THE GLOW - MRUNMAYEE GOKHALE

The Glow
By Mrunmayee Gokhale

“It was midnight on 22 September 2021 and the sky above Bangalorewas filled with a flickering curtain of colourful glowing light. Few Bangaloreans had seen the glow of an aurora this far south, but their fascination was short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dimed and flickered then became unusually bright for a brief moment. Then all the lights in the city went out. Within a few seconds, the entire South of India was without power. The aurora in the sky increased consistently blinding me completely; the only sound that rangin the darkness in my mind, was that of people screaming and running helplessly trying to escape the sudden heat…
The only strong memory I had, was of waking up hungry. Unable to breathe, I found myself choking on particles of grey, dusty air, which make my chest feel heavy. What lay around me was nothing but dreary land; smoggy grey atmosphere; traces of burnt, crumbled, ruined piles and piles of debris.
This fateful state, which had affected the whole planet, was a result of a violent storm, 150 million kilometers away on the surface of the sun.
In 2635, forty-four years after the Aurora blast, ‘The Opte Project’was successful in releasing its report. The Opte team had analyzed a large explosion in the Sun’s atmosphere that had produced a massive radiation known as the Coronal Mass Ejection. The CME disturbed the space weather. The solar wind carried this CME right towards Earth. The aurora was a result of the clash of the CME and the earth’s magnetic field,thereby heating up the Earth’s surface. The high-energy particles from the Sunpenetrated deep into living organisms giving the human beings a ‘creeping dose’ resulting in immediate death. This pallid catastrophe still remains fresh in my mind…”
There is a knock on the door and a faint deep voicecomes from behind the door. ”Mr. Kurien… Mr. Kurien…
May I come in?”
I instantly pause the digi-voice-chronicler-device and reply, “Yes Nanu, please do!”
“Good evening sir, there is a woman waiting for you outside”.
“Yes, please ask her to come in.”
Lina walks in and takes a seat. Deepak turns to her and says in a serious tone,
“You have found what we were looking for all these years. We got the information. Where is it you were, on a vacation?”
“Lakshadweep Islands”, came a hesitant reply...
“So tell me Lina, a major in microbiology and presently, the most vital person in my life…
How would you like to share your discovery with the Opte Project?”
“I am assuming you are aware of the degree of importance your contribution will be bringing to the project and the survivors.”
Since the moment Lina had entered the room, Lina was trapped in this battle of thoughts within herself.
“The Opte Project has found out. I have an appointment with the founder, Mr. Deepak Kurien tomorrow”, declared Lina in an uncompromising tone.
“I see”, said Diego quietly.
“When do you leave?”
“I may not go, Diego…”
“Supposedly, the current population count of planet Earth is a couple of thousands, with an ever increase in the death rate due to this scorching heat and non-existence of oxygen.”
I happen to hear some news from an old friend, she says,” A certain community of aborigines in Africa had managed to paint their dilapidated homes green because their eyes craved for something green in the grey palette of flaky ash.”
“Everyone around you, happens to be attempting to mend each other’s defeated hearts by doing whatever they can… What’s your excuse,Lina?”
“What’s the point, Diego? People do not need remedy.After all, this fateful state is a result of all our actions.Anything new will be created only when everything old is completely destroyed…”
“Hasit ever occurred to you why some of us survived?”
“I don’t care”, she snapped.
“I wasn’t supposed to survive. It would have been better, if I had died…with the rest of my family.”
“May be there was a reason for our survival… the reason being to inform the coming generations of our experiences and are knowledge, so they do not repeat our mistakes!”, he said earnestly.
“It will all get destroyed if it has to and it will”, she said firmly.
“And the destruction day is nearing”, Diego looked at Linanervously.
“It started there, and is soon approaching us here…”
“You have found the key to survival,Lina. May be there was a reason why you survived…”
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“Lina…Lina… I know it is an important decision to make. You are the only hope…please…”
“I will show you the progress of my acquisition tomorrow… Good day...Deepak…”
Deepak stared at her in bewilderment as she left the room.
Lina had grown to become a really bitter person trying to recover from the trauma of losing her family. She was a skeptic and the only reason she was a part of a small research team, was to keep herself engaged in some sort of activity. She was weak within and her thoughts only revolved around the end of her own life. But she lacked the strength to commit suicide.
She was waiting for the right moment.
After the Aurora Blast, the only agenda on people’s minds was to harness the alternate sources of energy to restore back the lost bio-geo-chemical cycles on earth. Breathe fresh air, free of ash; drink clean fresh water, laze under the sunlight without being smoked to ashes…
At that time, the “Opte Project” was the largest nexus of information present on earth, whose only purpose was to restore life back on earth.
A few weeks back, Lina had been to the Lakshadweep Islands with her team members to conduct research under the water.
Dressed in her diving suit, she stared right at the murky waves, losing her balance every now and then because of the oxygen cylinder on her back. She admired the reflection of the aurora in the waves. It was the most stunning thing she had ever seen... “So beautiful, yet so fatally dangerous”, she sneered and splashed into the water.
Deep inside the water, it felt cold. It felt good. The glow kept on increasing, just like the aurora in the sky. Lina went closer to this glowing substance and reached out towards a slimy blob of scaly worm, with a ‘plume’ sticking out towards one of its ends.
During her college days, Lina vaguely remembered studying about the Giant Tube Worm whose red plume would convert nutrients for it’s survival.
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Lina had spent almost a day in the lab, observing the glowing worm in the bacteriological incubator, making notes every now and then. The worm, on the other hand, had grown fat after consuming puffs of sulphurgas and converting it into food, namely sulphides and sulphates.
“Hello Lina, welcome here”, Deepak said gleefully.
“Yes, indeed”, Lina smiled.
“We have a lot to achieve in very little time.”
“Oh! Don’t worry about that. We are at your service, Lina.”“Please take your own time. No hurry.”
“No Deepak, there is something approaching us... at the speed of light”, she lowered her voice and Deepak could sense an instant panic in her tone.
“It is coming again!”, she said doubtfully.
“What? Whaaat?......”
“Another storm 150 million kms away from us, on the surface of the sun…,” she said.
Deepak’s eyes widened but he choked, with laughter.
“What assurance you have? I hope you are aware that ‘The Opte Project’ is well equipped and has, over the past couple of years, developed techniques which can forecast weather trouble or any other such calamity.”
“I agree, but I have a friend, Diego, a strong believer of the Mayan Philosophy and he….”
“Oh rubbish! Lina… this is no time to be living the ancient Mayan calender!”
“I lost faith in God and His acts a long time ago”, he said mawkishly.
“But the calendarexplains everything so accurately- these ‘acts of god’ are cyclic in nature. It was predicted in the beginning of the 18th century, carved on monoliths, temples and pyramids, beautifully decorated with hieroglyphs and pictures was the Mayan civilization and their scriptures, that every 45 years, the earth would encounter a cataclysm where humans would perish, plant and animal life would become extinct. Memories would fade. Accumulated ancestral knowledge of generations and generation would disappear.”
“But the ones who survived, remember their past, retained some technological techniques and they would try to create a data-base; to warn the coming generations of the next cataclysm!”
“And if this actually takes place, who and how would we survive to tell anyone, anything?”, grumbled Deepak.
Deepak stared blankly at the glowing red plume of the Tube Worm with a puzzled expression.
“So, how much time do we have,Lina?”
“It takes atleast four to five days for the CME’s to penetrate through the already disrupted Earth’s magnetic field.”
“But Diego says, this time there will be a warning before the ‘act of god’.”
“You mean God is going to give us a sign when to run for our lives?”
“Yes Deepak.”
“How thoughtful! When? where? how?”, Deepak was screaming unable to control his temper.
“We have to look out for it”, Lina said calmly.
“This is ridiculous! You are crazy, may be mentally unfit,Lina. I think you can take the day off... because I need it…”
And he stormed out of the lab.
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The next day, Lina continued to make notes in the observatory. Deepak entered the room, wiping the sweat off his forehead.
“It is getting hotter and hotter. Can you feel the increase in heat, Lina?”
Lina did not react and continued to look busy.
“I am sorry for yesterday…Think I overreacted…”
“Yes. I can feel the heat and surprisingly, so can the worm.”
“Ah! Yes, smilingly, so what is the progress on the worm?”, said looking at it.
“We are lucky. The chromosomal count in her can be re-structured to match the count in humans.”
“Today, I am going to force a chromosomal mutation in her.”
‘Are you attempting to create a new DNA structure there?”, he asked inquisitively.
“Well, if you want to escape the only source of energy and yet fancy all the internal bodily systems to function perfectly, then you have to learn to live like The Giant Tube Worm, Deepak!”
“I told you, your contributions would take Opte Project to great heights”, he laughed.
“Yes, I hope we have the opportunity to share that moment together”, she mumbled under her breath.
“So when can we witness this new creation?”
“We have only two days to save ourselves… so I will report to you as soon a possible.”
As Deepak was about to leave the room, he saw some scribbling on a piece of paper lying on the table.
It read,
” Creation of TUBORG”
Successful conversions:
1) 03+10 therms of sulphur gas = 2.5 Btu of oxy-sulphides.
2) 03+23 therms of sulphur gas = 4.1 Btu of oxy-sulphates.

Deepak glanced at Lina. She was deep engrossed, hidden behind her compound microscope. He smiled and left the room.
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“I first metLina at the Lakshadweep Islands, where we shared each others experiences.”
“How did you come across the Mayan Philosophy?” asked Deepak.
“My great grandfather and my father were priests in the Guatemala City in Central México where I was born. They weretrue believers of the Mayan Philosophy and it is from them I have learned, whatever I had to, to become a priest.”
“ During my course of learning, my initial reactions were very similar to yours Deepak, I often would ridicule this ancient redundant piece of scripture, until the 22nd of September 2021, when it all started…..”
“Be ready to be injected – you human guinea-pigs!”,Lina burst into the room looking extremely happy and content with herself.”
Diego was surprised to see Lina so happy.
In one hand, were these three long injections filled with some yellow substance...In the other hand, she carried the glowing tubewormin a small glass case with tubes jutting out of it.
“Hello all”, as she approached to give Deepak and Diego their shots and carefully placed the glass case on the table.
“Lets test it out, gentlemen.”
“Any symptoms?” Deepak sounded worried.
“No… just a bit of a dizzy feeling… nothing much,” she assured.
Just as they were done with the shots, Diego was amazed at the glowing tubeworm. He kept looking at its glowing red end…
“It looks magnificent”, he exclaimed… “Just like the aurora….” As he looked up out of the window, there was a sudden change in his expression.
“NO”, he gasped hearing his own heart beat in his ears.
“Look, the aurora has disappeared”, he panicked.
Before anyone could record, of what had happened, Lina had dragged the two, outside in the balcony which overlooked the sea,
“What in the name of god are you doing, Lina?”, shrieked puzzled Deepak.
“The sign”, Lina looked deep into Deepak’s eyes.
“Now is the time Deepak,”Diego bellowed.
Oh my god! One more aurora blast… there was a moment of silence. The three covered their eyes trying to escape the light…
“On the count of three, we jump in the water and drown ourselves,”Lina declared.
“Whaaaaaat???!!!”
“Noooooo…. My life, my project - I cannot leave any of it.. I cannot see it getting destroyed...”
“Look Deepak, these things can be built again, it is your mind within that cannot be built…You need to live…”Lina was breathing heavily.
“Just jump… it will all be fine… now is the time to restore back your lost faith, Deepak and Lina,”Diego held Lina’s and Deepak’s hand and yelled, “on the count of three…..”
“One…..two…..threee….”
Diego suddenly felt something slip from his hand. He looked upwards, and saw Lina stand at the same position. He looked at her shockingly while still in mid-air. He saw her throw the glass case above him… and he tightly closed his eyes unable to control his tears.
Deepak felt the cool of the water ram into him like spears. He found himself looking desperately for Lina, but all he could see was the flickering curtain of the colourfulglowing light fade slowly into nothing, but darkness.
Instead, there was a singular red glow of light drowning with him…
(ends)