'A Solar System'

‘A SOLAR SYSTEM’

A SHORT STORY BY TIM ROBERTS

When he came to reccy the site after getting the job his little lad Harry thought the field looked like a lake. Jase could see what he meant now - arriving at dusk with the sun slinting on line after line of panels gazing up at their god slinking off westward.

The Solar Farm did look like a lake - a lake of fire in the sunlight; but a lake dotted with islands in its present state as the state-of-the art photovoltaic double-sided panels were only three quarters finished. Hence why they needed the likes of Jase to patrol the site in his capacity as nocturnal security operative. Who was he kidding? He’d bagged a job as night watchman while he was between jobs as an electrician, was the long and the short of it.

He’d often take Security Guard posts to tide him over between Sparky jobs when the redundancy was mean. Many wouldn’t touch such work with a barge pole - but it suited him. If you could walk and see and you didn’t mind your own company then it was easy work. Besides, it wasn’t as lonely work as it used to be in the old days now you had your phone and Craig Charles on Radio Two. And of course there was Polly just down the far end of the field.

He’d already taken a stroll down to Polly and back on his initial patrol - wading through the panels in the blue twilight until the floodlight sensors snapped on as he passed by them. Such technology always made him think of Michael Jackson in the ‘Billy Jean’ video. He told Polly so when he reached the lower field and smiled as he looked forward to Craig Charles and his soul music later in the evening.

Craig might yet be noticeable by his absence on this Saturday night, mind you. The portakabin radio was on the blink and Jase needed to get it working as he needed his phone on this occasion. Not too much trouble for a card-carrying Sparky like Jase. He fetched his tool box from the Fiat and set about rewiring the radio. Twenty minutes screwdriving and circuit soldering later and the radio was fixed. It was touch and go to begin with as Jase gave himself a shock as he removed the housing - the bloody thing was only still plugged in. He must be out of practice. But now here it was tuned to Johnnie Walker with Trevor Nelson still to go before Jase’s favourite Scouser started spreading the Funk and Soul...

Jase reckoned he could get another circuit of the site patrolled before the night drew in deeper and Johnnie Walker passed the baton on to Trevor Nelson. “Johnnie’s playing some right maudlin tracks tonight” Jase mused as he rattled his flashlight into action and the veteran DJ’s playlist seeped from Leonard Cohen to Nick Drake.

Little Harry’s Lake of Fire had become a millpond in the moonlight as he waded waist-deep in solar panels once more, with the patchy islands now more like oversized Lilly pads. For some reason the floodlight sensors refused to snap on as he skirted the far side of the solar farm and he tutted up at them, wondering if he’d be breaking too many Health and Safety rules if he had a crack at them like he’d fixed the radio.

He found his thoughts wandering into weird places as he trudged through mud towards Polly’s stiff-standing figure, standing like crossed staves in the moonlight. Like the irony dawned on him for the first time that here he was : Nightwatchman for a field full of solar panels; guarding the Sun by Moonlight. He huffed a laugh at it, like he was somehow drunk, and his brain became stuffed with the sun and the moon pulling and the tides ebbing and flowing.

“It’s not like you to be so uncharacteristically philosophical.” Polly commented as he drew up close to her rubber face. But of course it must have been his surprisingly overactive imagination as Polly couldn’t have made such a comment, because Polly was a scarecrow. That is, Polly was a scarecrow. Ever since her cornfield had been repurposed as a solar farm and sprouted panels instead of crops, Polly had been upgraded - promoted even. Jase’s security firm had dressed her in a high-viz jacket and replaced her straw hat with a peaked cap. Only her Halloween witch’s mask remained unaltered in her new position as deterrent to potential panel swipers. The scarecrow had become a scare-thief.

It was something more and more security firms were doing nowadays - having some leather-faced mannequin stand guard in abandoned municipal buildings. Jase had thought it was a good idea and a bit of a laugh - until he realised the practice was doing the likes of him out of a job. He couldn’t take it out on Polly herself though, for whom he had developed a bit of a soft spot. It wasn’t her fault she was being exploited.

On his way back up the field towards the portakabin, the light sensors failed to switch on once more. Jase would have to fetch his tools again from the Fiat, but while he was here he might as well shin up the lugged light pole to see what he was dealing with.

Halfway up, he looked towards the portakabin and nearly fell straight back down again when he saw a figure standing in front of the building, waving at him. Peaked cap. High-viz. Just like himself. Just like Polly. For a crazy second he thought Polly had dragged herself up to the top of the field like some uniformed Wurzel Gummidge. Then he rationalised that someone must have erected another Security Scarecrow in the time it took him to patrol the site and circuit the field. But this idea was as ridiculous as Polly coming to life and the figure appeared to be waving at him like it was drowning in panels - desperate to attract his attention. And the last time he checked scarecrows did not wave.

He clambered back down the floodlight and climbed his way up through the moon beamed solar panels to the top of the field - but the figure had disappeared. There was nobody standing there waving at him in the moonlight. There was just the moonlight. And silence.

Silence? Where had Johnnie and Trevor and Craig gone? Why wasn’t the radio still playing?

When he crossed the threshold back inside the portakabin he found out. The radio was charred and in pieces on the floor of the tiny office. Fallen tools from Jase’s trusty tool box littered the chip-board floor. And there - in the threadbare armchair adjacent to the security desk - slumped the figure that had been beckoning him up from the lower field just minutes ago; its body stiff and scarred and stinking of piss and defecation in its electrified, lifeless state.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   

Farmer Birling loved watching the sun rise, reflected on the solar panels that now filled the land he had sold to the Coca Cola company. He always thought the panels resembled waves crashing against the shore of his farmhouse garden at the top of the field as if the few sheep he had left were running from the tide coming in.

That’s funny. A Fiat was still parked outside the site office. Security had usually long since gone by this time and the workmen would be arriving any minute to finish the job. He marched towards the portakabin, ready to read the riot act at some security minion asleep on the job but stopped dead in his tracks when he pushed wider the ajar door and found Jase’s cold, slouching body sitting in its own curdled waste in an armchair.

The farmer knew he had to make sure : pulse, breath. He even looked into Jase’s glassy eyes as the sun flooded in and filled the little room with its awesome light. But no. There were no signs of life.

THE END.