Chapter One
“Climate Control”
10:00 a.m. The days predicted maximum had already been exceeded.
The forecast was similar to yesterday, a maximum of thirty-two degrees Celsius and a slight southeasterly breeze to cool things down by mid-afternoon. It was one of those perfect summer days, not a cloud in the sky, its perfect azure untainted from horizon to horizon. The sun shone down on already crowded beaches. Sun worshippers arrived early to get the pick of the spots. Their liberally oil coated bodies glimmered in the sunlight and contrasted sharply with irregular beach goers with dull, white, zinc creamed noses and big all encompassing hats and tee shirts. Families and couples, groups of friends, rich people, poor people, middle Australia, they were all equal here at the beach.
Sydney, the unofficial capital of Australia and home to over three million people, on this holiday weekend the heat was driving them all to the beach. The roads were packed with cars, ferries were loaded to the gunwales, bus stop queues stretched fifty metres and were growing and all were heading for the same location. The beach… any beach, the closest cooling beach.
11:00 a.m. Thirty-six degrees.
Those already there, the lucky ones, didn’t know about the climbing temperature. They had the surf to cool them down. Some noted the excess heat radiating off the sand and the overt warmness of the water, which was not unexpected. They cavorted, they read, they napped, they swam and they surfed and Life was fun!
Noon. Forty degrees.
Within the steel, concrete, bitumen and glass of the city the heat was confined and almost ten degrees hotter than coastal areas. The radio weatherman couldn’t explain it. Two more degrees would be a record for this day of the year, three more a record for the month, five more an all time Sydney record. Already the elderly were collapsing, dying in non air-conditioned homes, shops and on the streets. Young children were suffering from dehydration and heat stroke. Parents had begun to panic. Warnings were broadcast on radio and television as emergency services were stretched to capacity.
1:00 p.m. A new record was set.
1:13 it was forty-eight degrees.
1:25. fifty-three degrees.
1:30 p.m. sixty degrees was registered.
Bitumen roads melted. Peak hour like traffic was literally stuck. The Sydney Harbour Bridge could be seen buckling, stretching. It groaned so loud that people abandoned marooned, overheated vehicles and ran for the perceived safety of the bridge ends but the heat and sticky, sucking bitumen made movement almost impossible. The soles of their footwear melted and their screams of pain barely registered above the cries of the bridge itself. Some managed to scale the safety fences. Their hands, arms and any exposed flesh burned instantly when it made contact with the bridge. They died screaming as their bodies toasted to a crisp. The more desperate and athletic slapped down onto the water below with a sound like a watermelon striking concrete.
2:00 p.m. Seventy-five degrees.
Buildings, cars, trucks, service stations, houses, people both dead and dying spontaneously burst into flames. The throngs at the beaches were no more, their charred corpses now rolling and burning across the sand. The masses that reached the perceived safety of the surf had been literally boiled alive. No structures remained intact.
3:00 p.m. The temperature peaked at ninety degrees and finally dropped to eighty-five. Within thirty minutes it had returned to forty degrees.
At 4:00 p.m. zero degrees registered, if there was anything left to measure that fact.
Heavy rain began to fall followed by sleet which progressively turned to snow as the temperature plummeted to minus twenty. Exposed fires were extinguished in the extreme cold.
5:00 p.m. minus sixty degrees.
A man dressed like a boy stood on the cliffs of South Head. His smile was broad and he raised his arms, looking upward to a still, clear sky. Earlier that morning any interested observer would have seen him carry out the same action. He had stood there all day watching the mayhem. As each hour passed or at a particularly satisfying act of destruction his smile could be seen to grow. It had grown largest when people in the surf and on the Harbour were boiled alive, their screams and desperate pleas appearing to feed his satisfaction.
He continued to watch unaffected by nature’s cruelty. Furrows in the earth appeared, sucking in the damage, consuming all before it burning or no’, and the soft hue of romantic light provided a beautiful backdrop to this, his most perfect day.
