Make me proud", Gramps had asked, but she had let him down. This catastrophe was largely her fault.  

It was up to Serena now.