Thanks to Dr. Joe Vipond with Alberta Coal Phase Out for his review of medical accuracy and my wife Dragana Malic for her helpful feedback.
***My climate speculative novel Pinatubo II published 4 November 2015.***
Copyright 2014 Les W Kuzyk
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AlberTa’s Gift
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AlberTa’s Gift
Albert felt the gravel slide under his e-bike tires as he turned into this out-in-the-country parking lot. Pulling off his helmet, he stared up at the wisp of steam rising from the power plant chimney pillaring above. He unzipped his riding jacket. A midterm waited for him back at the University that afternoon but the Minister’s invitation had been enough to bring him out. He knew his story to be useful to Minister Teslo yet also that giving his social license helped the guy take sincere action. The Minister had the reputation of a man out to make a difference, and not just in his political career.
As he brushed nervously at the front of his summer office job suit, his eye caught an Energy of Tomorrow - 2025 - government logo fluttering on a banner. He could make out two mini-drones hovering at each end in the autumn breeze and a group gathered over at the power plant entrance. Popping open his cargo carrier he tossed his jacket in and pulled out his device satchel. Bag over shoulder, he crunched his way through the dry autumn leaves towards the crowd.
Good thing the ceremony was this year, he thought grinning as he walked. He would’ve looked kinda ratty in last summer’s work clothes. That summer on the drilling rig and then the office work on surface facilities design this summer had helped him chose his engineering option. As he made his way up the steps the Minister’s assistant shook his hand and guided him over to stand at one side of the podium. The news media were setting up their camera equipment in front and two older fellows he recognized stood on the other side of the podium. He lifted a hand to wave and they nodded. He knew Minister Teslo would be profiling more than just his engineering program. He slipped his jPad into a pocket down in his satchel so he could see the screen by glancing down. As the jPad searched for a wireless connection he remembered that other Minister who came to the hospital ten years ago...
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He had been cooped up in his room again—school holidays had started a day early that Christmas. Tired of the video game he’d played a thousand times his eyes drifted to a paper book on his shelf. He’d read that one so many times that when he skimmed the pages he knew he could rattle off the story by heart. Just that he never did what the boy in the book had. He tossed the paperback on the bed and flopped sitting into his chair. Why not he wondered? He glanced again at the cover image. That Polynesian boy had set off alone in an outrigger canoe to face all his fears. The courage word in the title dug at him that day so much that he made a decision right then. He would call it his courage. That boy killed a shark with a bone knife! All boys could be brave he decided that morning. Duke would be out playing the morning street hockey game with the boys on the block. He’d just do it he thought.
The murmur of Mom’s voice on the phone had hummed through the hall all morning. She’d come up the stairs once and ducked her head in to tell him of the air quality warning that day. He’d backed down on that one before. This time…whatever. He had to sneak past quiet and careful and first a distraction. He climbed down the stairs and wandered over to the Christmas tree to fool around with his gift. He knew she’d come out to check. As soon as Mom wandered out and then walked back into the kitchen deep in the middle of something with one of her friends he made his move. Quietly snatching his parka off the coat hook he slid his feet into snow boots and slipped out, easing the door closed behind.
Blowing puffs of white into the cold air he treaded through the backyard snow to grab a hockey stick from the shed. Carefully opening the side gate he walked around the front of the house. Duke sang out his way right off, “Hey Ta.” His brother could be such an asshole doing his little girly dance. But what do you do when your older brother’s the coolest kid around? The in-crowd at school even called him Le Duke. “You comin’ out to play yay?” Another boy snickered but luckily the puck in play distracted him. Mom was always harsh with Duke on teasing especially with the Ta name. But she wasn’t here right now.
That time when they were little—like he was five and Duke had been seven—they had listened around the corner when Mom and Dad were talking. They heard mom talked about back in the old house when Mom was going to have Albert. The medical lab mistook Albert for a girl in their sonic scan and Mom at the time had her heart set on a boy and girl family. She had picked out Alberta for a name after Queen Victoria’s fourth princess daughter. The next scan changed everything. But Duke poked Albert hard in the ribs that time smirking and never forgot. He endlessly used that final princess syllable to taunt his little brother. Even Ta Ta at times to make it babyish.
He wouldn’t let Le Duke phase on him that day. No eleven-year-old, especially a boy who wheezed in the cold air too much to learn to skate wanted any girly name floating around. Not even if Duke had always been taller and heavier and better at any sport. Albert stiffened up and building a haughty scoff onto his face he ignored his brother. He strode into the game between the nets and took a stance pounding his stick on the street right opposite Duke. He would show the whole world his courage.
“Hey, hey to me.” He felt so carefree.
Focusing on play patterns, Albert used his wits to strategize moves. So that asthmatic wheeze built up somewhere behind his concentration. As his lungs tightened in the cold air—he had fought for hours so many times before for the next breath—he decided this time no matter what he’d face it and slug his way through. He didn’t know how extra bad the air was that day, much worst due to upwind coal burning.
His team began setting up a play. Strategizing, he picked his moment and raced in a loop around behind the net to the other side.
A high warning day. He hadn’t heard Mom say the AHQI was out of whack. He learned the four words of that acronym later—Air Health Quality Index. He even came later to appreciate indices as the coolest of measurement tools. He knew now that PM or particulate matter and ground level ozone significantly influenced the AHQI. He learned about weather related temperature inversions that kept coal burning pollutants closer to the ground on cold winter days. He found out about atmospheric related coal burning emissions that contributed to climate change. That winter day face down on the cold street ice he could not think let alone learn.
He darted in to centre to check another boy and then back to the side to pick up the pass. Puck on his stick, he pushed in backwards and spun around to shoot. But just when he raised his stick for the thrill of a slap shot goal, he crashed face forward down onto the icy street in that face plant.
He recalls his first try at getting back up to keep playing. He had to make that shot on net. That never happened—he had flopped out and couldn’t move. Terror swelled up from deep inside. He could not breathe! And when he tried to yell he couldn’t even talk. Not able to so much as lift a hand to brush the snow powder off his face he could only stare shivering at that ridge of dirty ice in front of one eye.
The ambulance ride was a blur. Nothing but a struggle gasping into that oxygen mask the medics put on his face. One medic made the call to rush him to ER at the city hospital. That wasn’t the first time he’d been taken gasping into an Emergency Room but always at their town hospital before, never to the city. And never before was he admitted. He knows most of the story by what Mom told him later. That’s when she told him about that woman Minister’s visit. Mom had a long serious chat
with that other Minister back then.
His memories were all mingled in with Dad talking about Paris that winter, that Christmas of 2015. The talks over in Europe Dad kept saying were super important, to their planet and their atmosphere and everyone’s changing climate. By everyone he meant everyone on the planet. Albert had listened close then. He understood all that so much better now, that COP21 international conference on a carbon emissions agreement. His second year class at the university had been specific to the binding international contract hammered out in Paris. The Paris +10 review would be out in a few months. Some even said the trickle down from Paris motivated that other Minister’s new strategy. Her office communications had gone out searching for a human interest story to promote the Minister’s conceived Energy of Tomorrow program. They came upon Albert and his emergency story at the city hospital. That’s when the ten year phase out coal program started coming out in the news. Most city citizens supported the phase out when they knew the whole story. Like a hundred people dying every year and millions of dollars spent on medical bills. Mom talked to other mothers in his town. When they found out prevailing winds blew that power plant asthma air right into their neighbourhoods the spoke out loud and clear.
Had the cleaner air been Albert’s gift? Or that he even walked back out of that hospital?