Susan unlocked the door and stooped as she entered to avoid hitting her head. At seven feet, she was nick-named “shorty” for she was the shortest person in her group. She felt secure here and was glad that they had chosen this house with its high ceilings and robust construction. She placed her basket on the floor and called, “I’m home” as she removed her hat and outer clothing, which completely cocooned her and shielded her from the sun’s UV rays. Then she took up her basket and made her way to the kitchen where she placed the basket containing three large eggs that she had found on the counter. She thought that they were chicken eggs, but it was hard to tell as chickens were now the size of ostriches, and their large eggs could be confused with those of the larger reptiles roaming the land. Her spoils unloaded; Susan hurried into the main room to join the other five residents of the house sitting in a circle before a crackling radio.
“Did I miss anything?” she asked.
“They just announced that this is to be the last transmission.”
“So why the silence, surely there is no-one to put on commercials?”
“Something happened!”
Susan reached over and gently twiddled the knob. The radio emitted static and then they heard a voice,
“Today is momentous because it is the fiftieth anniversary of the first sun spot emitting X2X as observed by University of Texas astrology student Tony Clearwell. It is also to be the day of our last transmission. We ask that you copy and save this record for the future. We hope that one such copy will be found, possibly even a million years henceforth, a mere ripple in the 4.5 million years of the earth’s existence. It will help to explain the demise of our failed humanoid culture.”
While the transmission droned on with statistics, facts and figures to be saved for the future, Susan let her mind wander. She remembered her grandmother reminiscing, about Tony Clearwell, in her faint old voice. The matriarch told about the ridicule that his first observations had received. She spoke of the acceleration of global warming and the rising of the seas. She ridiculed the 2019 prediction by some of the collapse of humanity within a decade. She always concluded with a comment that farmers were the first to observe the curiosity that all living things were getting bigger. Susan remembered her happiness in the thought, which she took to her grave, that global warming was a blessing.
Susan remembered that her mother shared this belief until it became obvious that things were not OK. She told her daughter,
“At first scientists explained the unnatural growth as being a positive result of global warming with its prolonged warmer growing seasons and increased rainfall. The unprecedented growth of all living things, exposed to sunlight, including humans, quickly became problematic and stimulated scientists to look twice. We now know that Tony Clearwell’s X2X, a previously undiscovered UV ray, promotes rapid, almost uncontrolled growth in both flora and fauna. Scientists suggest that this X2X UV light is what created the Jurassic age, and killed the dinosaur age when transmission ceased.”
Susan sighed as she thought about the accelerated Darwinian way that dramatically enlarged reptiles, insects and the general spectrum of fauna were adapting to their enlarged bodies and the rapidly growing flora. No one had yet seen a facsimile of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, but she imagined that it was just a question of time.
jstansfeld 
A REALLY INTERESTING TOPIC FOR A SHORT STORY JANE. I ENJOYED IT IMMENSELY (WHILST ALSO BEING QUITE TERRIFIED THAT IT’S GOING TO COME TRUE).
Dear Jane,
As always, great to read your words, and thank you for sharing such a bleak vision.
“It’s the end of the world as we know it but I feel fine “ as Michael Stipe sung a few years back. Yes, we are edging ever closer to the abyss, the event horizon where nothing can escape—where there is, alas, no return.
Eric (dear Eric!) is quite right, mentioning “cowspiracy” and there are other documentaries, such as “what the health”. Do watch those, and I am quite certain many folk will instantly engage in veganism, thus reducing their individual carbon imprint. It may be small, but if millions—nay, billions—follow suit, well, then global warming and climate change may be averted. Maybe.
Thank you, Jane, for telling a tale of the horrors that may visit this planet…and all creatures that reside here on this beautiful blue orb.
Take care and warm wishes,
Paul
My piece certainly garnered some great input and I thank you for yours. My thesis was that a new, previously unknown kind of sun spot was sending out rays which stimulated everything into exponential grown thus causing a return of the Jurassic age dinosaur-like creatures together with humanity’s demise. Ugly stuff, and I agree that we must do our best to preserve our beautiful blue orb,
Hi Jane!
I am glad your post garnered attention, as well it should have. Quite a frightening proposition, I must say, to think that lurking around a corner may lay in wait a velociraptor. Yikes!
And that somehow our own glowing star can emit such a mutation upon humans, Perhaps that is the price to pay, our own demise, for our silly human folly here on earth.
Let the dinosaurs reign once more. Maybe they can consume a few pyschopaths in the process. Let’s start with the orange baboon in the White House…
Thank you, Jane. Keep the fine stories coming!
Paul 🙂
An innovative take on the end of the world, Jane.
There is an interesting docudrama on Netflix. The producer makes bold claims and draws from a UN report.
According to the docudrama:
Animal husbandry—cattle, sheep, etc—is the biggest contributor to global warming and its consequent effects. Burning fossil fuels comes a distant second—but the world focuses on the oil and gas industry. Rightly so but why ignore the largest contributor to global warming?
Animal husbandry sucks up a disproportionate amount of arable land and potable water—one example, the rapid depletion of the Amazon forests—resources sorely needed for human habitation. Animal fart is a major destroyer of our atmosphere. After one finishes rolling on the floor laughing—they should read that UN report, or watch that docudrama. See the laughter wiped clean.
That one hamburger we eat uses more water to produce than one person uses in a month! Amazing! But the producer backs up his assertion with data—facts and figures drawn from the UN report.
Big business has done everything possible to bury that UN report. Even well-known global warming activists such as Greenpeace and Al Gore do not wish to address the issue – in the docudrama we see these people evading questions.
The docudrama’s title: Cowpiracy.
Check it out.
Peace,
Eric
Good points Eric. Another contributor that seems to be ignored is the effect of multiple eruptions of volcanos around the world. If all that ash can ground planes for days you can imagine how much is being spewed into the air to affect climate change. This earth is overpopulated and we are raping the earth to feed us all. In the past population was kept in place by terrible scourges like black plague that decimated Asia and Europe. Now our modern medicine ensures we are populating toward oblivion.
Here is the YouTube link for the official trailer >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV04zyfLyN4
To me the scariest thing is not so much the natural cyclical function of climate change, but the knee jerk reaction that will eventuate in a futile attempt to fight what is normal nature response to the reality of a cycle. We the people will demand change and legislators of the world will begin to dictate their response until we as a human race lose all our freedoms over time and only a privileged elite will survive to share the diminished resources as I see it. Population whether it be cows or people consume resources so will they destroy animals that consume these resources and remember its not only cows that increase in population but there’s a range of other farting animals to think of too. When it comes to human population control you can imagine the possibility of euthanizing those who are not “productive” but consume while trying to claw back forests which are dangerously diminished. Humans drink water too and our bodies are 80 percent water so decreasing seven billion people to a billion or less is going to release a lot of water. I guess the Nazis demonstrated that idea and those who are civilized rejected their beliefs. Are we heading back to that? They tell us we will exit the earth to colonize Mars. There is no other planet in our system that has the resources earth does for human habitation so that’s crazy. I kind of lean to the Christian belief the one who made this world will remake it again with a more intelligent group to inhabit it and care for it as it should have been cared for in the first place. At least that gives me a ray of hope in the current dilemma. 🙂
Yes Ian, However there may be some hope. I do hope so
As I understand it volcanic activity and the associated dust contributes to global cooling because it shields us from the sun.
I also read that in affluent countries population is decreasing, and in fact the rate of increase over the entire earth is decreasing having maxed around 1962 at about 2%.. In other words our present 7.7 billion will take longer to double. over my lifetime it has tripled and you see it evidenced everywhere.
I also worry about the % of oxygen in the air which is apparently decreasing.
One can go on and on – I wish that there were an easy fix!
Thank you Ian. I thank you for this suggestion but I admit that I’m scared as many have written stories about what becomes of the survivors of an apocalypse that brings about the downfall of humanity. I’m scared, as I think that it would take a long narrative to reach a redemption. Maybe, maybe……
I want to know what happened in the story. Please give us the sequel 🙂