Straight to You Page 0,18

of the crackle and hiss of the radio waves, 'you've been quoted in the media recently as saying that the phenomena we are currently experiencing will inevitably prove to be temporary. Have you any solid proof to suggest that normality will soon be restored?'

The professor cleared his throat and started to answer.

'I believe that these effects that we are seeing will not last for much longer. There's no evidence to suggest . . .'

'Professor, you've got no idea of what's going to happen and neither have the rest of us,' a third voice interrupted angrily.

The venom, uncertainty and desperation in the third voice shocked and startled me for a moment. If this was the voice of someone who appeared to have some knowledge of what was happening and he sounded scared, perhaps there really was something to be worried about.

'Doctor Smith, if you would just let me finish . . .' the professor protested.

'Why, what's the point? All that you or anyone else can do is bullshit your way around the truth and that truth is that it's getting hotter by the hour. That's the one and only fact that we're all sure of.'

The flustered host's wavering tones echoed through the warm night air once more as he tried to keep control of proceedings.

'Doctor Smith, please allow Professor Cunningham to finish.'

'For Christ's sake,' Smith shouted. 'He knows about as much as you do about what's going on. You might as well go home and ask your mother about it rather than talk to him, me or anyone else. No-one knows what's happening and whatever it is, there's no way that any of us can stop it.'

Smith sounded hysterical and, although his was only a disjointed voice floating through interference-filled airwaves, I could tell that it was full of anger and intense frustration.

'Things are getting worse,' Smith continued, unabated, 'and after tonight's events I really can't see what we're going to achieve by sitting here and arguing about what might be about to happen. You must agree Cunningham.'

'Getting yourself and anyone else who's listening scared witless won't do any good either,' the professor replied. 'Stop dramatising things and get a grip for God's sake.'

'Dramatising things!' Smith yelled at the top of his hoarse and strained voice. 'For fucking hell's sake, we're seeing phenomena here which could easily signal the death of the planet and you tell me to stop dramatising things!'

I leant across and switched off the radio. Until we had listened to that programme. I had never even stopped to consider what might happen if the temperature did continue to steadily increase.

'What a load of crap,' I snapped, nervously and instinctively.

'Might not be,' Mark mumbled. 'Like the man said, no-one knows for sure.'

'Yes,' I protested, 'but there's no point in looking at the worst possible outcome. If it's going to happen, it's going to happen. I don't want to know anything about it when the end comes.'

I quickly stopped talking as the realisation dawned on me that we were discussing the end of the world. As I drove, I thought more about what I had heard and the fact that not a single person on the planet knew what was happening frightened me. In the past, there had always been someone available who could explain things which were out of the ordinary but today the only convincing arguments I had heard were from a paranoid man who seemed sure that our planet was dying. However, if the temperature did continue to increase at the same rate that it had been recently, in a few days' time it would be reaching upwards of thirty degrees - the 1st of November would be the hottest day of the decade (until the 2nd of November). I thought about the countries where that level of heat was normal and tried to imagine what kind of conditions they might be enduring there. It suddenly seemed very plausible that the increasing heat and the pulses of light that we had seen in the night sky could be the beginning of something much more terrible than any of us had dared to imagine I forced myself to try and think of something else and, at once, calming memories of Samantha drifted gently back into my mind.

The roads were quiet and we reached Mark's house in no time at all. The heat and the alcohol which he had consumed combined to great effect and, by the time we reached his home, he had drifted off to sleep I