The Frustrated Pilot

An Inspirational Science Fiction Short Story

 

 

 

§ §

 

         Just recently, in the first day of February, he was stopped by a featured trivia question in the Discovery Channel on the television set. The flashed question grabbed him in place. His legs were immobile. From where he stands, is the television set just a couple of meters away. His attention is grabbed by the artistic rendition of graphical transitions on the phosphor screen. The subtle and momentary but chronological appearance of words that were animated and arranged to form a question that flashed across the TV screen has found its mark. Very catching. He read the words on the television screen…

 

A big asteroid will hit Earth… Can we stop it?

 

In his mind, plays the ‘A R’ Theory. In his version it is the action reaction tête-à-tête between two entities.

         “A big asteroid will hit Earth… Can we stop it?”

         “Nope!”

         “Why?”
         “Why? Because you just can’t. An asteroid as big as the moon hurling in space… uncontrolled? How will you stop it?”

         “There has to be some way.”

         “Oh yes! Sure there is always a way.”      

         “How?… Oh yeah, that Armageddon movie thing huh?”

         “Nope! That’s too elementary.”

         “Too elementary?”

         “Yeah! Too elementary.”

         “So, how do we do it?”

         “First we have to consider that the question ‘Can we stop it?’ is not wrong but, inappropriate under your spell which is time based. If we analyze the question, it will reveal something or more than something. `Can we stop it?’ Is a very courageous question but it is an off beam question to ask. Sometimes courage is inutile. What I would propose is a question like…”

 

Can we avoid it? Can we avoid an asteroid from hitting Earth?

 

         “Is it not the same?”

         “No! Stopping is entirely different from avoiding. Stopping is using force. And your force isn’t enough may it be financially, intellectually and even technologically. Avoiding is being in control and being more responsible. However, there is congruence in your ‘stopping it’ and my ‘avoiding it’. They have something in common. Both questions signals a kind of motive or an erg or maybe an urge— and that is to survive. In the short words of Jose Rizal’s ‘Noli Me Tangere’ said it well. Please oh great asteroid please don’t touch us we pray.Let us have first an idea of what happens incase another polar shift occurs. In the last polar shift half of the landmass had sunk but new landmass appeared too. Creatures were all misplaced. Chaotic. Confused. Everything is wrong in its place. Why? Because, suddenly the sun is not rising from the East any more (according to your orientation). Ships and planes’ navigational system have gone berserk. Well, it does work but it’s not according to your academic orientations. Your references, grid and coordinates are not telling you the right thing. Take for example, you are the pilot of a mammoth plane and expected to see King Khaled Airport in Riyadh according to time and flight plan. You have been flying the same place and route several times. You are about to land and you are expecting to see a desert of golden dirt. However, you cannot just believe why this time, it is blue as in ocean blue. You check it with your flight navigator and confirmed your confusion as you stare at his bewildered face. What will you do Captain?

 

          Fortunately, there were survivors that will tell their children what had happened on that fateful day. These historical facts will be recorded in your journals for your children and your grandchildren initial orientation about human existence long after you were gone. The same process takes place and that is the passing of stories to generations to generations that makes history that depicts the triumph of man in defining its will to survive in what you call in your present dimensional plane governed by your so called time.”

           “So what do you propose?”

           “Polar reversal. Oops! No… Polar designing I mean.”

           “Polar designing? And… how do you that?”

           “We will come to that. So what’s up?”

           “Everything’s down. Except for the f****n’ prices of gas that is rocketing up high. Thanks for the Muslims and the Chinese, the cost of necessities is manageable than before.”

           “You are not listening to my question. I am asking you about what is up not down.”

           “Oh yeah! The up thing. They said that they are going to tell me after their meeting.”

 

A couple days had gone past and the two entities meet again.

 

           “So what was that you’re saying the other day about that summer thing?”

           “Summer is when our geographical location is within the area where the sun’s face is nearest glaring at us.”

           “No! Not that. The one you said the solution to that asteroid-hitting-earth problem?”

           “Ah… yes!  We know that the ozone is found thinning in the atmosphere up above the Polar Regions. Our polar regions namely; the Arctic in the north and the Antarctic in the south. North pole and South pole were the fulcrums and acts like a pointed tip of a lathe machine that held earth ever since while it spins eastward. Meaning if you are looking at earth somewhere in space of which is within the Southern Hemisphere, you will see that earth is spinning towards the sun or in your dimensional plane of orientation, you call it clockwise direction. While if you are on the Northern Hemisphere, you will see that the earth is spinning on a counter clockwise direction. The earth has been spinning around its axis around the sun ever since man’s conception of his beginnings.

 

           However, the unseen thing by man which has been there ever since, is being given more attention just recently. The thinning of the ozone above our polar region is attributed to the use and abuse of ozone depleting gasses. The thinning of the ozone layer in that part of our atmosphere where the fulcrums are… were loosening fast. It explains also why the earth is increasing its tilt and so the wobbling also increases.”

          “You mean to be saying that the unabated decrease of the ozone in our atmosphere will lead to a polar rever… I mean polar shift?”

          “Absolutely!”

          “So, where does the solution to the asteroid-hitting-earth comes in?”

          “If there will be a polar shift, that is, even a slight shift, naturally the fulcrum point will change. If this happens, the direction of the earth’s rotation will change in relation where the fulcrum will hold its next position for another several hundred years. Thus the North Pole and the South Pole has their respective new point on earth.”

          “Where will the next North Pole be?”

          “I think that is one of the interesting questions raised in the recent 2006 Davos conference in Switzerland. A slight deviation from our usual path as we revolve around the sun will definitely bring us away from a collision course with that asteroid.” 

          “You suggested that it would be called polar designing… why? How?”

          “Not everybody is aware how ozone is made or produced but it won’t be long and everybody will. It will not be long and people can have options to choose the direction our earth will go. Ozone is from the Greek word, ozein, which means ‘to smell’. Ozone is allotropic form of oxygen having three atoms in each molecule, formula O3. It is a pale blue, highly poisonous gas with a strong odour. Liquid ozone is a deep blue, and a strongly magnetic liquid. Ozone is formed when an electric spark is passed through oxygen, and causes a detectable odour near electrical machinery. The commercial method of preparation consists of passing cold, dry oxygen through a silent electrical discharge. With this information, we can conclude that the use of all electrical and electronic equipments such as motors, radios, televisions and even cellphones when in use produces ozone. If we can restore the ozone in time, there will be no polar shift. So we go on the same axis as what we have been doing several thousand of years and the chances of the big asteroid hitting earth is great. If we remain relax and don’t do anything to restore the ozone layer, a polar shift will occur before the asteroid hit us. If we feel more responsible and without prejudice in the way we deal with our environment we might have the chance to make the earth jerk a little bit just enough to deviate from its current direction and away from colliding with the asteroid. It will also mark another ‘agemo’ — (from Bicolano word ‘age mo’ your way, Taglish Pinoy slang ‘age mo’ (your age) towards a new adventure to the uncharted regions of our solar system. Or else… isang umaga (one morning), it will be our last… our Ωmega.”

§ §