The Pickle and the Bubble Machine

You probably recognize me. If you don’t recognize my face, then you’ll definitely recognize my name, Ted Gaskins. I created of the Air Bubbler and won the Nobel Prize for doing it. I was Time’s most influential person two years in a row. You know me and you know my product.

But I have to tell you something, it’s all a lie.

The Air Bubbler has been touted as the biggest achievement in climate stabilization in all of human history, but it doesn’t do what everyone says it does. That activated charcoal complex that coats the bubble? Sure, it absorbs some greenhouse gasses, but not nearly as much as the National Climate convention claims. In fact, that isn’t even why I added the complex—I just thought the bubbles would look better that way!

I know what you’re thinking—If the Air Bubbler doesn’t bind greenhouse gasses and remove them from the atmosphere then what’s responsible for the sudden and dramatic decrease? Well, I’ll tell you…

The real credit goes to a wizard.

You don’t believe in magic? Me neither—or at least I didn’t used to. After what I witnessed that day, I don’t really have a choice to not believe in magic. It turns out that there’s a lot more to this world than I ever knew. Wizards and magic aren’t all that exist. There’s something else out there, and it’s a lot more terrifying than a looming climate crisis. In fact, it’s the reason that we’re facing the climate crisis in the first place.

I was in the wrong place at the wrong time—or, maybe, I was in the right place at the right time. It just depends on how you look at it. The idea to do the launch in Death Valley came to me all at once, like a revelation implanted in my mind. Heck, maybe it was put there by the wizard so that he’d have me there when he needed me. I’ll never know. Before it all went down, I thought it was just a clever idea. Death Valley isn’t exactly a populated area, so there wouldn’t be a bunch of people in my shots. That and I needed clear, sunny weather to get the visual effect I wanted. In the right light the bubbles are iridescent—almost glowing.

The Ancient One woke on Launch Day. I was in the middle of nowhere, Death Valley, sweating through my shirt and setting up the five hundred Air Bubblers when the Earth opened up. I’m not talking about a little crack in the ground. I mean it opened up. The earth quaked as the desert split open like a gaping maw. Wave after wave of excruciating heat flowed outward from the wound, which glowed with the intensity of the sun’s core.

I stood there in a daze watching for a minute or two, but as soon as I found my legs I turned to run. There was no way I was going to stick around to see what happened next!

That’s when he appeared. He was old and shriveled like something that got left out in the sun for too long. I made to dodge him and keep on running. There wasn’t a single thought in my head about grabbing him and taking him out of there with me. Maybe that makes me a coward, but I never said I was a hero. But when I turned to weave around him, the old man unfurled, like he’d been coiled up to look small before that moment or something.

When he stood tall like that everything about him changed all the sudden. His ratty old robe was suddenly stark white and glowing in the radiant heat. His matted hair was suddenly lustrous, flowing in the hot wind. And his eyes—moments before they were so cloudy, I might have guessed he were blind, but when he looked at me, I could see fire burning in their depth. Somehow, I didn’t even have to guess he was a wizard. If you think about it, after watching the Earth tear apart before my very eyes, seeing a wizard was only a little surprising.

He bid me to stay and, well I did. I mean, who was I to disobey a wizard? I opened my mouth to ask him what in high hell was going on, but a terrible sound cut me off before I could get the words out. It was a mix of a shriek and a roar, and it was bubbling up from the hole in the desert.

The wizard jumped into action. Throwing his hands forward he began to chant some form of incantation in a language I’d never heard. His voice was low and guttural. As he spoke, a blue light began to flow from his fingertips toward the chasm. He raised his voice and the light grew brighter. It began to swirl around as if it were being carried on the currents of heat.

The thing inside the earth screamed again. It obviously wasn’t very happy about the wizard and his light. The earth shook again and a taloned hand shot out from the depths, reaching upward toward the heavens. The hand came crashing down, impacting the ground and creating another deep split that traveled right up to where the wizard stood. The talons gripped into the earth, hoisting up a terrible beast with a thousand glowing red eyes and rows and rows of fangs that stretched all the way down its throat.

I might have pissed myself if I could have, but I was sweating so much that I don’t think I had a drop of moisture left inside of me. My feet were glued to the ground by the wizard’s command. I wept dry tears of horror as I gazed at the nightmare. I may have even gone mad, had it not been for the wizard’s light.

He thrust his hands forward and directed his light so that it wrapped around the creature’s terrible maw. They were locked into an ancient duel—the wizard’s will against the beast’s rage. Good versus evil, light versus darkness. It was a sight to behold.

The only problem was that the wizard was losing. I could see it in the way his light faltered. Underneath the mystique of his power, the wizard really was just an old man, and he was getting tired.

I’m not sure what came over me, but I asked the wizard if he was okay. My brain must have been scrambled or something because I just opened my mouth and the words plopped out as if I were calling up an old buddy to see how he was doing.

But this is where things got even weirder. The wizard turned to me, pulling one hand away from his epic battle. This allowed the creature to wriggle free of the blue light and scramble toward the surface. Without looking back at the beast, the wizard clenched his remaining fist as if to put it in a choke-hold. His arm trembled with the effort.

That done, he flicked the wrist of his free hand and conjured forth a pickle from thin air. He held the disgusting, limp thing toward me and said, “For the good of the realm, eat this pickle!”

It seemed like a simple enough request, given all that was going on, but there was just one little problem—I hate pickles. I mean, I really hate them. The very thought of biting into a soggy vinegar bomb made me want to curl into a protective turtle-ball and vomit.

I looked at the pickle with its pale, green liquid collecting on its limp tip, then I looked at the wizard.

“You can’t be serious,” I said to him. In that moment, looking at the thing I hated most, I’d forgotten about the nightmare creature crawling out of the Earth to destroy mankind.

The old wizard’s eyes flashed with impatience. His fingers trembled as he held the sloppy, disgusting pickle out as though doing so took more effort than holding the ancient one at bay.

And still I had the gall to protest. I mean, how would eating a pickle do a dang thing to help the situation?

“There’s no time to explain. You must eat it now!” He said, thrusting the pickle forward so that it was right under my nose.

The salty tang overwhelmed my senses so that I nearly vomited right then and there, but then the ancient one roared and I suddenly knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that somehow the fate of the world was entangled in my eating that pickle.

So what choice did I really have? There wasn’t anyone else there to eat the pickle for him, and between eating a pickle and finding out what happened if the beast broke free… well, eating the pickle won by just a bit.

I took the pickle and the wizard looked relieved. I brought it to my lips, then hesitated.

“It must be done with haste!” He warned, returning the pickle hand to the battle.

Dark clouds collected in the formerly clear sky, spiraling into a threatening siphon above the battle and bright lightning mingled with the blue light. I gagged the first bite down. As I chewed the sky opened to a torrential downpour. The ancient one blew out a viscous, cloud of gas and all around us the air turned black with the darkness of a moonless night.

I was halfway through the pickle when I thought to ask, “Why is this happening?” but the wizard didn’t answer. He was too consumed with the effort of the battle. The ancient one pressed forward so that there was now almost nothing between it and the wizard. The old man’s body appeared to be dwindling, as though the light were shrinking him. It didn’t look like he was going to last much longer.

I chomped at the pickle until there were two more bites at most. The vinegar burned my throat making me want to choke and I was suddenly struck with a terrible thought. What would happen if I couldn’t keep it down?

Light and darkness struggled for dominance as the world crumbled around me.

“Swallow the last bite!” The wizard begged as the rest of him converted into the blue light.

I fought my instincts to spit the vile pickle up as acid burned at the back of my mouth. I wanted to scream, but instead I chewed, closing my eyes and willing my body to obey. It didn’t come easy, but finally the last of the pickle went down as the wizard’s light swelled and burst outward toward the ancient nightmare.

The light consumed the area, prompting a terrible shriek from the ancient one. The heavens unfurled and rained down what I can only describe as stardust. The stardust mingled with the swirling blue light, forcing the monster back into the depths.

All at once the Earth fell silent. A great wind swept across the desert and the cavernous hole closed. The wizard was gone. I think he turned into solid light. I was so busy looking for him that it took me a minute to realize that it was night. It wasn’t until the desert cold chilled my sweat-drenched body that it hit me.

Where had the time gone? The whole ordeal couldn’t have taken more than a few minutes.

Was it all a dream?

I might have believed it if it weren’t for the truth churning around in my stomach. The pickle taste lingered in the back of my mouth, making me think I might vomit. The only thing that kept me from chucking the pickle was the fear that doing so would undo what was done.

Shaken, I left the bubble machines in the desert and headed for my hotel room. I thought maybe I needed to sleep it off. Maybe it was a dream, or a hallucination. I mean, it was a really hot day and I was sweating my tail off out there. I could have passed out, you know?

But deep down I knew the truth. I ate that pickle. If it hadn’t been for that I might have convinced myself it wasn’t real. But you don’t forget eating the thing you hate most.

I went back the next morning to collect the bubble machines. That’s when they all came and caught me packing up.

It turns out that overnight, all at once, all the excess greenhouse gasses just disappeared. The Earth’s temperature dropped down to the normal range and the ocean wasn’t acidic anymore. Scientists that monitor that sort of thing managed to trace the phenomena to Death Valley—to where the encounter occurred. They just assumed that it was my machines, and, well, you know the rest of it.

What was I supposed to do? If I told the truth I would have been committed! I had to go with the flow. It was like being swept up in a tidal wave.

After a year or so I couldn’t take it anymore. I knew the Air Bubbler explanation was baloney, but how could I get anyone to believe me without understanding what really happened. The only thing I could do at that point was try to uncover the truth.

I poured over stacks and stacks of ancient texts. I looked into every single legend. I’ve traveled the world searching for an explanation. Piece by piece I put it together.

It turns out that every culture has some legend about the ancient ones. Sure, they’re called something different depending on where you are, but their existence is universal. It was harder to find out about the order of the mages. I had to learn six different languages.

According to the texts a mage of the order learns a complex spell that allows him to banish the ancient one back into the Earth. He uses the power of light and the heavens themselves to get the job done. And the pickle? That was part of the spell. It didn’t have to be a pickle, you see, it just had to be a sacrifice. I happen to hate pickles more than anything, so eating the pickle was a sacrifice. The wizard needed a selfless act to complete the spell. That’s the only reason I was there.

And I was right about the wizard—his very essence turned into the light that defeated the ancient one. That light is also what’s responsible for the climate shift. It caused a sudden burst of energy from the heavens that absorbed the excess of the greenhouse gasses.

I went back to Death Valley and gathered some of the stardust to have analyzed. It contains a small percentage of bicarbonate—just enough to neutralize the ocean. The entire episode resulted in making a more beautiful world.

So why confess now? Why risk people thinking I’ve gone completely insane?

I have to. All of what was done is being undone by people polluting with abandon. People think that global warming has been solved by my machine, but it’s not true and that’s a big problem.

You know how bugs used to be these giant, terrifying things because there was so much oxygen in the atmosphere? Well, the ancient ones are sort of like that—the require a certain atmosphere—the air has to be just so for them to thrive. The more we pollute, the faster they wake up.

It takes a mage two centuries to gain enough power to defeat an ancient one, but at the rate we’re going the next will awaken in just fifty.

That’s why I’m telling you. If something isn’t done—if you don’t quit glossing over the problem by buying the all mighty Air Bubbler… well, the Earth is doomed.