Steven W. Lawrie

Astrofisico or

The End of Learning

Novella

Copyright text and images © Steven W. Lawrie, Aberdeen, 2012. All rights reserved.

ISBN-10: 1480220515

ISBN-13: 978-1480220515

The inconspicuous small print at the foot of the page: The following novella is a work of fiction and therefore contains events and characters which and who—with very few exceptions, such as Chaplin, the Plinys, Oates and Elser—are exclusively inventions of the author. As a fictional work the text lays no overly stubborn claim to authenticity, contains neither flash photography nor artificial flavourings and colours (save, of course, those permitted by the EU) and is 99.919146% free of expletives.

ASTROFISICO OR

THE END OF LEARNING

Editorial Note The following publication—about the wisdom of which the current editorial committee harbours serious, and in some quarters systematically ignored, ethical, not to mention aesthetic doubts—has sadly been necessitated by a spurious, if not to say straightforwardly vexatious, Freedom of Information request (HMG FOI, No.14081964: Missing Persons). Regrettable as this abuse of democratic liberties is, the account may nevertheless provide a useful counterbalance to the claims of a sensationalist press which has hitherto painted a distorted and overly black picture of the events which allegedly transpired on that now notorious Atlantic island amongst a scientific community engaged upon certain astronomical observations of the known, and fortunately still unknown, universe. The diary entries which are here reproduced cover a period of around four to five months, commencing in November and hence long after the advent of those enduring snowfalls. The final entry is estimated to have been made at some point in early spring and therefore several months before the arrival at the observatories of the first of the rescue parties. The text, which was found in the Galileo Galilei observatory, is presented in its uncensored and unadulterated entirety. No date accompanies any of the diary entries, a fact which may be accounted for by the general disorientation occasioned by a mental and physical exhaustion consequent upon the harsh privations of entrapment and isolation. A reliable reconstruction of the events which unfolded upon that island is further prevented by the stylistic arabesques of a diarist who jettisons the rules and rigour of scientific discourse in favour of a speculative and idiosyncratic narrative, some of whose details the reader will be well advised to question. Caveat lector.

MOI, FOI Editorial Sub-Committee

---oooOooo---

Snow seven months now. Will it never stop? Yesterday the last of the propane. From now on the barracks unheated...? We awoke this morning to find that Méndez had vanished, left in the night, presumably, while we all slept, hoping to make it alone 2,400m down the mountain slopes. Then hesitant speculations over cold breakfast. Teaspooning down the slippery tinned tomatoes between talk of frostbite, possible amputations and of Méndez’s head-over-heels madness of solo-descent. And thereafter the next disaster: the lower gamma ray detectors, which had lain deep-frozen fossilised and steeped immovably in ice since early June, were now pronounced hopelessly and irreparably defunct. The cost incredible and the loss immeasurable. Dr Ellenbogenhahn (always retiring, we knew him as a man of quiet restrained optimism) estimated twelve mill a piece. Dollars, of course. Too much for him, just stood there with his back turned towards us and staring out through the frosted glass window over the white snow-kissed and driven-flaked wasteland, but we sensed his quivering anger. Just stood there. Trembling lightly. Let the flags fly at half mast back at HQ in Heidelberg and Vienna!—Galaxies Markarian 501 and 421 no longer suffered the intrusive gaze of earth-bound tower- building superbia. No one had his money on Méndez. Well,... alone through the ice?! The Scandinavians, Swedes, Danes, Fins, Norwegians, for whom the situation presented a seemingly familiar icy and seductive challenge, had packed their rucksacks in shivering August, buckled on their latticed snowshoes, raised their woollen mitts in amicable and clumsy farewell and, their eye lashes, beards, already caked in snow, trudged off through the blinding thickness of the driving white flakes (taking with them, too, after some clandestine negotiations, our surreptitious message whose destination was the contrasting sanity (we hoped) of The Outside World). Long ago they departed. So far away in the past that we begin now to forget their names, let alone their appearance. We are still trapped up here, waiting in vain for a rescue party from below. I have not written in this diary for some time now, for, beyond the humdrum of our daily existence, there has been little to commit to paper. In December we unanimously pronounced the Scandinavians’ bold mission—to make it to The Outside World—on the basis of our collective scientific scrutiny of the various eventualities and probabilities, a failure (and, oh, the lives that lie behind our cool euphemisms!). To conserve energy we throttled the heating in the now vacant Scandinavian vacuum telescope building, with the predictable result. The cruel cold crept in quickly and layered everything in ice—telescope, hardware, even their empty fridge (the fridge!—cruel irony...)—and put a stealthy end to the communal Scandinavian research project. White dwarves of the cosmos: adieu!

END OF EXTRACT

Dear fellow book friends,

I do hope you will enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it! And lest for some incomprehensible reason you should not, consolation is nevertheless at hand, for, additionally, this novella contains a number of useful suggestions for recipes for rabbit dishes, such as the mouthwatering delicacy of rabbit (allegedly…) stew, an old favourite amongst astrophysicists, with dried onion and Malvasia and ketchup sauce. What can anyone say to that but: yum yum! You can get hold of this publication via Amazon in the usual way. I would be keen to hear what you think (about the book, about rabbit stew with dried onion and Malvasia and ketchup sauce…) Kind regards, Steven Lawrie