Help Me, I Think I'm Falling

Falling, falling, falling, only to wake up once again just before he hit the ground.

How many dreams had it been? He yearned to end it once and for all, to hit the ground and feel the hard impact as his bones shatter. Now that would be a life-changing event. But would it signal the end of life as he had known it up to that point? Or, would it simply be the beginning of something new and unexpected? That was the greater question.

"Mom, I am not going to take my meds ever again,” he said as he spread the softening butter on warm toast and pushed the pills away. “I am done with feeling like a lab rat in some mad scientist’s experiment. I want to know what it feels like to be me without all of these layers of so-called protection.”

“But darling, you know it’s just like wearing a seatbelt, something to keep you strapped in if there’s ever a crash,” she said as she took the marmalade from the refrigerator and set it on the table.

“You’re saying you’re afraid you might lose me? I am afraid I’ll never find me. What good is this shrink-wrapped life?”

“It’s much better than life on the ward, honey. At least you are safe here at home with me and dad, getting smarter every day.”

“Mom, have you ever noticed that there’s a flash when two solid objects collide? It’s called mechanoluminescence. It actually occurs even when you simply rub, press, bend, or fracture any solid substance. They call it cold light.”

“You’re such a little smarty pants. I know you will grow up to be a wise old soul someday but that sounds a bit far fetched honey.”

“You wanna see? I bet you never knew you can see it with sugar.”

”What are you talking about dear?”

“The cold light, you know, the opposite of bioluminessence.”

“I know there are fish, squid, even jellyfish, and some bacteria that glow in the dark. And everyone’s seen fireflies. But you can’t make sugar glow in the dark.”

“It doesn’t glow. It gives off tiny sparks when you crush it. And guess what? Sugar made from Vermont Maple syrup is the most photo luminescent¹, the brightest sparking sugar comes from right here in Vermont.”

“Follow me,” and he led her to the kitchen pantry, a little windowless closet full of preserves and canned goods on shelves and a counter. From the middle shelf above the counter, he took down a glass Mason jar filled with raw maple sugar from a farm nearby.

“Shut the door Mom. I bet you never knew that in 1605, Sir Francis Bacon first saw this when he was scraping a lump of sugar with a knife. Scientists to this day are still baffled about what it really is.”

He took out a lump of maple sugar and dropped it into a 4 qt., clear glass, Pyrex mixing bowl. Then, he took out a metal spoon from the drawer below the counter.

“OK Mom, turn off the light. Now, we have to wait for our eyes to adjust. Two minutes of just waiting in the dark here like mushrooms on a log.”

After a few seconds he asked, “Mom, have you heard about three-eyed Atlas?”

“More Greek mythology honey? Let’s not talk about scary monsters in the dark, otherwise I am turning on the light,” as he heard her hand fumbling for the wall switch.

“No Mom, wait! 3I/ATLAS means the third interstellar object discovered by the ATLAS telescope survey. ATLAS stands for Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System. The NASA project’s telescope in Chile first discovered it. They say it’s huge, about 20 miles wide and traveling here at 132,000 miles per hour, way too fast to be an asteroid.”

“How do you know all of this dear?”

“Just ask.”

“Ask?”

”The story is everywhere, it’s gonna be here in October on my birthday.”

“That’s nice honey. Some kids get candles on their cake. You get a comet.”

“Avi Loeb says it’s not a comet.”

”One of your pals in the astronomy club?”

”Avi says it has no tail. It’s emitting its own light concentrated around its nucleus with a glow ahead of its motion, and when it gets the closest to Earth it will be behind the sun. He says it’s an alien probe.”

”Anal probe?” His mom stifled a laugh. “Is Avi’s mother letting you boys watch South Park at his house? You and your little friends should be making your own cartoons.”

”You’re not listening. I think Mother Earth is begging for help, overrun by cockroaches with advanced tools. That’s what scientists from NASA and Penn State University said². Avi Loeb is an astrophysicist, a Harvard Professor of Science, founder of the Black Hole Initiative in 2016.”

”Butt holes? I have to confess I did watch that episode with your father,” as she started to giggle. “He thought it was terrific when Cartman tried to explain that it wasn’t an anal probe. When he said ‘I just farted fire because I ate too many spicy foods,’ Daddy almost fell off the couch laughing."

“They are coming Mom and it won’t be funny at all. Stephen Hawking says, ‘If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much like when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.’”

“Yes dear, whatever you say. It’s getting stuffy in here and I have a chicken in the oven.”

Then, she heard the sounds of metal grinding against maple sugar as he crushed it with the spoon. A burst of piezoelectric sparks leapt from the crystals as they fractured to create small electrical discharges of cold light.

“Oh my God! It’s true.”

“All of it’s true Mom and I don’t care if we get wiped out. I’m not ever going to see what happens if I’m living under a cloud. That’s why I’m not taking my meds.”

1. https://www.earthdate.org/episodes/cold-lightning

2. https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/alien-life-ets-extraterrestrials-destroy-humans-pollute-planet/story?id=14343673