Essay 241 - An AC Crisis and the Wonders and Terrors of Nature
Warmed and cooled by breaths
Today I left the shade of my powered-down office (it has minimal lighting due to a power-saving ordinance instituted by the administration) and was immediately fried all over by the piercing rays of the desert sun. All the marble outside was reflecting the light evenly from every surface, so it was like I was walking through a stage lit by giant spotlights from every angle. I had my button-up dress shirt tucked into my pants as part of my work attire, so a few seconds in that light soon raised my temperature considerably. By the time I got to the bus station, I could feel the heat burning in the root of every hair on my head, like they were all being yanked on my tiny invisible djinns. I walked swiftly to my bus, and gratefully ducked into the dark interior. To my dismay the bus was mostly full, so I didn't have my pick of seat choices. But there was an empty seat over the rear wheel, and I grabbed the solo seat and settled in. Even though I was now in the shade, the metal sides of the bus were conducting the sunlight like a solar oven. The bus' "air conditioning" was on, and I tried to adjust the half-broken vent so that air would blow in my direction. At first I thought that because half of the vent was missing, some malfunction was making the air come out warm. Then I realized the awful truth: this bus had no air conditioning. Instead, it had "air blowing". But the doors closed and the bus went on its way. I read for most of the journey, trying to distract myself from the heat and light and steady huffing of the vents overhead. As we neared the highway I succumbed to the exhaustion of my day, putting my book away and turning up my music. I fell into a fitful half-sleep, hovering on the knife edge between consciousness and dreaming. Every couple of moments a puff of air from the vent above would settle on my exposed arms as I sat wedged in the space between two seats. As I half-slept, I imagined those puffs of air to be the weak breaths of a creature moving at super speed around the bus, acting as a poor sort of cooling system. These "breaths" did not actually cool, but provided a constant bombardment of shiver-causing tickles, physical reminders that I was uncomfortably hot. Luckily I awoke for good as we exited the highway, and read for the rest of the journey until my stop. I bid the poorly-conditioned bus adieu and walked off in the direction of a cold-drink-selling supermarket without delay.
Today I was blown away by this article featuring some of this year's entries in the National Geographic Photo Contest. All the entries were pretty spectacular, with some that really showed the majestic wonder and terror of Nature, like this shot:
Of course, sometimes humans can work together with nature, exposing the wonder that so often gets masked by human indifference. I stumbled upon this article recently, about a woman who tested the theory that beluga whales are repulsed by dive suits by diving in the nude in the frigid water:
Surprisingly, the whales were remarkably docile, indicating that the diver’s gambit paid off. Although technology is helping us capture such moments of beauty in Nature, it is also capturing moments of pure unadulterated horror. Just watch this video of the bear almost eating that GoPro camera. Sure, at first the video seems to show the bear's cute side, but that's just Nature getting our guard down:
But just when we think it's an adorable wildlife scene, we get an eyeful of bear gullet:
So thanks to modern technology, we're now able to recreate the last image many of our pioneer forefathers saw in their struggle to tame Nature at the turn of the 20th century. Death by bear. All in all, probably not a bad way to go.
