Acid Rain by R.D Rhodes (ebook reader txt) 📕

as he gazed out into the blizzard. “I’m going to need to go and check on the car soon.” He said. “Maybe when the snow stops. You guys wanna come?”

Chapter 65

W e spent the rest of the day in the camp, doing activities around the fire. Harry whittled away at his rabbit figure. Alex wondered around preparing things and tidying. And I mostly read Harry’s Moonwalking with Einstein book. It was about some guy who came from nowhere to coming fourth in the world memory championship, in only a year. The author talked about neurons, and synapsis, and some guy called Stiffre who spend two months living in a cave but thought only one month had passed. He mentioned Confucius too, the first intellectual, he said.

It reminded me again of the hospital. Of the library. Of the ghost. I wondered how all the people we left behind were doing.

The snow stopped falling. The day after, we ambled out to Alex’s car. The sky was grey, the world an arctic landscape. We reached the road at the other side of the loch, coming across the frozen body of a large rabbit on the way. Alex stashed it in a bush, saying it would be a good dinner.

His car was hidden under a thick sheath of snow. He popped open the boot, took out a lamp and locked it again and we headed back, picking up the rabbit. We ate most of it that night. The little that was left we cut into strips and smoked.

But that meat too, was quickly gone. And we were back to rationing our food. Harry and I moved permanently over to Alex’s site and the weeks rolled by, talking, fishing, fixing up the camp. Meeting Alex had given us a new lease of life, but by the third week I was again feeling a bit listless. I was still going out alone regularly to meditate, but for some reason the connection didn’t feel the same, despite me seeming to do nothing differently than I had before.

Maybe it was the winter and its feeling of sleep and death. Maybe I was a bit restless, eager to get a move on towards the life direction that Alex was in- wanting to work with children, or in conservation, volunteering, helping people in some way or other. But whatever it was, I wanted out of the glen for a while. I wanted something different. And I wish to God I hadn’t, but I can’t change it now, but that was why I said yes, and made the decision to join them on that trip to Inverness. When everything went wrong.

Chapter 66

H arry jumped in the front seat with Alex and I went in the back. The engine kicked on and the radio too. A gentle guitar strum came through the airwaves.

“No Code!” I said. “This is one of my favourite albums.”

Alex’s eyes looked back from the rearview mirror. “Mine too! You ever saw them live?”

“No.”

“They're amazing. Best band I’ve ever seen.”

He pulled the car out onto the road as Off He Goes played. The soft, reflective rock sounding a perfect soundtrack as we drove alongside the tranquil loch and dripping branches and melting snow.

We left the glen, going past the dam and power plant, through the village and the plantation forests, then alongside the hills by the wind turbines.

“What’s your favourite song?” Alex asked.

“Smile, or Off He Goes.” I said.

He played both again before we reached the A82. Then he switched to the radio, flicking through the countless adverts and posh people speaking. Liam Gallacher whined away on Radio one, some terrible eighties tune on Radio two, -Mike Jack died today at-

“Mike Jack is dead?!” Harry exclaimed.

Alex turned it up.

He had died the night before. Presumed drug overdose. The newsman gave all the details in a somber voice, then the report cut to the public opinion. “The man’s a legend!” one hysterical fan cried. “The biggest musician of all time.”

“It’s a really sad day for music,” another added. And a third person said- “I was stuck in a traffic jam in London. The Earth Song came on, and all the drivers at once rolled down their windows and leaned out, and sang it to each other! It was just surreal! Incredible!”

Harry burst into laughter.

“Oh my God.” He shook his head incredulously. He looked at me in the back seat, then at Alex, “Imagine it. Sitting in their cars, engines running, pumping tons of carbon into the air. Whilst singing The Earth Song. Is that not the definition of hypocrisy?”

I stayed quiet. Six months ago, Mike Jack had been labeled with all sorts of accusations and names. Sullied and verbally abused and beaten down. Now the media had suddenly changed their minds, and he was a hero and a musical legend. Is it just because he’s died that they’ve changed their opinions so much? I wondered.

The story finished and they reported on tuition fees and government policies instead. “Change it, please.” I asked, and Alex put No Code back on, first Habit, at full blast, then Lukin.

The greenery outside was replaced by the dirge of grey. Long grey roads. Grey buildings melding into each other. Grey roofs under the grey winter sky. Further on, department stores and fast-food joints competed for space on each side of the motorway, along with numerous new construction projects.

I felt my heart sink a little. Why did I come? I thought.

To get out of the glen for a while. It’ll do you good.

Alex pulled off into one of the huge car parks. The Wall-Mart sized building was split into four separate stores with different coloured letters above the entrances. He drove towards the one that said Dave’s Sports and Outdoors, navigating through the packed aisles as he glanced around for a space. He dimmed the music,