The story behind the story: Solstice

As the end of the year approaches, Futures is pleased to welcome back John Gilbey with his timely tale, Solstice. John needs no introduction, as he has been a regular contributor to Futures for many years (you can get to his other Futures stories from the links at the end of this post). If you would like to catch up with the rest of his work, then you can try tracking him down at the University of Rural England — or maybe just follow him on Twitter. Here, he reveals the seasonal inspiration behind his latest tale — as ever, it pays to read the story first.

Writing Solstice

Like most folk who have spent much of their careers sauntering around the foothills of academia, I have been to a lot of parties. Some have been good, some bad, some indifferent and some extraordinarily memorable.

Across all these categories, however, some things seem to be universal constants:

• Nobody really understands what the strange protein at the centre of the vol-au-vent actually is.

• Humanity has sent spacecraft beyond the heliosphere but can’t find a way of juggling plate, glass and cutlery.

• There are some folk you ONLY meet at parties, as if they have no other existence …

This last one got me wondering. What if the academic party is only a protrusion into our reality of a hugely complex multi-dimensional intersection? What if you could compare notes and exchange information across the gauzy membrane of space-time that should logically separate the zillion streams of existence? How would you curate such a portal, what would be the constraints on its activity and how would it operate?

I suspect a few of us have stayed at parties longer than we should have, and drunk too deeply of the senior-managements’ munificence. If so, you may recall experiencing the worrying quasi-rotation of the room, the inevitable disorientation and the improbability of walking in a respectable straight line to the exit — assuming you can even find your way out of the room. Add some potentially quantum effects to the mix and you get some idea of how extraordinary our hero found his exposure to the uniquely pan-dimensional architecture of the Council Chamber at the University of Rural England.

I have suggested in the story that the Chamber is a natural phenomenon pressed into the use of humanity – perhaps initially by the adherents of ancient shamanic rituals who chanced upon some of its traits (think standing stones and landscape alignments) — but who knows? Perhaps a distantly benevolent civilization has made it available to us as part of a coaching exercise? Or maybe it only exists because it exists?

Perhaps on another occasion I might try to establish who the elderly gentleman is — and I certainly haven’t excluded the possibility that he is an older incarnation of the narrator. This would probably involve building a narrative structure that would equal the complexity of the portal itself, so could potentially take some serious planning.

Time, as they say, will tell. In the meantime, try to make sure you always leave an academic party by the same door you entered it through — unless you actively want your life to become suddenly, wildly more confusing. Thinking about it, this might explain so much about my career …

Happy Solstice!

Read more of John’s Futures stories