Summer Nights

Free As The Breeze

‘Nothing to worry about folks! Just a mild thunderstorm heading our way, the tail end of this funky weather we’ve been having lately.’ They said.

‘Yup, just a pulse storm. So weak that it should pass through without even waking the skinks.’ They said.

When has a weather forecast ever been correct?

The Sun had been tarrying for a month and a bit, relentlessly beating its rays into the earth’s surface as though it was owed money. Nobody took notice but all were prepared. The midnight sun season—MSS for short—has occurred since the dawn of time after all.

Helios sat smack dab in the middle of cross-continental ley lines that stretched out connecting locations that were hot-spotted by the Midnight Sun. It was just my luck that I happened to call Helios home. The surrounding area was devoid of vegetation, having been roasted to dust time and time again; Creating the perfect environment for salt flats and solar panels. Helios was a productive town and there were always jobs going for hardworking folk, the only problem was that most Helians worked only the flats from puberty ’til pasture. All the cushy solar panel jobs went to out-of-towners with fancy degrees in solarical engineering. There was, however, a plus to having eggheads living in Helios, all of our emergency beacons were state-of-the-art. The town boasted a modest population but the tourism industry went rampant during the MSS with solarians flocking from all across the globe to bask beneath the Helian Sun. Most Solarians were responsible and SPF’d to the gills while a select few opted out in favour of incurring a rare type of melanoma. There was a even long standing rumour that excisions of said melanomas went for a high price on the black market.

I was fifteen sols old, my skin weathered and taut as leather despite my otherwise youthful trappings. I had barely the makings of a man, bearing arms too long for my torso that was bespeckled with Bermuda rot. My pea head sported a cropping of sun-bleached waves. I had completed my mandatory education before the winter season and spent the following year working on my grandfather’s basilisk farm. As much as I adored it there, a hearty career in salt scalping awaited me so I returned to Helios before the midnight sun season began. The forecast had told that it was to be one for the books.

The Sun, usually subdued but persistent, was at full mast with nary a cloud in sight. It seemed to actually throb and pulse with each wave of heat it sent my way. Beneath its luminance, the flats ran for as far as the eye could see; The soil, shimmering with shards and geodes of halite, wore a shade of red ochre while buttes jutted intermittently out of the terrain.

Twelve days passed then twelve more without any change in the Sun’s bearing but by the end of the next twelve, it had begun its descent below the horizon. As it descended, the remaining light became a pale green hue. Helios was long overdue for a night off. The background hum of generators would cease for nightfall, there’d be no need for industrial air conditioning tonight. Windows and shutters would be propped open instead, inviting the moonlit breeze to fill our lungs as it wafted its way through our homes like a ghost, its lingering presence a kiss goodnight.

Everyone had their own mores to commemorate the end of the MSS. Some barbecued—ironic, I know—on the salt flats while others stayed up all night eating key lime ice cream. Personally, I was content just having a dry night’s sleep. I made sure to grab a couple of fleece blankets from the basement that was a mainstay in Helian homes and doubled as walk-in fridges. These basements were the only comfortable spots, inside or outside, during the MSS. The forecast said that ‘…due to the severity of the Midnight Sun, its sudden absence was likely to cause abrupt atmospheric changes; Namely, a thunderstorm.’ Yippee, I love thunderstorms. Thunderstorms were always a favourite of mine, the sound of the rain pelting the salt flats was melodic, almost like a symphony of mbira. The bolts of lightning would cast silhouettes against the dark sky while the shadows danced and bucked in time with the drums. The rumble of the thunder after only served to deepen the experience, its sonorous boom reverberating through my very core, synchronising with the thump of my heart. I loved it all.

My excitement for that night would be short lived.

Helios had bedded down for the most part but a group of tenured salt scalpers had ventured on to the flats to take part in their barbecue tradition. It was usually just a couple of brews and sitting in lawn chairs while their Komodo steaks were grilled and seasoned with the very salt that they had scalped. This ritual’s reverence was due to the fact that a large percentage of flatsmen met their end prematurely to white lung; A degenerative lung condition caused by salt flake inhalation. The veterans kept to themselves but almost always a fight broke out which was then quelled as abruptly as it began. So, when they screamed and roared, nobody thought anything of it. Men will be men after all.

I awoke with a start and took a swig from my water bottle to coax the cobwebs out of my throat. The temperature had dipped way below what I thought it would. Glimpsing at my bedside clock, I noticed that I had only been asleep for an hour. I could hear the dinning tines of the mbira, albeit slightly muffled. I chocked it up as another side-effect of the MSS. I went to the window expecting the stars to be front and center after being sidelined for so many days but to my surprise, the night sky was astonishingly dark. No natural light was present within it, the sky was almost vantablack. It was like the Sun had taken all the light of the universe with it.

‘Even stars get stage fright huh,’ I thought to myself with a chuckle that petered out as something on the flats caught my eye. It was a brief flicker of a light. I remembered that even if the sky was blotted out, the old men’s bonfire should have been visible from my window. Goosebumps sprouted along the back of my neck and arms. Maybe the screaming earlier… No, it couldn’t be. The phantom glim flickered again. How was it doing that? It was completely hidden from view apart from during those brief lighthouse blinks. A sough echoed along the salt flats, reaching my ear and planting a knot in my stomach. On it rode the screams of men, interspersed with a powerful whooshing sound. I focused my eyes on the spot where the light had last shone, it must be the fire pit that the men had been using. It wasn’t long before it showed again, only this time I noticed a difference. The flame was being warped; Twisting and stretching in a circular motion before its light was shut out.

Oh, this is bad.

I sped downstairs, grabbing my beacon key in the process, and emerged into the night air without even bothering to put my shoes on. I had to reach the beacon before it was too late. My eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the night but luckily, one of the beacons stood curbside a few feet from my house. I inserted my key and swung open the electrical box, taking no time to conjure the numbers drilled into Helians from birth (7-8-6) and dial them into the number pad. Within seconds, the streetlights flickered on, bathing Helios in unnatural piss-tinged light. A low sweeping siren whirred to life and sang from speakers positioned atop the light poles.

The town of Helios awoke, as did its inhabitants and they soon stumbled through their doorways trying to locate the emergency. I made a megaphone with my hands and shouted. My neighbours looked around as though I hadn’t said anything at all. The wind was snatching my words out of the air. It was deafening, a heavy thick whistle working its way through the air. I gave up on shouting and pointed frantically towards the flats. With the beacons illuminating far past the town’s central housing radius, the weather phenomenon became visible. Along the flats, a pitch black wall as wide as the horizon loomed. It seemed to be hovering in place, a stalwart darkness, as barrages of rainfall could be heard buffeting the flats, the arid earth beneath yearning for nourishment. Lightning flashed sporadically, limning a fierce battle taking place behind the wall of wind. Multiple cyclones spun inside of it; Light gray ropes twined between gales of cylinders and cones. When the lightning bolt’s brilliance faded, the night sky once again became tranquil and nobody would’ve thought anything were out of the ordinary if not for the harsh breeze heard whipping through Helios.

In an instant, a wave of panic engulfed the town and the Helians mindlessly scattered. Some ran for their cars while others merely stood; Entranced by the wall in all its imposing beauty. Any sense of reasoning had long been raveled and whisked away on the wind. The wall lingered, pressing its will upon the townsfolk. Lightning struck again, this time outlining a sinister face snarling inside the wall. ‘Time’s up little one,’ It seemed to say, ‘Best to tuck yourself.’ I instinctively took a step back, my heart somersaulting in my chest. Another bolt struck but this time, the wall only housed its cyclones. All at once, the townsfolk stopped in their tracks and from below the earth-shattering gales rose a chorus of screams and moans. We had realised, far too late, that the wall had arrived.

I dashed towards my house, trying my hardest not to stop and watch in horror as the wall tore into the buildings on the outskirts of Helios. Within seconds, the tourist-reserved adobe houses were flattened or so I thought. In reality, they were lifted. Turned to dust as the wall ripped them from their foundations, swinging them in a deadly dance.

Within three blinks, I was curled up on my basement floor clutching an ice pack to my chest. My breath struggling to maintain a rhythm. I had food, water, and shelter somewhat. Sol willing, the bulkhead doors would hold and be enough. Over my own hitched sobs, I could hear the cries of my neighbours as the bulk of the wall smudged its way off of the flats and onto our streets. Their cries were soon overpowered by gusts and raindrops cantered against the roof of my house in an oddly soothing pattern. Fear worked its way up from my chest to my eyes as tears streamed down my face. I curled into a ball with the remaining blankets cushioning my body against the clay floor, my only hope being that if anything, my death would be painless. And with that somber thought draining the final dregs of my energy, I drifted off to sleep.

I stirred awake, sweat seeping through the seams of my anole themed pyjamas. My cotton cocoon now felt more like a crockpot. Startled, I threw back the blankets and was stunned by shimmering sunlight. ‘How could the sun be out?’ I thought rapidly blinking my eyes. If I had died and gone to paradise, surely I would’ve rewarded with a less powerful sun to orbit. Or maybe, I’d gone the other route… Surely not. Blindly, I scrambled up a hill of what could only be described of as sharp quicksand. My eyes adjusted as I reached an even surface and scanned the horizon.

Helios was all but steamrolled.

The very foundations of the homes had been plucked from the Earth like petulant weeds. Viscera lay strewn across the flattened town that once housed five hundred denizens and ten times that amount during the MSS. The destruction was inescapable. Limbs that weren’t blitzed to a pulp were instead filleted by the force of the wall, the skin peeling like damp wallpaper. I found body parts that were whole but riddled with slits and punctures. I later learned that the wall had uprooted salt flakes and chunks from the flats, their having been hardened beyond belief by the Sun’s protracted spotlight. Helios’ own lifeblood had torn indiscriminately into the town. In an odd turn of events, Helians’ bodies were found miles away from where the tornado had struck and found completely intact. Their bodies had been caked with clay carried by the wall, the terra cotta remnants of a long since forgotten town.

The landscape itself was littered with devastation; Upturned cars, a single grill—presumably the remnant of the geezers’ barbecue, a faded googie gas station sign. It was all gone, Helios was no more. The UN, or what was left of it by that point, sent millions of Solunds in humanitarian aid, meant to assist the the survivors in their restoration efforts. ‘Survivors’ being a misnomer as I was the sole(no pun intended) survivor. Most of it went toward burials for the deceased.

In the days, weeks, months that followed, tourism was exorbitant. Mostly news reporters and ambulance chasers—as though there’s a difference when death’s involved—flocking to see the boy that held firm as his town was licked into oblivion.

Despite the fruitful life that I’ve lived, I often wonder if it would’ve been easier had I just listened to the wall and buried my head beneath my blankets right there and then. Thank Sol that I didn’t.