Golden Apples of the Sun

Golden Apples of the Sun
by
Duncan John Fatz

"I wish I could control this damn shaking - it's so embarrassing -
anyone looking at my trembling limbs might ignore my youthful features
and suspect that I were an old man.

"What did that television programme say last night? It was some
documentary thing - skimming across the facts, as usual, and coming up
with their own conclusions. Something about genetic engineering? That
was it - genetically altering the receptors to neurotransmitters in the
brain might be the solution to stopping the uncontrolled tremors of
Parkinson's Disease. I don't expect that such a thing could help me -
I've had my affliction for too long.

"Damn, look what I've done now - a torn page; old paper obviously
can't stand the frenzied movements of my recalcitrant hands. I've
damaged the only account of how the seeds of my torment were planted,
but when was that seed first sown? It was so long ago, but, in truth, I
suppose this is the real beginning."

8 June 1911
0700 hours. Skies clear, weather fine, a light easterly breeze of 4
mph.
Burner fuel, canopy lines and ties checked. Barometer, vacuum pump,
phials, aerometer and thermometer checked. Camera, film, telescope and
filters checked.

Barometer reading 733mmHg. Estimated altitude 1,000 feet. Conditions
clear.

Barometer reading 682mmHg. Estimated altitude 3,000 feet. Conditions
clear.

Barometer reading 638mmHg. Estimated altitude 5,000 feet. Conditions
clear. First phials filled, labelled 1a to 1e.

Barometer reading 522mmHg. Estimated altitude 10,000 feet. Temperature
12oF. Conditions clear. Second phials filled, labelled 2a to 2e. Camera
and telescope mounted on tripod with filter. First pictures taken -
plates 1 and 2.

Barometer reading 413mmHg. Estimated altitude 15,000 feet. Wind speed
16 mph. Conditions clear. Third phials filled, labelled 3a to 3e.
Plates 3 and 4 taken

Barometer reading 314mmHg. Estimated altitude 20,000 feet. Conditions
clear.

21 June 1911
It has been almost two weeks since I staggered from the ruin of my
balloon, and this is the first time that I have felt able to set pen to
paper.

Although my thoughts are somewhat addled and my body pained, I will
attempt on these pages to fill in some of the gaps of the intervening
days.

On reaching 20,000 feet I once more filled five of the evacuated
phials with air from that altitude, for analysis on my return to terra
firma, and again I turned the camera and the telescope towards the sun
to record sun-spot activity and the solar flares which had been so
prominent over the previous three days. It was then that I lost
consciousness. I cannot say precisely how long I lay stretched out in
the basket at the mercy of the wind. All I know is that when I
eventually came to, and managed to land my craft, I had travelled more
than sixty miles along the line of the Alps to the village of Tignes.
How I was spared from being smashed against the side of some mountain,
again, I do not know, nor is it a thought on which I wish to
dwell.

At first I did not feel unduly affected by my experience; I merely put
my fainting episode down to the rarefied atmosphere at that altitude,
and my later episodes of malaise as being attributable to the shock. In
the light of more recent events I no longer feel that to be the case,
and nor did the doctor at Tignes - which is why he sent me here to
Paris, to be seen by a specialist. I told him that I would rather
return to England, but he was quite adamant that a sea voyage could
prove dangerous and was out of the question. Dangerous for whom I
wonder. In my fits I swing from burning fever to shivering ice, from
ravenous hunger to cloying thirst, from ecstatic euphoria to abject
depression. I cannot predict when these seizures will afflict me nor
how long they will last, I can only dread their arrival.

It is only three hours since my last fit and it has drained me
considerably - I must sleep.

22 June 1911

I was prey to another series of fits last night, which left me
drained, and I must confess scared. If I am to die then let it be so
and let it be soon, for I do not believe my frame can withstand the war
which is raging within it for much longer. The doctors, even after all
their tests seem to have little idea as to the cause of my trauma, and
so the chances of them finding a cure are, to my mind, very
remote.

Marianne arrived in Paris today and came to see me with the young man
in tow about whom I have heard so much. A presentable man this Philip
Lander, I have certainly seen worse material for a potential
son-in-law. He is a veterinary surgeon by profession and seemed very
interested in my condition.

Marianne looked pale, but she assured me that this was only due to
fatigue from the journey and her worries for me. She is so like her
mother - fretting for the welfare of others so much that she neglects
to look after herself. I do hope she manages to get some rest. At least
they have managed to find lodgings locally so she has not far to travel
on her visits.

3 July 1911

I have neglected my diary dreadfully during the course of Marianne's
visit. If I am being truthful, and I have promised myself that this
shall be a true account of events, it is not through distraction or
pain that I have been remiss in my record keeping but through a lack of
words to describe my condition.

The pain has indeed been intolerable and nothing seems to be able to
dim it. Dr Defresne did suggest the use of opiates to alleviate my
suffering, but they cloud the brain, and I feel that I will need all of
wits if I am to survive this. In truth I must also admit to being
afraid; afraid that if I sink into a drug induced oblivion I will not
have the capacity or, perhaps, even the inclination, to pull myself out
of it once more towards the pain which would await.

There has been a constant ebb and flow of pain throughout my body over
these preceding days, but, now I note that it is sharper and more
concentrated at the extremities of my limbs. It is almost like an
incoming tide whose power is only really perceived when it reaches the
end of its journey to crash upon the beach. This analogy to my body
being nothing more than a vessel for a seething sea I do not believe is
totally extraneous to the truth as, at various times, I can feel my
blood surging through me in burning currents. I have made a note of the
times at which these occur at the back of my diary.

Marianne's fianc?, Philip, has also been taking extensive notes on my
condition and is almost as attentive as my dear daughter.

4 July 1911
Today the pain has been much better. After an initial surge of agony
which awoke me at 06:15 it ebbed away until now at 21:00 I feel almost
altogether free from it. To be without pain almost feels strange to me
- it is as if a physical part of me has been surgically removed.

5 July 1911

I truly feel that the tide has turned. After the initial surge of pain
which awoke me at 6:00, and which I believe I successfully hid from the
eyes of the doctors, there has been little else.
My daughter and her fianc? have tentatively made arrangements for me to
be admitted to a hospital in London on my return to England, and, on
the provision that I make my way there immediately and that my
condition continues to improve, Dr Defresne has agreed to consider
discharging me in four weeks time.

"The other entries are all pretty much the same recording my recovery
until the end of the year. Might as well skip those.

"Let me try another volume. How does it begin?"

1 January 1916

Another year begun, and another chart of days laid out on which
scientists will plot out their voyages of discovery, and I, like a
small child, will eagerly await word of their return from the unknown,
and gasp in delight at the wonders they find.

Eleven years ago, Starling told the world that there were substances
leaking from our organs which could alter the states of our bodies as
easily as if they were conductors directing an orchestra, and these he
termed 'hormones'. Seven years ago Cushing removed part of the
pituitary gland and helped those who, like myself, suffered from
excessive lib growth associated with acromegaly, and last year Kendall
proved that the thyroid gland regulated iodine levels in the body. Who
knows what may happen this year? I can only hope that the research of
such men will lead to even greater improvements in my condition.

Philip seems convinced that my complex array of symptoms is due to an
imbalance of these hormones within my body, brought about by my
altitude at the time of the accident and the peculiar solar activity
which I had been investigating. He is throwing himself into researching
his theories with a gusto which I find both laudable and alarming.
Every day he works in his surgery and every night he toils in his
laboratory, neglecting James and relegating him to the care of the
housekeeper. It is as though he blames the boy for Marianne's death.
The heavens know how many women die in childbirth; a boy of three
cannot be held responsible for the effect of his passage into life. He
has lost a mother, need he lose a father also?

A resolution for the new year: honoured as I am that Philip works
tirelessly for my cause he must be made to spend more time with James
and learn to grieve for Marianne in the manner which my gentle daughter
would have wished. There, it is in writing - let it be so.

"Noble sentiments, these pages are littered with them. The road to
hell is paved with good intentions, winding their way towards eternal
flame, but, where was the end? Where was that final temptation
recorded? Ah, yes, here it is."

15 June 1922

Myth, literature and legend, all have related how certain apples
bestowed eternal youth on those who consumed them. Strange that the
humble apple should be the fruit singled out to supposedly possess such
wondrous properties. Perhaps it dates back to Adam's original
indiscretion in the Garden of Eden. Whatever the reason, in all these
years I never supposed that the antidote to time's deadly onslaught
could be simply plucked and eaten - but I was wrong.

Eleven years ago, almost to the very day, when the solar activity, as
now, was at its very peak, I set out on my fateful journey into the
atmosphere. Little did I know then that my pituitary gland was ripening
in that strange light like some golden apple of the sun, changing the
hormones within it so that they could not be broken down and would ever
circle throughout my frame in the same quantities and ratios,
maintaining my frame within the stasis of a forty year old man.

I did not believe these theories of Philip's at first. Now, however,
it would seem that the proof is self evident. Here am I, a middle aged
man, physically appearing no different to how I did eleven years ago,
apart from my enlarged hands, feet and jaw, and these damned tremors,
and there is Philip, lying on the my couch shaking and screaming as the
fits take hold of him.

According to Philip the quantity and quality of the hormones
circulating through the body are the factors which order ageing. He
hypothesized that if I were to destroy my own hormones and replace them
with someone younger then my ageing process would reverse. Sheer
nonsense thought I, but there lies the proof. His skin is visibly
tighter, his hair darker and, in between the fits, his bastard eyes
brighter. Those eyes, those lying, bastard eyes. I should have read
them better. I was living in a fool's paradise to suppose that he was
finally taking an interest in James. When he started to take him up in
the balloon he was merely training him - training him for the day when
the solar flares were high once more.

James climbed into the clouds and left his soul there with the angels,
and, when his poor young body fell back to earth, Philip was waiting
for it with knife and fork.

The immortal essence of my grandchild now rages within its new and
squalid home taking over as its host's degenerates, rejuvenating the
coarse flesh and internal organs. Wiping away his hateful visage and
replacing it with the innocent mask of fresh-faced youth. A new apple
of eternal youth lies ripening within that horrid vessel and, beside my
hand lies a knife, but should that apple be plucked?