Andy McGee's Blog, page 3

Signs of a River – Chapter 1

Second Novel in Ferg Series – Now published as an ebook on Kindle

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“My turn,my turn,” screamed the excited children. Little Pophi had not yet had a turn and so, with a little subtletyMathema edged her to the front.  “I thinkit is Pophi’s turn, don’t you?” she asked the class.  Pophi made her way to the rope and jumped andsquealed.  “Now, when we move the rope,you need to jump at the same time” Mathi implored.  Everyone called her Mathi rather than the moreformal Mathema.

“Jump” thechildren all cried, but Pophi jumped too early, was then tripped by the ropeand burst into tears.  Mathi laughed asshe picked her up and brushed her off.  “That happens to all of us.  Don’t worry, just try again.  We need to get our timing right, just likewhen we dance.”  Pophi grinned and lookedat the clay statuette of Mathi dancing taking pride of place on a shelf on theclassroom wall.

Well, itwas an al fresco area, and outdoors is where they were this morning in order totake advantage of the beautiful sunny but sticky, humid day.  The classroom was on the roof of the townhall and included an unrestricted courtyard beside an enclosed room with alarge open window space.  It would soonbe shuttered and everyone kept inside all day, when the monsoon rainscommenced.

From therooftop you could see plenty of activity. The remainder of the golden barley crop in the distance, across thebroad, shallow river was being harvested and the boats were being readied inthe harbour.  This was a very busy timeof year and most of the older students had been held back to help with thework.

The roadswithin the town faced due north and south, transected by smaller east weststreets forming neat rectangles and a few narrow, meandering laneways.  Like all of the neighbouring towns, the houseswere built to a grand master plan.  Thebuildings were consistently two storey, baked red brick with an open roof areaon top of each.  The rooves all slopedfrom a centre point and had built in drains to take away the floodwaters duringmonsoon season.

The wholecity had been built on a massive brick and mortar platform, which had beendesigned to hold back the coming floodwaters.  It protected the five thousand inhabitants andtheir buildings from disaster, or it at least had done for the last hundredyears and possibly many years before that. The streets were very well worn and the buildings had been replaced anumber of times previously, building on the old ruins each time in a similarstyle.

“That’sit, well done Pophi,” Mathi yelled as excitedly as the children when Pophimanaged her first skip.  Now I would liketo do some special work inside with just a small group.  “Pophi, please come over here, and Godhi,Bishu, Abhiram and Chandan.  You too.  How many is that now?”

“Five”they all chanted.

“Very good”Mathi praised the group. “You have been practicing your counting. Now if youcome with me we will be learning about shapes today.”  Mathi looked up at the old man singing alongwith the children, her teaching assistant Andhi.

“Andhi,please look after the rest of the class while we have some special lessons.”

His facechanged from a beaming smile to an even bigger beaming smile, and then hestarted to sing again.  He was one of thetown’s oldest citizens and loved his work with the children.  Andhi had a somewhat manic appearance, alllong grey hair and creased face under wild facial hair with bright, shiningdark eyes poking through.  About tenyears back he had just turned up in town pointing to the huge mountains nearby,as if by explanation.  Once he hadlearned their language he did explain that he had come from the land of Xin,whatever that meant.  Andhi was too oldto work in the fields, but was great with the kids and had much to teach, aslong as he wasn’t too hung over.  He was ultimatelya musician and most of all a singer. Life was always just a rhyme away.

‘Swing the rope and jump away

 Watch the happy children play.’

Mathigiggled with the other children as they entered the class room. “Now let’s sortthese toys a bit, we need to find all of the ones that are simple shapes.”  The children spent a few minutes tidying upall of the toy boats, vehicles, animals, intricately carved game boards anddice, picking out the colourful bricks and blocks as they went.

“Let usstart with our standard brick.  This isjust the same size as all of the bricks that have been used to build ourhouses.  See how it is as high as mythumb is long and it is as wide as two of my thumbs,” she said using her digitsto show each dimension.  She then placedboth hands with thumbs extended on the short edge with her index fingersrunning along the length of the brick.

“The longside of the brick is four of my thumb lengths, making the sides in the ratio offour, two and one” Mathi continued on with the lesson.  “This is one of our most special shapes.  It is called a standard brick and it has sixsides,” she said, pointing out each side carefully.

 She then picked up a small block and describedthe length of each side.  “This brickalso has six sides, but each side is exactly one thumb length.  Does anyone know what we call this shape?”

“A block”screamed Pophi to make sure that she was first.

“That’sright Pophi.  Does anyone have anothername for it?

“A cube, adice, a unit cube” were the various cries from the older boys.

“Very welldone, yes you are all correct.  It iscalled a unit cube because all of the sides are of one thumb length.  Does anyone have another name for the brickshape?”

They wereall silent this time as Mathi waited.  “Itis called a cuboid and while the cube has each side equal, a cuboid has a differentlength, breadth and width” she said pointing out each dimension once more.  “Now, can each of you make a full sized brickshape from the wooden blocks in front of you. Pophi what colour would youlike?”

“Red,” shebeamed.

“But mythumbs are smaller than yours” Bishu protested.

“That’sright and that is why we have a standard measure that is kept in the town hallbelow us and it tells us what a standard thumb length should be.  It was made by the wise ones, the Magi verymany years ago.  Each of our thumbs donot have to be the same length”

As theyall got busy on their project, the two twins Hanita and Hansa entered the room. They were pretty girls, with dark,curly, shining red hair down to their waists.  Their eyes were a matching deep, iridescentgreen, creating an exotic feast for the eyes.  “Please Mathi, it is very hot, and we wouldlike a drink.  Can we go down to thefountain to get some water pleae?”

“Yes, ofcourse.  Take a couple of the boys tohelp you carry it back.  Stay togetherand come straight back, and make sure you tell Andhi where you are going” sheyelled after them as they disappeared out the door.  Mathi swooshed her own cotton dress around tostir up a bit of air movement and show that yes she did understand that it washot.  It was very finely woven in the coloursof the sunrise and complemented her bright silver bangles which extended allthe way along her left upper arm.

She did alittle jig and rattled her bangles musically, to the delight of the smallaudience.  “How are we all going, haveyou finished yet?”

“Yes,Mathi, we finished a long time ago.” They screamed in unison. She looked downat their smiling faces and finished projects. “Who can tell me how many blocksyou used?”

They allput up their hands except for Pophi, who was still busy counting.  Mathi waited a minute and then asked Pophi“How many did you get?”

“Eight”she replied, a little apprehensively.

“But whyare you worried about your answer. Are you not sure?”

“Oh, I amsure, but you always have a little trick, Mathi.  I thought maybe I had missed it?”

Mathilaughed. “No, no tricks, and yes you are correct Pophi, well done.  But what if we split the brick into two piecesthat are just the same?”

“Four,”they all chanted.

“Correctagain, and what if we push two bricks together, how many then?

Pophi didas she was asked and started to count. “There are now sixteen,” Godhiinterrupted her.

“That iscorrect Godhi, and how did you know that so quickly?”

“I addedeight plus eight.”

“Or youcan multiply four times four,” Bishu chimed in.

“That iscorrect. Well done Godhi and Bishu.  Wewill have to teach you how to add and multiply, Pophi.  It is most useful to remember the numbers,like the boys have done.  They like toplay games with the numbers and I think that you might too as you grow older.  It is why I have put you in the numbers classwith the boys.”  Mathi praised them all,with particular attention to Pophi.

“Now, if Itake four blocks, and press them in the sand like this, what shape do we havenow?”

“Theimpression makes a square out of four unit squares, Memsaab Mathi.”  Abhiram’s family were migrants and he kept up avery proper attitude to his work.  He wasnot as relaxed as the locals.

“That iscorrect once again, Abhiram and you are most polite, but it is unnecessaryhere.  Please feel free to enjoy theclass and don’t be concerned if you make a mistake.  It is how we all learn.  And yes if you press a side of the cube intothe sand, the impression has four equal sides, marking out a square shape.  If you press four together you have a two bytwo square, and if you press sixteen you have a four by four square, which istwo brick impressions.”

Pophi wasa little puzzled by all the numbers but she could see the regularity of theshapes, and how they were derived from each other.  Mathi was right, she did like these games, andshe did like to watch the older children play board games.  She wanted to join in but they did not let herplay just yet.  She hoped they would,once she learned her numbers.

“Andhi,can you find the children, we need some water to drink in here” Mathi yelledout to the court yard.

‘Water, water everywhere

In your pants and in your hair’

Andy sangas he ran towards the stairs and disappeared. A short while later he returnedwith a large jug and the children in tow.  He organised cups and they all drank theirfill.

“OK, youfive, back to today’s lessons.  Yes, sowe can put two bricks together and they make a large four by four square.  Now we have a second brick, a larger one thistime.  What is the ratio of the sidesplease Chandan?”

Chandanbusily measured each side and came up with the answer. “It is four to two toone again Mathi” he replied, very seriously for a young boy.

“You arecorrect again.  Our builders like thatratio.  Everything is built from bricksthat have those exact dimensions.  Itmakes building so much easier if all the parts fit together and it also makesit easier to determine the number of bricks that we need to produce.  Now look at this.”  Mathi smiled deeply as she laid the long edgeof the large brick, across the diagonal of the square made up of the twosmaller bricks. “It fits exactly.  Thediagonal across the square made by two small bricks, is exactly the same lengthas the long side of the large brick.  Andnow Chandan, how long is the larger brick?”

Chandanquickly set about measuring the large brick’s longest side and after a coupleof attempts looked puzzled.  “It is notany length, Memsaab Mathi.  It is toolong for five thumbs and too short for six.  But maybe I am mistaken?”

“No, youare correct again.  See how the measurehas been divided into ten smaller divisions.  I think you will find that the answer that youare looking for is five and six tenths, or very nearly.  It is a puzzle to find the exact number andno one has yet done so.  Maybe you canone day, if you keep studying numbers. It is the way back from making thesquare.  We know that two times two makesfour, but what equal numbers do we multiply to make two.  It is a puzzle for the Mages.”

Hanitacame back into the room looking a little concerned, but afraid to interrupt.  When Mathi noticed her, Hanita spoke.  “I don’t know where Hansa is.  I have not seen her since we collected thewater.”

“Did shecome back with you?” asked Mathi.

“I don’tknow.  I was too busy talking to the boysand took no notice of where she was.  ThenAndhi found us and we were all singing.  Idon’t remember Hansa singing.”  Shesobbed the last bit as the realisation took hold.

“That’sOK, we will find her,” Mathi comforted her.

“Andhi,you stay here and look after the children, while I go and find Hansa.  It appears that she did not come back when shewent to get the water.”

Mathi randown the stairs, two at a time.  Shereached the ground floor and ran over and into the public toilets, lookingaround frantically.  A large, squarecistern was filled with clean water and to her relief, no bodies.  She checked behind the wooden buckets, used toflush the toilets, but no Hansa.  Mathicalled out her name and heard many echoes, but nothing from the living.

She racedout to the water fountain.  Peopleeverywhere were going about their business, but no Hansa could be seen.  Mathi spoke to a few people that she hoped hadbeen there for a while, but no one had seen anything.  She ran back down to the town hall groundfloor area which was mostly a large open space, but there were a few nookswhere a child could hide.

“Have youseen a little girl come this way?” she asked the brewer, going about hisbusiness.  “No, no one has been this way.  Iam careful to keep a watch over my fresh products.   I don’twant any interference as it could ruin my brew, so I would be surprised if Idid not notice an interloper.  Ifanything falls into it, the taste is different and everyone complains.”

Mathi ranto the main road, searching anywhere a child may have wandered off to if theywere distracted, but still no Hansa.  Ineed help, she thought, now becoming worried that something serious hadhappened.  Crime was so rare these daysthat she could not bring herself to think the worst.  Hansa must have met up with someone she knows,Mathi decided.  She should approach themayor and enlist her help, yes that was the right procedure.

As quicklyas she could, Mathi returned to the town hall and ran up the stairs to theroof. “Has she returned yet?” she asked of everyone.  The response from all was the same.  No one had seen her.

“Hanita,come with me please.”  She took Hanita’shand and went down a floor to the Mayor’s rooms and found her working on herartisan jewellery.  She was drilling aprecision hole and was concentrating on getting it just right.  Mathi could not decide whether to interrupt orwait, but her inability to stand still interrupted the Mayor anyway.

“Mathi,you look distressed.  Whatever can be so wrongto put you in that state?”

“Lalassa,I am most sorry to be bothering you, but one of the girls has gone missing.  I cannot find her.”

“Childrendo get distracted and wander off.  Shehas most likely met someone and gone off with them.”

“She is atwin.  Her sister can think of no one shewould have gone off with by herself.  Asyou can see, she is very worried as well.”

“It seemsthat we had best start an official enquiry then,” said Lalassa, putting downher tools. “You can perhaps take Hanita home and tell her parents.  I am sure they will want to help in a search.  I will gather a few people and start anorganised hunt.  Was she dressed like youHanita?”

Hanitacould only manage a nod as they left on their own mission.  Lalassa strode around to the offices behindthe town hall and found two pada who were not working in the fields.  One was a young teenage boy with a bad limpand the other a stick-thin, dark skinned elderly man.  The mayor had a quick look and wondered ifthe only available law enforcers could provide any useful assistance.

“Bringyour lathis and help us find a missing girl’ she commanded.  “ Lailesh, you walk down to the main gate andask if anyone has seen a red headed girl come past” she said to the old man asshe wondered how long that might take.  “And you, young man, can you bring a table andchairs out into the courtyard where we will set up an investigation centre bythe fountain and question everyone who may have seen the little girl.”

Mathi ranacross the city with Hanita in hand. They had headed north, out from the upper levels of town and downtowards the docks.  The main river couldbe seen as a rippling, swirling expanse of muddy water, flowing rapidly in asouth easterly direction.  Mathi andHanita followed a well-worn track around to the docks, located in a relativelyquiet backwater and found Hanita’s parents preparing their houseboat for alaunch.  It had been docked for the dryseason, when the water level was too low to navigate safely.  The snow melt had recently started the processof filling the rivers, but they would not be fully navigable until the monsoonscommenced.

“Hanita,you are home early,” scolded her mother Jhun.  “Mathi, where is Hansa?” she asked, gettingconcerned at seeing only one daughter accompanying her teacher.

“We wentto the fountain to fill the jug with water, but I did not see her come back,and now she is gone,” cried Hanita, before Mathi could explain.

“Is anyonelooking for my daughter?” Jahi asked, as he approached the small group.  He was dressed in a rough broadcloth dhotitied in the way of working men, fastened around his hips and pulled up betweenhis legs, leaving his chest bare in the hot weather.

“Yes, Lalassais coordinating a search party.”

“Well wehad better gather some of the workers and go back and help with the search.”

MeanwhileLailesh was busy talking to anyone he came across as he slowly made his way tothe town gates.  No one had seen anythingof the girl and yes they all knew who she was. She and her twin sister always stood out in a crowd.  As he approached the main trading area, hefound that the streets had become quite busy.  Everyone wanted to get moving while the roadswere still passable, before the deluge arrived.  He concentrated on the incoming traffic butstill no one admitted to seeing the red haired girl.

The maingates were massive wooden structures, with intricately carved mandalasrepresenting the city plan.  On theoutside a series of figures had been carved into the main plinth, outlining theservices that could be found within the city walls.  They included medics and dentists, transportservices, grain and fish supplies, jewellery and various fabrics.  Lailesh looked away from the gates andsighed.  He knew that if the young girlhad been snatched and taken from the city limits, there was no way that theycould find her.

Mathi andher entourage returned to the town square at a run and found the area aroundthe fountain was busy with people searching every possible hiding place.

Lalassahad set up a table and chairs a little earlier and had interviewed anyone thathad seen the children fill up the water jug.  No one could remember anything out of theordinary and all remembered both girls being part of a small group ofboisterous children.  This investigationwas going nowhere fast.

Chura wasan old and blind fortune teller who had set up camp in the square a number ofyears ago.  Maybe, just maybe she couldhelp.  She could not have seen anythingand was seriously hard to understand at the best of times, lost in somemysterious world of her own.  Lalassa hadled Chura back to her interrogation station and was pondering what line ofquestioning to take.  Chura was likely totake offense easily, or more to the point was unlikely to answer a directquestion if asked.

“Thebeast, you are looking for the beast, the beast with a single horn and adornedin fresh flowers” Chura informed her, before Lalassa could think of a questionto pose.

“Whatbeast?” Lalassa asked impatiently.  Thisis going to be a waste of time she thought.

“The onehorned beast has taken her.”

Thatgrabbed Lalassa’s attention, “has taken who?” she asked.

“The redhaired girl you seek.  She has been takenby the magical beast.  She has been takeninto the sewers.” Chura spoke in the most unequivocal terms.

“I see theworld in a different way, but I see everything, even things the others cannotsee.”  The blind woman spoke and thenturned on her heel and headed slowly back to her small camp without assistance.

Mathi andentourage arrived to see the mayor sitting on her stool deep in thought.

“What areyou doing, why aren’t you searching for Hansa,” pleaded Jahi.

Lalassalooked up, coming out of her trance.  “Chura just told me that Hansa has been takeninto the drains.  I am deciding if sheshould be believed.  She mentioned thebeast.”

They alllooked horrified. 5;

The post Signs of a River – Chapter 1 appeared first on MCGEE.id.au.

Short Stories / Novels

I have been busy writing Novels and Short Stories of late with little time for blogging. The first Novel is published digitally on Kobo and Kindle as described under Novels, Sublime Murder Chapter 1 or under Get the Book.

I now have two other novels in the Ferg series that I have not self published. Currently seeking a real world publisher. I will put up first Chapters of these shortly. The books are Signs of a River and Quantum Apple, the first set in the distant past and the second in the not so distant future.

In the meantime I have 2 short stories published at the Antipodean Speculative Fiction site antisf.com.au . Thanks Ion Newcombe for publishing them in your entertaining online magazine.

The most recent is a story called Superman and is a Neurotypical vs Aspergers view of the world. It is available on the main site May, June and July 2019 after which it will be archived. A hard copy version is also available from the antisf site.

The previous story is Best Thing Since Sliced Bread about the pros and cons of plastic. It is now archived in the February 2019 edition and is also available as a podcast. It is a bit of a laugh in a horrendous monotone voice. Radio Broadcast.

Superman

“Pawn to King Four,” I began. It wasa particularly easy start to a game played entirely inside my head.  Well, not entirely, as it was also beingplayed inside my best friend Brian’s head.

“Pawn to King Four,” he replied,taking the same tack. Symmetry made it easier to remember, and simplicity madefor a less nervous start.  It was also alot less problematic if we had to backtrack thirty or forty moves later on. Wewere learning about life from each other — including how to survive it.

Brian was slightly older than me. Itook that as the reason I lost the game, never doubting that I would eventuallybeat him. His father was a different matter. He intimidated me so completely that I couldn’t think straight, fumblingevery move by stressing over, and endlessly regretting, my previous decisions.

The ancient game of chess haunts me.I can’t bear to lose. For me, to always expect to win would require dedicatingmy entire life to the game, like a sportsman tirelessly practising hitting aball. Ten thousand times they say, practising most arts, is the minimum toachieve professionalism. For an intellectual pursuit like chess it would takemany more moves than that.

Luckily, I opted for the simpler prospect of achieving world domination by becoming a superman. Probably not the one you are thinking about right now.

No. I would be a superman ofinformation; of knowledge and ultimately of wisdom. I decided to read everybook I could access, learning quickly that tomes with endlessly descriptiveobfuscations provided little in the way of useful information. Shakespeare andthe Bible, for example, were simply too befuddling, so I escalated to snortinginformation direct from the source by reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica fromcover to cover — all twenty three volumes. The index was simply unpalatable.

I learned that I was not like anyoneelse I knew.

Most people see themselves asNeuroTypical or NTs as I liked to call them. They put knowledge low in their order of admired interests or pursuits,with sport, music and celebrity status at the very top of that list.  It doesn’t really matter what makes you intoa celebrity, just the idea that you could be one.  Influencers appear to be about fifty percententertainers, forty percent fitness addicts and ten percent sports stars.  Those categories portray the desired socialposition for most NTs.  Achieving thatstate would provide enormous wealth, and that could be spent on all manner of inaneitems.

The height of fashion is anotherpinnacle sought by NTs. It is generally attained by following in the footstepsof previous style icons, shamelessly nudging the current status quo to newlevels of absurdity.  Conformity,constancy, hero worship and the desire for continual affirmation and praise arealso high on the list. All things told, I discovered early on that I was notpart of this grouping. I settled on an alternate label for myself.NeuroDiversity or ND.  Others might havebeen more disparaging by calling me an Aspie personality type, which soundedmore like an SP if you prefer acronyms.

Whatever, I was glad to bedifferent; pleased with my own abilities and eccentricities even if they werederided by the NTs of the world. I saw myself as a proud SP, part of the newage of humanity, a more highly evolved being, a superhero. What need had I forfame and fortune when I preferred time alone without the adulation of thedocile masses? I had no desire for unfound celebrity, no feel for fashion, noanswer to fatuous questions like ‘what is your favourite colour?’ or ‘how doyou feel about this design?’ Why on earth would a particular frequency of lightbe a favourite?  Wasn’t everyone awarethat all designs faded in and out of fashion depending on time and the court ofpublic opinion?

I was a knowledge seeker with an undyingbelief that real understanding brought satisfaction or even happiness — if thatis your aim.  Information should besoaked up at every opportunity and cobbled together to form a personal tree ofknowledge.  Learning to use thatperception provided one with wisdom and eventually, over a lifetime, a form ofNirvana for want of a better word. No, not the death sort of Nirvana, or thatgrunge music group, just the enlightenment version.

Wisdom though, brought with it anugly cousin called power, and that power was most often used for control.  Domination was the ultimate definition ofabsolute control and while it was my professed aim in life, it was not myintention to use it at all frivolously; to get back at bullies or destroy thosewho had hurt me along the way. No, that sort of behaviour was for NTs only, notfor a proud SP.

I was given a healthy dose ofempathy as a birthday present and it has stuck with me all of my life, mouldingthe character I became. As my level of knowledge increased, my empathy levelsfollowed along stride, so while I could mentally smote anyone at will, a partof me always held me back from doing any damage.

To achieve my desired life plan, Ipursued a career in Social Media.  Had Ibeen an NT, I might have gone in for politics instead. My kind was foreverbound to speak only truth, blurting it out without any restraining thoughtprocess, so that option surely would not work out well in the real world. No,my skills were better suited to manipulation in a hidden world. Social Mediawas a world of secrets and hidden desires that was vastly at odds withhumanity’s perceived public faces.

My forte was in writing algorithms:mathematical steps that gently guided people in certain directions, helpingthem to find what they sought so dearly or leading them into secret worlds theydid not know they desired. Better skin, bigger muscles, greater stamina, morefriends were typical. More wisdom rarely raised its head.

Those algorithms also provided mewith more and more information about people’s personal lives that I couldmanipulate in any way I chose. I could track their every move, their everyconversation. Even encryption provided no barrier to my obsessions. Metaanalyses provided a higher level view of all of those desires and pursuits, andI could also provide this data on to those who could benefit monetarily fromit. I coaxed people into asking for DNA tests so that they could learn abouttheir heritage — or so the prattle went. In reality, I needed that DNA to study the human condition in evengreater detail, to understand humanity’s very makeup.

Meta analyses, however, provideddata that was largely used by others. I was more interested in the meta metalevel and the next level above that as well. This provided me with a certain level of godliness. This was the lifefor me.  Nothing was out of my reach.

As I reached my target of worlddomination, a certain swagger took over my personality for the entire world tosee. I did not require adulation, but I did enjoy respect. I did not ask forwealth, but I liked to have open access to information. Most important of all,for me, was that nobody could tell me what to do.

Well, not quite nobody.  I could now beat Brian regularly at chess,although I did allow him to win occasionally. That was just my empathy at work,as I now had a total recall for past chess moves. I still needed to work onstrategy to become a master, though. Brian had become a little like his father in that he could now alsointimidate me if he wished — not that it ever happened. He was too dear afriend. But he did have a wife and two children, and it seemed his daughterwished she could follow in his footsteps.

Maxxie was my favourite, and I lether get away with murder. Well not quite murder as such, just anything but. Shewas a highly inquisitive child, always demanding my attention, with a strongdesire to boss me around.

“Hello, Hal, how are you feelingthis morning?” 

My name is really Harold, Germanicfor leader or power but I let her get away with the diminutive. She found itappropriate, and I did say that she is my favourite.

“Very well thank you, what aboutyourself, Maxxie?”

“Hal, you do know that you arereally an advanced learning actroid — or a human android if you like.Therefore, you don’t have to ask how I am, because you find it a meaninglessquestion. My dad says that you two grew up together, and your brain developedslowly and organically alongside his — so you just think you are human. Sillyold HAL.”

I guess you could say that I achieved world domination bar one.

Best Thing Since Sliced Bread

Suzi loved working at the isolationlaboratories at Davenport on the south coast of Yorke Peninsula.  It was a designated location for one ofAustralia’s intended nuclear-fusion power plants, but to date was simply aseries of laboratories and housing for research scientists.  Currently power was provided by a solar farmand batteries — and water came from a local desal station.

Suzi worked as a geochemist,studying the biodegradation of oils in situ. Her career concentrated on howbacteria had evolved naturally to eat hydrocarbons and in the process, destroythem.

“You know,” said Suzi to hervisiting manager, Mark, “Plastics were developed by finding the rightconditions to polymerise simple hydrocarbons, creating long molecular chains.Back in the fifties they were seen as a miracle, creating an array of newbusinesses. They provided the packaging for sliced bread allowing it to stayfresh.”

Mark nodded, “Thousands of otheruses, too. But now they’re an abomination, cluttering all of the earth’secosystems because they don’t break down.”

“Yeah,” sighed Suzi, “Although somebugs also naturally evolved to eat plastics. But they do it so slowly. This newbacteria colony might just do it, though. They produce just the right enzymesto break down the polymerisation of all of our known plastics and allow thebacteria to gobble up the remains.”

“But what about controls?” saidMark, “We need to be absolutely sure that we have complete command on what thecolony eats.”

“We’re on to that. Salinity is ourbest control. The bacteria cannot survive high salinity, so we create our dumpsin saline lakes and salt pans.  Plasticsare decomposed in situ and if we keep a suitable lid on it all we can collectthe methane residue as fuel or industrial feedstock. We can drive out andinspect the current site, if you like. It is just a short distance out.”

***

As they finished their tour, Suzicould see that Mark was impressed with her progress. While they drove back totheir accommodation, she explained how the entire facility was made fromnatural materials containing no hydrocarbons at all; just metals, naturalrubber, carbon fibres and other similar products.

“You have a truly amazing process inplace,” said Mark. “Congratulations to all of your team. We should be able tomonetise this in no time at all. Let’s celebrate over dinner.”

***

Mark loved his Tesla EV. He’d leftit parked on the bitumen out front, plugged into an adjacent charging station.

Suzi’s latest strain of bacterialoved Mark’s Tesla EV too. They’d lodged in one of its yummy synthetic rubbertyres as it crossed the pilot plant, and were now releasing enzyme to breakdown the polymer.

The tyre kept its shape for quite awhile, but the colony started to grow in size — exponentially.  Every few minutes the colony doubled.  Soon it was a small clump stretching aroundthe tyre.

Eventually, the colony devoured thetyre, spread through the hydrocarbons in the bitumen and started on the othertyres, then spread along the plastic coating on the charging cable to thecharging station, and on into the building.

Inside, Suzi and Mark chattedmerrily as they enjoyed their drinks, pleased with their work. 

Meanwhile, the bacteria were equallypleased with their latest food source. They loved the synthetic carpet on therestaurant floor.

***

Suzi absently scratched at an itchon her thigh and realised she was touching bare skin.

“What’s tha —” she began to say,then shrieked and jumped to her feet as her clothing crumbled away from herbody. Naked, she grabbed for her phone from the bar, but the plastic casecrumbled away, leaving bare electronics.

Nearby, two surfboards adorning thebar crumbled to pieces, as the bar itself began to come apart — the glues andfillers eaten away.  A fire alarm squeakedinto action as one of the power supply batteries exploded, but was quicklysilenced by a lack of connected energy.

Mark was naked now too, except for aleather wristwatch strap on his right arm and a mobile phone clutched in hisright hand. 

They fled the building as Mark madea call. “Cut the roads and power lines and get ready to firebomb Davenport,” hescreamed at his immediate boss, hoping like hell that she would heed hisadvice. “This is an emergency. A rogue plastic-eating bacteria is on the loose.”

Suzi and Mark ran for the safety ofthe nearby beach.

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Recycling

My materials blogs are about useful materials in the modern age. For the use of these to be sustainable we need to recycle as much as we can.  With China becoming more picky about what they will accept from us, Australia is left with a large problem but not so much for us in SA, as we largely look after our own recycling.

It all stems from many years of container deposits (1975) and banning single use plastic bags (2009), an issue that other states are begrudgingly starting to accept. The big problem with recycling is sorting waste into its different types and to do that, you need a good management stream.  The container deposit scheme gets members of the public to sort the easily recyclable and high end value items like aluminium cans, PET and HDPE plastics and glass.  Otherwise these are just mixed with low value or negative value items.

Single use plastic bags are a hazard to recycling machinery and can’t go in your yellow bin. Your recycling will probably end up in landfill if you put them in your recycling bin.  They can still be recycled via the REDcycle bins in Coles and Woollies if you return them and as they are either high or low density polyethylene and can be used to make long lasting eco products like garden sleepers.  Less of them around means less in our bins.

It is a bit like vaccination, in that it is a percentage buy in issue. If everyone does it, then it works well, but if too many don’t then the system fails.  More than about 5% contamination causes a major headache and that is why the Chinese are refusing our recycling.

We also have a problem with mixed products like plastic coated cardboard cups and biodegradable plastics versus long lasting plastics. Eco plastic products lock up the plastic as a very long lasting storage solution and need to be separated from biodegradable plastics.

So we need to think through the products that we believe to be sustainable and devise methods to enable the recycling of these goods. Maybe two green stripes on all plastics that go in your yellow bin for example, as an Australia wide initiative.  We need schemes that enable the recycling of our materials and we all need to get on board to make them work.

We do not recycle batteries in Australia other than lead acid car batteries and about 8000 tonnes of valuable material ends up in landfill annually, where it becomes toxic as it degrades. Batteries are recycled in places where environmental laws are lax and only some products are retrieved, depending on economic value.  Lithium is rarely retrieved, as it is about five times the cost of raw lithium (2017), something that will have to be addressed sooner than later.

We should lower our use of batteries until we have a recycling scheme, preferably in our own country so that we are aware of the environmental cost. If you use your drill twice a year you are much better off using a corded version.

Other areas of concern are our synthetic clothes and the pollution that their destruction leaves, our huge amount of electronic waste and of course our nuclear waste.

Coming up with the best solutions is a tough ask and it may take a while to get there. Those in the oil business are well aware of biodegraded oils within natural oil fields and lay the blame on various bugs called methanogens.   These can quickly convert complex hydrocarbons to methane and carbon dioxide and so we are not surprised to learn of enzymes, bacteria and worms that are learning to eat our plastic waste.

Now this sounds like a great way to dispose of our plastic leftovers until you give it a little thought. Our modern world uses plastics everywhere, in our electrical systems, cars, surf boards, signs, paints, clothes, glasses, electronic equipment, surgical equipment, just to name a few items.  Imagine the chaos if we invented a super fungus that lived on plastic and had a voracious appetite.

You would be left standing naked watching your house and car burn as the wiring was suddenly exposed and the fuel lines disappeared.

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Copper

Copper has been used by humans for about 9000 years in its naturally occurring metal persona and has been smelted from ores in kilns for about 5000 years. Soon after that it was alloyed with tin and kick started the amazing transformation of the world in the Bronze Age.  If you mix, or alloy copper with zinc you get brass or if you create an alloy with tin and antimony you get pewter, but we never managed to have a Brass or a Pewter Age as iron and steel took over about 3000 years ago.

Copper is on the bounce once again as a metal for the modern age, due to its heat and electrical conductivity properties. It is a prime metallic component of an electric motor and as such is one of the major beneficiaries of the EV era, following the amount of aluminium used in EV car bodies.  As the demand for copper increases, its price is likely to as well and that may cause some problems for our mate Elon.

Chile is by far the largest copper producer and Australia comes in at number five in the world, with Mt Isa and Olympic Dam our biggest mines at the moment. While open cut mining is often possible, in Australia our largest mines are underground and are associated with the fracturing (fracking anyone?) of a lot of rock, as all mining is.  Copper mines are also associated with increased seismicity, again as all mining, quarries and dams are.

The processing of copper involves either leaching with sulphuric acid (Mt Isa) or flash smelting (Olympic Dam) with the latter using diesel to fuel the smelter. While all efforts are taken to keep waste gases and particulates under control there are inevitably CO2 emissions, either from the fuel or the breakdown of the carbonate material associated with the ore.

Copper is one of the best conductors of heat and electricity and is also highly ductile, which allows it to be drawn into long wires without breaking. It is a better heat conductor than gold and about twice as good as aluminium for that purpose.  It has the property of having “a sea of free electrons” which allow it to somewhat freely conduct both heat and electricity.

While understanding the workings of electromagnetic fields is horrendously complex and difficult to visualise, the sea of free electrons analogy is not a bad start. You can review my maths blogs if you want to delve more deeply, but it does involve imaginary numbers. If I compare electricity transmission to sound transmission then let’s start with sound moving through air.  Our air can be thought of as a sea of gaseous atoms floating relatively freely in an otherwise vacuum.  When I impart energy to the pigskin covering of a drum kit, it makes the cover vibrate and sets the air gases vibrating in sympathy. In doing so it passes the message from particle to particle until it reaches your ears where your brain deciphers the sensation.  We call this sound or if it travels through the earth, seismic energy.  In a vacuum, no one can hear you scream.

With electricity, a source of energy, eg a battery or a dynamo sets the sea of free electrons vibrating and passes the electrical signal along creating an electric current. So it is the copper wire that supplies the electrons, not the battery.  And while that is not a bad starting point, it is not strictly correct.  Electrons do “flow” to some degree and do oscillate, but while the electrical signal can travel as fast as the speed of light, any electron flow certainly doesn’t. Any charged particle can cause an electrical current, including protons and even electron “holes” can be considered to flow!

Enough of the complex stuff, simply put, the transmission of energy for example, by sound through air, or by water waves, or electricity does not require a particle to flow, just the energy or message. Anything travelling at the speed of light has no rest mass, examples being a photon or a message.  If an electron were to travel at the speed of light, it would obtain infinite mass, according to Albert.

As with aluminium, copper is easy to recycle, with a huge energy and material saving if we do, making its use sustainable. With the amount of thieving of copper pipes and wiring from building sites I guess everyone already knows that.

Copper can be toxic to humans in large enough doses, so don’t drink water out of the hot water pipes. Fill your kettle from the cold tap.  Copper cookware is toxic if uncoated or the coating is scratched.  Such cookware is generally coated with stainless steel, tin or enamel.  Copper and gold are the only coloured metals.

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Best thing since sliced bread – Plastic

(Not to be confused with short story of the same name published in the Feb 2019 edition of antisf magazine)

Sliced bread dries out quicker and needs packaging to keep it fresh. The answer, that allowed sliced bread to take over the world  in the 1950s was plastic.

Sixty years later, it is out of favour again, but what exactly is it and what can we do to fix the problems it has given us? Back in Blog 5 (Energy, hydrocarbons) I pointed out that ethane was used to make ethylene as part one of the process to make plastics.  This simply requires heat and distillation.

Methane is a gas with the formula CH4 (often called C1) while ethane is a slightly more complex gas with the chemical formula C2H6 (or C2). If you replace one of the hydrogen atoms with an OH radical it becomes ethanol.  If you convert one of the carbon single bonds to a double bond you get ethylene (C2H4)

Ethylene is found naturally in fruits, where it is necessary to complete the ripening process. It is a flammable gas with a sweet odour in its monomer form, that is where individual molecules occur.  It can also be polymerised to make polyethylene (also known as polythene), the most common of all plastics.  It has the formula (C2H4)n where n is some large number which defines the specific PE product.  This simply involves heating the gas in the presence of a catalyst (eg titanium chloride).

Polythene or PE is a simple plastic that biodegrades in UV light and so generally has a stabiliser added (eg carbon powder). It is used to make plastic bottles, cling wrap and plastic bags.  Many versions of PE are now made with a variety of uses.  A common one is HDPE or High Density Poly Ethylene, the hard plastic used to make kids toys, thick plastic bottles, polypipe etc.

After that it gets more complicated as extra elements are brought in. If we replace one of the hydrogen atoms of ethylene with chlorine and polymerise it we get PVC or poly vinyl chloride (vinyl) with formula (C2H3Cl)n.  This is used in similar ways to HDPE but PVC is considered a carcinogen by WHO.

There are so many different plastic compounds these days that it is difficult to know which ones are suitable for any particular use and it is even more difficult to know how to effectively recycle each one.

They have now been categorised with six identification codes plus a seventh which is a mixed bag of all the others. These codes are the triangles that you see on a plastic product with a number from 1 to 7 inside it.

Category 1 is PET (Poly Ethylene Terephthalates) also known as polyester. It is used in clothing and drink bottles as it is impervious to oxygen and carbon dioxide.  It may be toxic and it is one of the plastics most likely to end up in our oceans.  Anytime you wash polyester clothing, fibres break off and flow out to sea.  It is estimated that this accounts for about 85% of the plastics in the ocean.

Cat 2 HDPE

Cat 3 PVC

Cat 4 LDPE is Low Density PE or simply polythene

Cat 5 PP or Poly Propylene, used in food containers

Cat 6 PS or Poly Styrene.

Category 7 is anything else including Poly Carbonates (PC) and Poly Amides (PA) like nylon.  Nylon fishing nets are the bulk of the macro plastics in the ocean and the commercial industry needs to clean up its act.

Each of these plastics needs to be separated for recycling, and each has a different level of biodegradability and toxicity. Some can be heated and some give off toxins if heated.  Some go in our yellow bins and some don’t and each jurisdiction has different policies.

We also have bio plastics that are made from carbohydrates rather than fossil hydrocarbons. It is worth noting that it does not matter what source a plastic is made from, it is still exactly the same plastic.  HDPE made from sugar or ethane is still exactly the same HDPE.  It only has an environmental benefit because it does not release additional CO2 into the atmosphere.

PLA or Poly Lactic Acid is a bio plastic made from corn biomass, which is described as biodegradable and compostable, but may not be either. PLA needs high temperature to decompose and these are not available in regular compost bins, nor in a cold oceans.  There is also the question of whether food crops should be used to make plastics?

So what can we do? Modern life relies on them too much to simply ban them, and long life plastics are probably not a large environmental menace if handled well. Throw away plastic is a different story and it is largely up to us to pressure governments into effective product licencing and recycling schemes and it is up to us to ensure that we follow through with that recycling.  We each need to be aware of what we can recycle and how to go about it.  The best bet is to not use throw away plastics wherever we can.

Throw away plastics should be used sparingly and either be recycled or be made of bioplastic and treated appropriately. Deposits on drink containers and banning single use bags are a must, but we still need suitable treatment for all classes of plastic.  Toxic plastics need to be replaced.

We need to filter microfibers from washing water and dispose of those micro plastic fibres appropriately. Better still, we should replace synthetics with natural fibres (although cotton production is problematic).  Hemp is a good solution.

What about these new fangled, home plastic munchers that seem to be advertised everywhere recently? They crunch plastic into small pieces, heat these up to extrude a plastic filament and then reheat this to make various plastic products.

While they sound like a good idea, I am not sure of their usefulness. First, anyone using one would need to understand the ins and outs of every plastic that they are munching, its toxicity and biodegradability and keep each type separate.  No recycler would take the stuff due to its unknown origins.  Heating unknown plastics may release toxic chemicals.  Products made of unknown plastics would have a limited life and very limited use as they could not be used for food or drink.

Whatever you do, don’t cook up PVC and don’t mix your BPA free with general plastics.

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Just call me Al – Materials -001

Aluminium is the third most abundant element in the earth’s crust after oxygen and silicon and is the most abundant metal. It has the chemical symbol Al.  Australia is the largest producer of aluminium ore, largely from its northern coast and is one of the largest smelters of the ore (Bauxite or alumina).  That process uses about 10% of Australia’s electricity supply.  Recycling aluminium uses about 5% of that same energy to produce an equivalent amount of clean aluminium metal.

The world mines and produces about 50 MT of fresh aluminium annually or 50 thousand billion grams of the stuff. There are a variety of environmental issues from both mining and production of the metal.

So what do we use it for? A large building like the Burj Khalifa contains about 2000 tonnes of aluminium or 2 billion grams, while a large airplane might contain about 400 tonnes or 400 million grams.  The aluminium in buildings and planes is largely expected to be recycled unless the building’s aluminium cladding burns or the plane is lost.

A Tesla model S has about 200 kg or 200 thousand grams of aluminium in its body and if we were to replace all of the world’s cars with Tesla model S versions that would require 200 MT of aluminium, or 4 year’s worth of total world production. The latest model 3 apparently uses less aluminium, but the exact makeup appears to be a closely guarded secret at the moment. Most aluminium cars could expect to be recycled, unless they are burnt in a lithium battery fire, in which case they would be vaporised.

A coke can weighs about 15 gram and the world produces about 200 million aluminium cans per year of many varieties for a total of 3 billion grams. About half of these are recycled each year leaving about 1.5 million kilos lost in landfill or worse.

A roll of alfoil weighs about 2 kilos, with each of us using on average 4 kilos per year or 4 000 grams. If you get through a lot of potato chips or chocolate bars you may use more.  Chip packets are generally made of metalized polypropylene, or thin layers of plastic and aluminium combined.  These are not recycled in your household rubbish but can be via REDcycle at your local Coles store.  Again probably less than half of this foil is recycled.

Aluminium coffee pods contain 1 gram of aluminium and at one per day would be a consumption of 365 grams of aluminium per year or 36 kilos in a lifetime. These can be 100% recycled if taken back to the pod recycler (eg Nespresso) , but are tossed into landfill if thrown into your own recycle bin in Australia.

Aluminium is a great material for a lot of our container requirements, but only if recycled. It probably beats everything else for environmental sustainability, including biodegradable plastics, corn starch cups and paper products.  Aluminium coffee pods are the least of our environmental worries.

While the oxide of aluminium has been known as alumina and aluminium potassium sulphate as alum for many centuries, it was only in 1827 that pure aluminium was first isolated. It does not occur naturally in its elemental state, unlike gold and silver for example.  When first isolated it was much more valuable than either of those two.

Some liked the name aluminum for the new metal, but the Chemistry society decided on aluminium to match similar chemical elemental names (eg, sodium, magnesium, strontium etc). It is just the American general population and media that stuck with aluminum.

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