Alive!

by Nicole Stuart

Alan Rogers is escaping the scene of his failed marriage. He travels to Cape Town to set up a Management Consultancy business and stops in at Montagu, where he meets Johan, the owner of a winery, who invites him to undertake some work as Consultant. Alan meets Johan’s sister, a magnetic scientist. She asks him to help her take a photograph inside one of the winery’s new steel tanks. While they are inside the tank, they are locked in by Karin’s insanely jealous husband. The event, at first extremely annoying to Alan and disturbing to Karin, indicating as it does the mental instability of her husband, is fortuitous, as a huge magnetic storm sweeps the Earth and destroys all unprotected living organisms. They emerge to a world dramatically changed, with all power gone, all animal and insect life apparently expunged. They set about rescuing what they can, and building a new existence for themselves. Their prompt recognition of the implications of the event enables them to start restocking the Earth with the few surviving remnants of animal, fish and insect life, as well as starting the nucleus of a new civilization. The scenario represents a real risk to the Earth. The Sun is now approaching a climax in its activity cycle, while the Earth’s magnetic field is declining. The results could be deadly. The story raises many questions, not the least important being “What would you do if an unavoidable natural event were to destroy most of life on Earth?”

231 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 25, 2012