This is part 2 of my short story Disaster Trials, set in Athens 2035 and written for the general public, including youth. Read the first part here.
_ _ _
It felt like the schoolday would never end. Between the heat of the overcrowded classrooms and their impatience to meet up and discuss the experience of that unusual morning outside the library, it felt like they were pushing a stalled truck uphill.
Now finally they sat on the marble balcony floor with their feet in a small kiddie pool. The water and the old, worn marble were almost cool – a relief from the heat but ‘almost cool’ did not really refresh. They eagerly awaited the homemade frozen juice pops Zoe’s mother promised them.
Theofilos was checking the Newspage for any updates about the trial announcement. There were the usual dramatic statements of reaction and AI-generated images of the anticipated trial seemingly inspired by a combat video game. Nothing useful.
Themia opened up her sketchpad. In the era of constant wildfires, new paper notebooks were as hard to find as fresh lemons. Intent on drawing regularly, Themia had collected as many used papers as she could find with a blank side and strung them together.
During classes that day, she started sketching some of the green-blue city in the vision they were all gifted that morning.
Zoe tilted her head to admire the sketch. ‘Themia, you’re very good.’
Blushing, Themia kept her eyes on the page. ‘Do you think it looks right? Did you see it like this too?’
‘That’s what I saw. You have a great memory for detail.’
Andreas scooted over the marble a bit and admired the image. ‘I remember even more birds over the shrubs along that stream. The rest is perfect.’
‘Do you think it could really be like this?’ Themia seemed to be asking the water in the pool.
‘It must be possible. Why else would the owl show us?’
Andreas took the sketchpad from Themia’s hands and looked at it intently. ‘I can get you more paper from my dad’s office, Themia. I’ll bring it to the library in the morning.’
Theofilos gave the water a little splash. ‘Another black market deal goes down,’ he teased.
The water had already warmed.
_ _ _
It was a dark night, and he knew that if he stood still behind the branches of his long dried out plants, he would be invisible from below. Two years after his last day working at the City, he was now primarily a night person. This suited him as a lifestyle to avoid the worst of the heat as well as encounters with other people.
Like other creatures of the night, his eyes grew accustomed to the dark and his hearing was more sensitive. Tonight Petros was using these senses to track unusual activity on the dark landscape below. People tended to wake up before dawn to do some morning chores or enjoy a beverage before the heat intensified for the day, but this was too early for people to be out, especially away from the homes and entering the burned area.
Who was out there? They thought they were being stealthy and the late, dark hour gave them cover, but he knew they were out there.
But what were they doing?
Suddenly the night fell silent. He waited, determined and alert to any hint of movement –
BLAST!!
It smashed all his senses at once. The earth and air rumbled. He fell back, as items crashed onto balcony floors throughout the neighborhood.
Everyone in a wide area was sure to have heard and felt this blast from the earth, but only he had been watching, and Petros saw the brief spark of light cut the darkness.
_ _ _
That morning, the sun’s rays fell upon a city in nervous chaos. Conversations rattled everywhere – along sidewalks, across balconies, up and down stairwells, around kiosks, with the sound of sirens in the background.
Parents accompanied their kids to school that day to make sure the school was safe. There was no meet-up at the library this morning, despite the kids pleading with their parents to make a stop before school. Except for Andreas, who did not want his father to find out that he went to the library. Ever.
The Newspage announced the result of the thunderous blast: a massive ravine cracked open in the earth at the edge of the burnt out western suburbs, miraculously just short of the buildings of the remaining city.
On the Newspage, an image: The Governor stood on the podium and looked out over a crowd and into the cameras. His face looked serious, but his posture somehow seemed too relaxed. Quite similar to his posture in his last photo, when he happily announced the government support of the NFD Dome, if anyone remembered.
Governor Declares City Emergency!
Mysterious Massive Ravine Threatens to Tear City in Two!
Are the Gods Trying to Split the City Apart?
New Charges Will be Added in the Public Trial
New Future Developments Announces it Will Mobilize the Best Engineers to Investigate and Fortify Planned Urban Projects
The Newspage claimed ‘There is no evidence of sinkhole risk, the land was stable, so the cause of the sudden raving is very mysterious’. The Newspage insisted.
Petros knew better. Tomorrow he would head to the library to see if the old research was there. As he swept broken ceramic and dirt on his balcony in the hot evening air, he tried to recall details about a development that he discovered during his time with the City government several years back. The Governor had managed to keep it out of the news, but City leaders and a few employees learned that there was an abandoned tunnel. It was created when the tunneling for an extension of the subway went a significant distance in the wrong direction…in this area.
He swept and focused on recalling those conversations. It seemed like a politically ruinous error, an incompetent waste of public infrastructure funds. But, could everyone involved really have been that incompetent? Was it hidden from the public to avoid political fallout, or for another reason? “I take full responsibility for this error.” These words from the head engineer during an internal meeting with City leaders had shocked him. In all his experience in this City, he had not heard these words from anyone, not in public and not in private.
He looked out over the balcony towards the burned and now wrecked land and saw tall stadium lights rising up.
Tomorrow he would go to the library.
_ _ _
By nightfall, the sounds of sirens had given way to the whizzing and clanging of cheap toys and the optimistic calls of vendors. A panigiri market festival sprouted along the edge of the ravine. People crowded the area to get a look at the torn land, and the festival vendors anticipated the opportunity.
Zoe pulled her mother along past the toy and gadget vendors to meet up with her friends where the rows of sweets gave way to tables stacked with brand knock-off clothing.
Thymia and Theofilos were with Theofilos’s mother. They were looking out over the ravine, their backs to the sellers, but Thymia had her head turned to scan the crowd.
‘Zoe, over here!’ her hand waved high.
The moms greeted each other as the kids looked around for Andreas.
He caught up with them and after a short negotiation with the moms, the group walked ahead to the end of the lights and tables and sounds to find a quieter spot a few steps into the burned area. Pistacia shrubs were growing were the burnt building rubble had been cleared.
The shape of a pine tree caught their attention, dark but visible just past the glow from the panigiri lights.
They went near the tree to investigate. There weren’t many trees standing in the remnants of the scorched urban area. How was this one here?
As they approached, they noticed patches and threads on the ground glowing softly.
‘Do you think the owl is coming back?’ whispered Thymia as she squeezed Zoe’s elbow in excitement.
‘Fungi!’ exclaimed Theofilos, ‘I think its fungi that is glowing.’
The glow brightened. An arc of patches and threads came alive around them, their light twinkling and giggling along the ground. The tree stood in front of them, at the center of the fungi arc. It’s branches shifted towards the kids, almost in welcome.
The nearby panigiri lights seemed to fade away.
Thymia squeezed Zoe’s arm again, still with more excitement than fear.
A voice spoke, not from the tree. The voice floated through the air with the light of the glow.
This destruction is not from the earth.
Zoe followed the arc of the glowing fungi system from left to right and back again. ‘What happened? What did this?’
Hold hands, children.
Andreas put one hand on Theofilos’s shoulder and clasped Zoe’s hand with the other. Thymia was already hugging Zoe’s other arm.
The twinkling sped up. A mushroom lifted up from the twinkling frenzy and touched Theofilos’s foot. They all felt a strange tingling, more than goosebumps, like teeny tiny popcorn popping in their veins.
Through fungi and root networks, we feel communication, across distances.
Zoe closed her eyes. She felt the excitement and nervousness and curiosity of her friends, yet there was also a different sensation, a sort of comforting calm from a feeling of being connected to many living beings.
Suddenly Andreas fell back like he had been pushed, his butt hitting the ground with a thud, even as his friends held onto him. The group stared at him, stunned. They pulled him up, as he looked at them confused. “How did that happen?”
Thymia let go of Zoe’s arm and put her hands on her bum, exclaiming “I felt that!” The fungi sparkled like fireworks along the ground. They all felt it, even though only Andreas hit the ground.
This is how we feel things. We can pass the feeling along. The destruction happened very suddenly. It was not from the earth. We felt humans walking in that place. And then an explosion spread pain through our networks throughout the soil for great distance.
The glow faded. You need to know this is not us. It is not Earth. We would not harm your connectedness.
‘If only we were as interconnected as you,’ Theofilos said as he crouched on his knees to get a closer look at the fading glow. It brightened as he reached out his hand gently, then it went out.
The tiny popcorn tingles were gone, the glow was gone, the tree was silent. The festival lights became visible again as the kids stood in the fresh darkness where a moment ago the ground glittered.
They looked at each other.
Zoe broke the silence: ‘How do we find out what happened?’
‘What’s the opposite of whatever the Newspage says, we can start there,’ said Theofilos.
‘You’re not wrong,’ replied Andreas thoughtfully. ‘The Newspage is pushing the claim that the Gods are to blame. That’s definitely not true, so whoever the Newspage insists will be the hero will also be not true. They will likely be potential suspects, somehow.’
They heard their names being called, and they all looked at the tree and the ground around them once more.
‘Library’ declared Thymia and they all nodded before heading back to find Zoe’s and Theofilos’s mothers.
To be continued…