Another climate change short story for you

Last week, we shared Josh Turner's story No Need to Panic with you; Josh was selected by our judging panel as the winning short story in our recent competition.

This week, it's one of the runners-up: here's A Climate Change Carol, by Melanie Thompson. Enjoy!

A Climate Change Carol

A morality fable for the 21st century

“Aargh … That’s better. A real duvet-flapper,” thought the Prime Minister, expelling a copious quantity of methane into the silent No. 10 bedroom. He rolled over to waft the noxious smell away from his darling wife who was lying — “What the heck?”

The wrinkled visage of the former Chancellor of the Exchequer stared back at him, wide-eyed in terror.

“You’ve got to help me,” spluttered the former Chancellor, throwing off the bedding, smoothing his preternaturally black hair and straightening his jacket and tie as if he’d just risen from a fine repast in the Peers Dining Room. “They won’t let me go.” He rattled the chain of the fob-watch clipped to his baggy waistcoat.

“Who won’t?” fawned the PM, knowing that, however abnormal the circumstances of their meeting, this apparition still had the power to get him sacked.

“Them. They say I must walk the hallowed corridors of power and atone for all my sins. And you’re next. So repent. Change your ways, my boy…” – his voice becoming thin and distant – “or for ever … rue … the … consequences.”

“Dammit, I shouldn’t have eaten that French cheese at the reception,” thought the PM. He shifted onto his back and stared up at the dark ceiling: these nightmares really were becoming a pain.

But a nation-load of troubles rarely came between this PM and a good night’s sleep, and he was soon snoring again.

***

The bedroom door burst open and the PM sat bolt upright, ready to fend off the inevitable bounce of early-rising offspring. But it wasn’t the kids, it was Security.

“Come along, Sir …”

“… Sorry to disturb, Prime Minister”

“… Wakey, wakey, we’re going for a ride!” said the guards, looming in the light-filled doorway.

One of them stepped forward. They didn’t look like Security. The PM could see this chap had a tangled mess of shaggy grey hair and was dressed in a white lab coat.

“What’s going on?” asked the PM. He rubbed his eyes and checked his bedside clock: 03:30, so it must be serious.

“Please, put on your robe and come with us. Hurry, we need to catch the next polar bear.”

“The what? Oh I see!” – the penny dropped – “Another blasted dream. OK, I’ll go along with it, if I must, but I could really do with getting some decent shut-eye. Summit negotiations to finish in the morning.”

“Don’t worry, Sir,” said Sir Isaac Newton who, the PM noted, had a horribly pustulating right eye behind his enormous comedy-scientist spectacles.

“Yes, we’ve got to cram three nights’ work into an hour, due to cuts in the Spectral Facilitation Budget,” grimaced Newton’s fop-haired companion.

Tightening his silk robe around his ample girth, the PM stepped forward and held out a hand of acknowledgement to this second guard. “Hey Brian, lovely to see you. I thought you were off filming in South America.”

But the third Guard pushed between them. “Get a ****** move on, you crusty old *****. I’ve got copy to file.”

He licked the end of his pencil and flicked over pages in his shorthand notebook.

“Who’s this guy?” the PM whispered to Newton.

“You’ll find out, in due course, Sir.”

Newton and Cox grasped the PM by his armpits and flung him onto the back of a passing polar bear, while the third guard (dressed in a scruffy-looking mackintosh and black fedora pulled low over his face) grabbed onto the bear’s back paw.

“We’re walking in the air,” falsetto’d Cox.

“Do you mind!” grumbled Newton. “We’re not doing Greatest Hits. This is serious. Now, shall I go first?”

“Be my guest,” said the affable Cox. The one at the back said nothing.

“Can I just ask one quick question?” asked the PM.

“Sure, pronto!” bellowed the black fedora.

“Well, isn’t it just … y’know … aren’t we defying gravity, Sir Isaac? Flying above London on a polar bear … that doesn’t have any … woooagh” The bear swooped to the left, in protest at the implied slur on its aviation skills.

“My dear fellow, don’t you understand?” asked Newton. “We’re ghosts – lighter than a feather. And you of all people should know that the polar bears had to be reskilled due to the collapse of their local economy. Don’t worry, they all have NVQ level 4 in elementary aeronautics. Now, for once, pray silence, and learn …”

Newton inhaled deeply and lowered his voice to a dramatic contrabass: “I am the ghost of climate change past. Behold …”

The bear dived lower over the frozen river Thames, where far below some sort of street party was in progress in the chilly winter gloom. The PM clung tightly around the bear’s neck, feeling slightly alarmed by the draught billowing up his robe.

“… the Great Frost Fair of 1683! See the little people playing games and dancing, roasting oxen, feasting, drinking and …”

“Fornicating,” interrupted the fedora.

“A-hem!” coughed Newton. “A regular occurrence during the Little Ice Age, a natural phenomenon resulting from cyclical changes in solar …”

“Get on with it,” yelled the fedora.

“My turn!” cried Cox, scrambling to his feet and surfing on the bear’s shoulder to get maximum hair-flow impact. The sky filled with sunshine and a hundred birds began to sing. “Look at the earth: isn’t it marvellous? Look at the oceans – so blue. As blue as my enormous blue …”

“Can it, Coxy, your eyes are brown!” interrupted the voice from the bear’s back end.

As the PM looked down the bear skimmed the rooftops so they were close enough to see feckless and unemployed teenagers kicking litter along bustling pavements, and hear the roar of a thousand queuing engines revving on the North Circular.

“See, I am the ghost of climate change present,” whispered Cox in the PM’s ear. “You can’t see anything happening, but it’s there all right. Thousands of scientists are telling you so.”

“Right, I’ve had enough of this. You’re talking out of your a***s,” said the hack from the back. “I’m the ghost of climate change future, and it’s all b*****ks, as I’ve said many times before on the pages of my venerable organ. Look!”

Instantly, the sky turned an angry red. Down below, as London sank below the waves, a flotilla of executive helicopters launched from the city rooftops heading east in search of dry land on the Continent.

“It’s just a scare story, mate, bandied about by smart-alec scientist types and swallowed hook, line and whats-it by European bureaucrats who want to interfere with the British way of life.”

Unable to take any more, the polar bear tipped them all off into the sea.

***

“Would you like chorizo with your oeufs Anglais for brekkers, darling?” asked the PM’s wife.

“No thanks, honeybun. Touch of indigestion. Rotten night last night. Weird dreams. More like – a premonition.”

“Really? About what?”

“Climate change. Pah!” The PM folded his newspaper. “But not to worry. We’ve got it covered. And in any case, I don’t believe in …”

He took a gulp of tea: “… ghosts.”