Prompt
A child grows up amidst “lost technology” with their grandparent’s stories about “Earth that was.”
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Story
“Pappy, are those Eagles?” Matt asked his grandpa who was busy staring at the sky.
“Where?”
“There, that bird,” Matt pointed to a bird sitting on a tree nearby. For a eleven year old he was extremely curious and loved nature. That was kind of unheard of just a decade back. Children his age had those ever annoying tablets or phones or play stations; nature was nowhere in the scene. Pappy always felt that whatever happened was a welcome change.
“No, Matt, Eagles are way bigger than that,” Albert laughed. Being a grandpa was possibly the best job he had. He was a veteran and was part of community service after retirement, but all that was roughly twelve years back. The global black-out changed priorities like never before. Albert had nothing to complain about but he did miss his favorite songs that he heard in the night.
“This big?” Matt asked with his arms stretched out. Pappy continued laughing and Caroline came out and sat beside Albert.
“Anma, see that bird,” Matt pointed to the tree but the bird was gone by then. He called his grandma, Caroline, as “anma”. However, the bird not being there did disappoint Matt a bit.
“What happened? What did he want to show me?” Caroline asked Albert.
“A bird which he thought was an Eagle,” Albert said.
“Then show him.”
“From where? If we had internet I could have showed him on google. Now, I probably will have to hunt for one,” Albert joked.
“What’s internet?” Matt who was walking towards them heard Albert talking to Caroline.
“That’s one thing I am glad you didn’t have to get used to.”
“Alb, tell him properly. How would he know about those things if we don’t tell him?” Caroline said. Albert smiled. Anyway, it was a lazy afternoon and Albert thought it was not a bad idea to tell Matt about them.
“Okay, come here, let me tell you a bit about the past.”
“Only if it’s interesting,” Matt said as a matter-of-factly, much to the amusement of Albert and Caroline.
“I wouldn’t know that but I will try to make it as interesting as possible. So, here we go. Eighteen years back, the world as Caroline and I knew started to change. Only, we didn’t realize then that it would.” The word change kind of caught Matt’s attention. Pappy noticed it too and hoped that he would continue to be glued on.
“You see in our days most of the thing, in fact, everything ran on electricity and….”
“Electricity? Where is that? Is it like New York?” Matt asked.
“No, no. It is not a city. It is a form of energy.” Caroline pitched in.
“So, electricity was widely available and it was generated largely from nuclear plants. These nuclear plants were present across the globe and almost every country had three of them at the least. In 2048, Benjamin Stokes, an English scientist, had a novel idea.”
“I think it was 2045,” Caroline offered.
“Yeah, I guess. So, in 2045, Ben studied the reactors across the globe and realized that few of them created surplus electricity while many of them were deficient. The idea was to link all reactors and create a network, where energy distribution could be decentralized and shared.”
“Much like we sharing the excess grains with the Matthews?” Matt asked.
“Yes, very much like that,” Caroline said.
“The idea was good and there were not too many oppositions to it but few concerns existed. The concerns notwithstanding, all the reactors were linked within three years. The movement of electricity from a high generation area to low generation areas was smooth and countries made money and good-will in such sharing.”
“But things changed one evening in 2048. You see, there are fail-safes which prevent excess energy going to a power reactor and hence maintain them in balance. That fateful day not one but three failure occurred.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Fail – safes?” Matt wanted Pappy to slow down. Albert tried explaining it in a different way.
“When you draw water from that well and pour it into the pipe what happens?”
“The tank fills with water.”
“Correct. But sometimes, even I am drawing water from the other well at the back and it too fills the same tank, right?”
“Yes, pappy,”
“So, what happens if we both keep filling water without knowing how much water has filled?
“It spills out and flows away,” Matt said.
“Yes, the same thing could happen in those reactors and hence systems which warned the other reactors to send or not send power, were created. These were called ‘fail-safes’.
“Like, pappy said, that fateful night three fail-safes malfunctioned,” Caroline said.
“And those were catastrophic. Five reactors blew within a period of one hour and millions of people died. By the time, other countries knew what happened, their own reactors were at their peak. They had to shut them down,” Pappy said.
“But that caused a lot of damage. To the extent of not being repaired even till today. We are talking about twelve years from that time,” Caroline said, “That happened even before you were born. So, you never saw electricity your whole life.”
“So when will the electricity come back?” Matt asked.
“We don’t know. I don’t think anybody knows.” Pappy said. “That thing that you use as a glass over the table was a Super-agglomerated LED thin splice television. It ran on electricity and we used see what happened across the globe through that!”
“Like the witch’s globe?” Matt asked, obviously, referring to one of the fantasy books that he had been reading recently. Pappy was totally amused.
“Yes, something like that. We could hear people from around the world. But without electricity it means nothing,” grandma said, “I already told you about the car over there, it too ran on electricity.”
“I never thought I would miss a fossil burning car,” Pappy said.
“Woah, I don’t think I miss electricity too much, Pappy,” Pappy and Caroline smiled. “You know what I am going to do, I am going to find that bird and show anma.”
“You do that, Matt,” Caroline said.
“Hmmm.. Not missing electricity after all.”
“Why would he, Alb? He hasn’t even seen the benefits.” “But he hasn’t seen his parents too because of that.”
“He will. They will come back. All the scientists had to pool in to rectify the situation. It’s just that Alan and Cathy, both are scientists. Don’t you think they would be dying to see him too,” Caroline said. “
I don’t even know if they are still alive. It has been ten years.”
“Albert!” Caroline was visibly upset. “I don’t know either but if I have the slightest of reasons to believe that they are fine, I will take that.”
Pappy knew he didn’t have to argue, especially, on them being alive or not. “Alright, I am sorry. Just that it would be a shame if Matt had to grow up not knowing his parents.” “
He will know. Look at him. I think this life has its own perks too.”
Albert got up to look at Matt running in the farm. He too felt that this physical life was not bad either. He could vouch for it, after all, a cardiac patient like him becoming perfectly fine in the last twelve years could be only due to the physical activities. ‘Electricity was not that great,’ Albert thought.
Just then Albert and Caroline heard a voice that they hadn’t for more than twelve years. They looked behind and got confirmation that it was indeed it. “
My God! Did that just happen? Is that the Air condition? It’s working,” Albert was mumbling along while Caroline was speechless.
“Anma, that’s the bird,” Matt called out. There was utter confusion in Albert’s mind. There were too many things happening at the same time.
The happiness of the possibility of seeing Cathy and Alan, the unhappiness of probably losing Matt to electricity, the happiness of electricity and a comfortable life, the unhappiness of losing his healthy life style, the happiness of showing Matt what an Eagle is, the unhappiness of losing the fun aspect of Matt finding it out himself; life was a misery for a moment!
“Matt come see what we have here?” Albert called out. “
What is it, Pappy?”
“It’s electricity!” Well, he had to choose one way or the other. Pappy did make his choice!
Caroline was just happy that she probably would hear from Cathy and Alan soon. Life was returning to where it was. Recent past was not that bad but even the present had to move on!
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This story in written in response to @mctiller's short story contest which can be found here.
Image Courtesy: Pixabay