Deathsun 2012 - novella

DEDICATION

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For those who have been ringing the alarm bells.

1.

It was too hot to go out during the day without protection; any exposed skin would burn in seconds in the sunlight. Thirty-three year old Gaia Simpson pulled the Sunshield away from the window for a moment to get a look outside, but dropped it fast as she didn’t want to risk burning her eyes. The view from the upper deck of her architect-built home in the country was lovely that time of year: clean, white snow to the horizon, blue sky (no chemtrails today, thank God, she thought), and the creaking of bare, burnt trees swaying in the cold breeze.

Gaia had a lot to do to get ready for the End of the World Party she was hosting that night: December, 21st, 2012. It was the end of the Mayan calendar, the night many believed the world would end, but she wasn't sure she believed it – at least, that's what she told herself, so she could hold onto some hope.

From her window on the third floor, she looked down on the driveway as it snaked out to the main road. The sign by the driveway announced it: Gaia's Naturopathic Clinic and it was closed for the holidays.

The sunlight had gotten incredibly strong in the first quarter of 2012, so much so that people had to become nocturnal. The sun was much more intense in UV rays that it had ever been in recorded history, and it was hotter in temperature, also. The only way to go outside in the daylight was to wear a rubber-type protective suit called a Sunsuit that had a head covering with a full-face mesh screen resembling a fencing helmet. The suits had a cooling mechanism; there were thin pipe-wires going all over the thing, where it recycled the wearer’s perspiration and used it for cooling.

All windows of houses and cars had to have Sunshades installed. Special paints and building materials were developed and used. Food production had been moved into protective greenhouses. Maybe it wasn't quite the end of the world, but it looked close.

Both the Sunsuits and the Sunshades were manufactured by the government, through the newly formed Department of Thermal Security. It was widely believed, and it was most likely true, that the costs of the sun protection products they manufactured were very much inflated, and someone was making a huge profit off these vital devices. Instead of the products being more affordable because the government had stepped in and taken over production (they had bought the small company that had designed the products), the costs had continued to climb as demand for the products went critical. Instead of employing local people at a time when jobs were hard to come by, the manufacturing of the products was done by prisoners, children, and near-slave labourers in countries who supplied their workers for the lowest bid. Many of the workers were only paid pennies a day and toiled long hours in brutal sweatshops.

Gaia had only wanted a small gathering that night, in the house she owned with her boyfriend Mike. To her, entertaining was fun, and stimulating. Not as much for Mike, who lately had preferred to spend his days off from his construction job in front of the large-screen TV with beer. He wasn’t like that when they had first started dating, nor when he moved in, but slowly Mike had started to get really lazy and was exhibiting signs of depression.

Being a naturopathic doctor, Gaia was very familiar with depression and treated many patients for it. It was quite common to have depression with the current state of the world and having to live at night. Living without the sun caused imbalances in most people in a short amount of time, but long-term it could be deadly. The body was not able to produce certain hormones that sunlight triggered, and forget about vitamin D that is produced by the body when sunlight strikes the skin.

Most everyone was on supplements, special vitamins mixtures with a high vitamin D component to counteract the vampire hours – the living at night lifestyle most everyone had been forced to adapt. But, the pills were large, like horse pills, so many people didn’t bother taking them. She had noticed that Mike’s vitamin bottle was lasting much longer than it should, and the pile of empty beer and liquor bottles seemed to grow each month. Plus, he was often listless and had put on some weight.

Gaia knew Mike was probably depressed, but to get him to admit to it was a Herculean feat that she didn’t have the strength, or patience for just then. She had a party to throw for the holidays, and she wasn't going to let anything interfere with her celebration; it was a rare chance for her to see old friends and blow off some stress. If the world was going to end that night, she wanted to go out having a good time - in any case, she wasn't taking any chances.

2.

Her home was not just a showplace, it was her place of business and healing. In addition to being an ND, Gaia was an energy healer. She had seen spirits and sensed energy her whole life. Her parents had not been the sort to drum anything out of the norm from her at a young age and force her to conform, so Gaia’s natural abilities had remained intact. Her parents had abilities of their own and came from a long line of healers, energy sensitives, and intuitives.

Add to that the home schooling her parents gave her, yoga, spiritual studies, lore of natural plants and herbs, natural healthcare with no vaccinations, a vegan diet, and a childhood in the country with clean air and water, and lots of nature around, and it all made for a very aware human being.

As Gaia grew up she felt called to use her ability to sense and manipulate energy as a healer. So, she continued her studies with the best teachers and most advanced schools she could find. It was not easy for her to connect with the right teachers, but she always found the way to the information she was looking for: it was like she was being led to it. She also decided to get a socially accepted accreditation for herself as a Naturopathic Doctor, so that she could work in the mundane world, as she called it, easily.

With her ND credentials, she was able to treat patients who would never go to a purely spiritual healer and still use her natural abilities. Ever thoughtful of her future and well-being, her parents had helped her to purchase her house/healing centre. That was ten years ago. Since Gaia had been running her practice the last few years, she had done very well. She had been able to pay her parents back, and pay off the mortgage. Mike came into the picture before she bought the house, and they had decided to share the expenses and put the house in both of their names. She was regretting that decision.

How Gaia and Mike ended up together was something many people wondered, as she was so open-minded and alternative, and Mike was so conventional and conservative. They had met at a friend’s birthday party, totally unexpectedly, and hit it right off. Opposites attract! Gaia was fond of saying when people would ask how she could get along with him. She guessed the pheromones didn't lie, and that they were more responsible for relationship choices than most would believe.

He was more attentive to her and willing to indulge her different approaches to many things in the earlier stages of their relationship, but not for a while now. It was something she had tried to talk to him about, but what he usually said was that he was too tired or that she was making a big deal out of nothing. She didn’t feel it was a time to make an issue of it right then, as if the Mayan’s were right, they were in for a bumpy ride in the months ahead, and she wanted him around: at least she could trust him.

She thought the Mayans were probably going to turn out to be right. From what she had studied of them, she saw that their predictions had been right on. There were differing opinions on