ep07 - the solar flare radiation celebration

In the afterglow of the first Solar Flare Radiation Celebration, Jaran joins Joshua for a camping trip to the edge of the ice — and learns what the frozen things out there might be, and what waits by the facility door.

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Speaker 1 0:18

Hey there, this is Jaran, facility manager at the Deep Earth Anomaly Department, located on the coastal strip in East Antarctica. I'm signing in for yet another cold shift. Okay, so my my ears are still ringing from a very successful solar flare radiation celebration. First of its kind on Earth at least, but uh but definitely not the last. Here on Earth that is. You know, I I I've never seen alien entities have a good time before, and interesting enough they portrayed joy very similar to us humans. You know, they they danced, they sang some songs, they had a fight, they they laughed again, they cried, they went out to vomit at some point, but they came back in and did it all over again, you know. I love aliens, man. Now the the fight broke out uh because one of them, I've been calling him blip, he drank the other ones, I call him Blop, uh his drink as a prank, and he refilled it with espresso. And now they are both into pranks, so it would usually be a laughing matter, but as it turns out, these alien entities can't burn caffeine the way we do, making them very aggressive. So Blop punched blip on the center of his face. Now the caffeine rush was acting pretty fast, it was over within minutes, but uh long enough for a good old rough up. And I started calling them blip and blop because when they tried to speak, that was what it sounded like. Tried being the operating word because let me tell you they failed. Man, what a night it was. Even Ingrid enjoyed herself, and and I suspect she is able to see into the future because she did a dance for us which led me to believe that this is what she has been practicing for. You know, she danced a contemporary dance mixed with jazz, some whacking and voguing, some popping and locking, heels all over the place, and and then she finished off with a freestyle flamenco. It almost looked as if she had been practicing with someone. She he she had moves, that bot got sway, yo. Joshua, on the other hand, he sat in the corner the whole evening, as he is a man of solitude, but I could spot from underneath his Titanic beard his gold tooth and a smile. So, you know, you can hide many things, old buddy, but you can't hide having fun. Yeah, it truly was a success. I I think if the entities on Vega came down here to join, they would forgive my red finger beam, I am certain. However, I think I will make the investigation a little bit harder for them going forward, so I just want them to stay a little bit longer, at least for a year. I mean, since the first edition of the Solar Flare Radiation Celebration was such a hoot, imagine what we could do next year, you know. Also, Jaran the Duplicate held a speech. Not a dry eye in the crowd. He opened by saying how wonderful it is to be able to call all of us his friends, and then he went on to talk about how wonderful it is to have mysteries, and I think he spoke about mysteries for at least an hour until he made a toast saying, I hope none of them gets solved. Then he drank a whole glass of 88-year-old uh McAllen 1926 on the rocks, kicking his heel kicking his heels together and singing a grand old Norwegian toast chant. So we all woke up the next morning, scattered around a common room like uh residuals from a hand grenade. Feeling like it was our heads that had uh gone off. However, before we went to sleep, I premiered one of my new songs on my ukulele. I called it Good Old Times. It's about these days actually, and and how I can uh die happy looking back at them. I could play it for you now, if you will indulge me. Not that the radio is fixed or anything, but perhaps many years from now someone will dive down to the bottom of a vast ocean and find a research station filled with curiosities. For instance, like the recordings of Heavy Astro. But yeah, if you don't mind, just I I'll play it for you. Just give me two seconds. You can okay, okay, okay. Well yeah, let me just play it.

Speaker 5:13

All my life I'll be no right time flies. If I should try, I'll smile. Think of the good old times. Sun still shines even if earth is on fire. If I should die, I'll smile. Thinking of good old Come in.

Speaker 1 5:39

Hi Ingrid What are you are you serious? Yeah, yeah, of course of course I believe you. Uh monitor it, will you? Thank you, Ingrid. You you rock. You rock. That's a good one. Alright, see you. What a what a what a robot. So, anyways, that was the song or a part of the song, and uh I hope you like the part of the song that I wrote, Oh great divers from the far future. And after the shindig, I I went for a little trip. You see after a few days of being tired and being tired of cleaning up, Joshua had to head back to his tent to see if everything was in order. I told him he could stay here for as long as he liked, and he just might, he said. He just needed to go back for a while to check on all his stuff, which is very typical of Joshua. But I thought it that sounds like fun, so I I asked him if I could join, and he was delighted to have me as company, so I did. Yeah, my first camping trip in sixteen years. Imagine that. So I spent a few nights in a tent next to his uh he has a campsite dedicated to his research on faster-than-light travels, and at first it was a challenge to adapt, but I found it quite pleasant after a few days. I mean his research is impressive. He showed me one of his patents, a device able to achieve extreme velocities in a vacuum like space without using any kinds of fuel. It's it's sort of a pump, uh looks a bit like a squid, to be honest. And by using an atomic battery able to last for thousands of years, it it is able to pull and retract, speeding up exponentially until reaching the speed of light. The only issue uh issue is, as Joshua so nicely phrased it, is slowing the bastard down. But also, Joshua isn't looking for faster-than-light travels in space, he is looking for faster than light travels here on Earth, which of course takes a lot of time, but when he achieves it, and I think he will, he can go back in time and make up for the time he lost.

Speaker 8:03

So yeah.

Speaker 1 8:07

One thing though, that I wasn't prepared for was uh seeing the ice entities up close. You know, which I did. Now it it's completely safe because Joshua keeps them at a distance by having drilled a device into the ice, and the device is vibrating at an even 18.98 Hz, and uh Joshua believes that the ice entities are ghosts of uh explorers lost on expeditions throughout the years. Now, do you remember when I told you that what the Arctic swallows never leaves the belly? Well, Joshua uh agrees. His theory though is that if you freeze hard enough and the atmosphere around you is cold enough, your energy is incapable of leaving. So in other words, in other words, the ice stores it, becoming a vessel for the soul. So according to Joshua, to the explorers, hell was freezing cold. He still hasn't figured out why the atomic rods attract them like moths to a flame though, but uh you know perhaps it keeps them warm. Perhaps it's giving them a sense of hope that there is a nicer, warmer hell out there somewhere. Or perhaps to them God is the atom and the promised land is filled with abundance of radiation, which let's face it, the sky above us is. I wonder then if if the father of the atomic bomb is considered their messiah. That doesn't make any sense. Perhaps it's a lot easier. Perhaps they just want attention. You know, according to Joshua, they were, after all, human. One thing we know for sure though is that the ice entities like the area above the Dutch submarine very much. Which makes sense uh given that the submarine is carrying highly nuclear warheads. You know, that's how they keep warm down there, the the the Dutch. Regardless, given all that I've heard about the ice entities, they didn't strike me as particularly harmful. Now, I know they do harm, they do immense harm, let me tell you. I mean, okay, one time, and I was asleep when it happened, so you can only imagine the horror I woke up to. You see, the ice entities came across this freshly arrived crew, uh, and they attacked the crew, ripping them apart limb by limb, before putting the crew back together again, using all the wrong limbs for every one of them. You know. Then they brought the crew back to life and forced them to work as slaves until their bros until their blood froze solid. Then they built an arch with their frozen body, which is is still out there in the ice button to this day, so Yeah. They they are harmful, I have no doubt, oh great divers from the future. But all I'm saying is that they up close didn't seem harmful, but they looked almost tranquil. But you know, hey, so does an octopus to a crab, you know. Now what made me a little bit nervous was that one morning I woke up uh because Joshua woke me up and he said, Don't make a sound. And I asked him, What time is it? To which he replied, That sounds like a sound, Jaran. So I said, Oh, I'm so sorry. And then he looked at me again and I gave him a nod instead. Which is called nonverbal communication. So we got out of the tent quietly, and Joshua gave me a pair of binoculars, and I looked to the door of the Deep Earth Anomaly department where I could see this sleek figure standing by. I could see Thomas grinned. He wasn't knocking or anything, he he was just standing there, stiff as an ancient tree, just like Joshua told me that time. But some part of me wanted to go over and get it over with, you know, just ask him plainly, hey man, you know, what's up, man? But some other part of me knew that that would mean a certain death, you know. And I'm not particularly fond of the idea of becoming uh a part of an arch. Instead we went back into the tent, which he had equipped with a monitor and a camera outside so he could see everything if anything came close. And I told him, Nice monitor, I told him. Well thank you. Joshua said, Technically it belongs to you. Well, I said, consider it a solar flare radiation celebration gift. And we sat there watching the monitor in silence, drinking hot chocolate brandy that Ingrid had prepared in a thermos. And Joshua then suddenly asked after a while, Do you ever stop to think about eternity? he said. And I told him, yeah, well, when I was a child, I told Joshua. And I really did because um when my great grandmother passed, the priest told us that she would be in heaven for all eternity, and I remember thinking that eternity sounds like an awfully long time. I mean, think how good you can get in anything. You know, the ten thousand hour rule is nothing set up to a world uh wall of eternity. And in that case, you know, why bother to learn anything if you can get the best at it? If everyone can get the best at everything. You know, nobody's the best. You know what I'm saying? And I didn't tell Joshua this though. I I started to tell him, but he had fallen asleep before I finished, so now I'm obviously back at the Deep Earth uh anomaly department because the next evening when I woke up in the tent, there was no overseer to be seen anywhere near the facility. So I consider it safe for us to venture uh outside again. So we secured his tent, we secured his gear, we packed all the necessities, things he had to bring back to the facility, and then we went on back to to home. So yeah, I'm a bit tired. It's been uh a busy, busy, busy couple of days, but um, you know, that that's just how I like it, you know, I can't complain. But still, I am an accurate, and uh as the sun is about to rise and shine, I think I'm going to lay down fine. So yeah, this is Jaran. Signing off yet another cold shift.

Speaker 15:16

All my life I've been alright. If I should cry, I smile, think of a good old task, sun still shines, even the first is on fine. If I should die, I smile, think in a good old task. I feel old, lonely nose. Take me back again. Let me find you then Shine a light where the heart should go. God is a notion. Oh yeah. If I should tie the girl I wrote a song to ask a time. I wrote it to leave behind. I hope it will be some eye. It's just a thing and nothing. Smile at you at you the core.