Common cold

H5N1 - 0075 looked thoughtfully at his companion, he was small for a virus but purposeful and very adaptable. He was called SARS - 0213. His campaign has very nearly been successful. He and his family had moved through the population quite slowly and stealthily but the humans had reacted quickly, using all their skill and cunning to put their hygiene and infection protocols to best use and so they had defeated the spread of SARS. The family had been new to this war and so had not fully used their natural evolutionary ability to mutate. They were now reduced to a residual infection that now stayed at a low level in spite of all their best efforts. They were now regrouping and honing their mutation strategy to equip themselves better for the new outbreak in the human herd. They were now thinking of copying the very successful flu virus system of mutating during each summer and infecting the humans as the temperatures started dropping in late autumn. They had been very successful in 1918 with some 20 million human deaths but most viruses thought they were a spent force now that the humans had their adaptive flu vaccine in place for each season and so had gained the holy grail of herd immunity.

A breakaway group of SARS had looked at the possibility of mutating such that they could infect poultry, especially chickens, so that cross species infection could occur. This was, of course, possible and fairly easy but the avian flu viruses were well organised and their union was strongly against any other virus moving in on their territory. If the SARS tried this they would be up against a group of battle hardened avian flu warriors and they knew they could not infect dead chickens - the avianers were that ruthless, egged on as they were by the union coop stewards.

All this went through H5N1 - 0075’s brain as he considered and then rejected the idea of recruiting the SARS as allies in the continuing fight against the humans.

He had been given a free rein by the Virus Organising Body ( VOB ) so his next idea was to move up market and try to arrange an alliance with the bacteria. He knew this would be difficult because, although they had been badly affected by the use of antibiotics, their research scientists were now winning the war and breeding resistance to antibiotics in most of the eukaryotes. This meant they were getting more confident of victory and so, typically, they were reluctant to negotiate - seeing no need of alliances with what they considered to be inferior life forms. Some of them did not think viruses were life forms at all. He felt very small when he thought about this on his way to the meeting he had set up.

He was ushered into the throat of the meeting rooms, where he was kept waiting for 23 minutes before being shown into the presence of MRCA - 00995. They didn’t shake hands - too much risk of infection - and sat down across a table. The MRCA bacterium opened by saying that he thought the viruses had no more weapons in their locker so why should the eukaryotes be interested in a deal? The H5N1 responded by describing in detail the Ebola virus and how successful it had been so far and its plans for the future. ‘We see this as one of the viruses for the future as it has plans to use the human’s transport system to move and proliferate around the world. We really believe this could be an existential moment for the human race. Bacteria will then become irrelevant as far as the human war issue is concerned,’ he opined. ‘The MRCA family can, after all, be defeated merely by hand washing and a simple hygiene regime,’

The MRCA looked uncomfortable but riposted that they were working on resistant strains.

‘Well, it isn’t working well is it? The latest I heard was that you are in full retreat.’

‘Just as you are with the HIV virus.’

They batted back and forth for a while before agreeing a loose alliance between them. They agreed to not to attack the same humans and would not fight each other.

The H5N1 hurried off, he had a case of warts to encourage and had a meeting planned with a group of HPVs to show them how to best exploit the human vulnerability to porcine originated warts - or hogwarts as they were known.

The viruses had their own aristocracy and lower orders, similar to the human class system. The novo viruses were at the top of the tree of course but some of the others were sick of this and wanted the role of the lower classes of viruses to be more fully recognised. The ringleaders in this insurgency were the rhino viruses - they were ideally suited for this role as they were pachydermic anyway. Chief among these was the common cold - CC-0001. He was deeply resentful of his name - ‘We have probably caused more human misery than the rest of you lot,’ he said as he made his leader’s speech to the annual conference - held during the summer in Margate while the rhinos had very little to do. ‘Just because we are common, not to say ubiquitous, doesn't mean that we are not very effective. We fight the humans on the handkerchiefs, on the sniffing grounds - we will never surrender to the aspirin or the paracetamol. We will always be a headache to the human race.’

This speech started a revolution as the contribution to human misery by the Common Colds was finally recognised by the other viruses. The phage was set for the phinal confrontation with the human race. The common colds were not to be sneezed at in future.

A-Tishoo. ‘Excuse me.’

The border war

The border war                                                                           31^st April 2013

The daffodils were to blame – they started it when the spring sun started to warm the soil surface. The advance guard speared their swords up through the frozen soil until they cracked their way through to the surface. More sap was pumped up from the succulent bulbs below as the roots sought out nourishment from within the warming soil

      The coy, gentle seeming, primroses used the soil cracks opened by the daffodils to push their furled leaves through the surface where they spread out and colonised what they thought was their rightful territory, regardless of other’s points of view. They were here first so it was their right. Nobody was going to stop them. The pansy shock troops quickly followed.

      The fey wood sorrel apologised as it sprouted gently through the top soils and started establishing its racing-green carpet under the shade provided by the daffodils.

      This was shortly followed by the garlic which stopped for no flower. Everyone in its path was breathed on and made reluctantly to clear the way for everyone’s unfavourite bed partner. Its bulbs expanded below ground and squirted juices upwards to support the growth of the fleshy leaves and budding white flowers.

      Cowslips started their superfast growth, two inches a day in ideal conditions.

      The clematis raced up the south facing wall – the fastest grower of them all as it grasped and clung on to anything to help it pull itself up, itself if necessary.

      The Spanish invaders had driven out the native English bluebells. They were more aggressive but did not have that wonderful depth of colour that characterised their English cousins. The tough, wide stems carried aloft the engorged flower buds, ready to burst open to expose the pale blue bells, and the odd white mutation.

      Battle was joined underground as the sub aerial flowers demanded reinforcements and supplies from the support systems below. Roots thrust into dark corners seeking nitrates, phosphates and moisture then pumped them back to the bulbs and rhizome factories for processing into sugars. The sugars were pushed up the stems to the growing tips and flowers with a fervent osmotic urgency.

      A snail yawned  and started sleepily climbing a montbretia stem, munching on the fresh green shoots as it went, happily rasping away at the first of its five-a-day.

      The underground fight for nutrients was coming to a close, the successful battalions had established their territory. There was a little juggling for elbow room between bulbs, roots and rhizomes but the war would be won above soil level as a new front was opened to harvest the maximum amount of sunlight. Leaves were spread and height was gained to shade out shorter plants. The leafy factories started the complicated, two-stage process of producing sugars from sunlight and carbon dioxide. The spreading leaves ensured that the soil surface was now covered in vegetation so slugs could emerge to start their damp, deadly depredations.

      Spring had come to the herbaceous border. It was prepared and ready to start the frantic fecundity of Summer

The seal

The seal                                                                            24^th April 2013

The second attempt was good. The pilot had given up late during the first try, mountains and clouds don’t mix well so the engines roared to full power and the wheels came back up with a clunk as we soared back up into the safety of the clear sky. We rolled to a stop on the cinder runway, just outside the small grey terminal building. Our luggage was plonked on to a trolley and taken to the door of the building where we each grabbed our bags and toted them inside. It was a first for me – an airport terminal building with a polar bear skin pegged out on one wall and a view of icebergs out of several of the round windows.

      ‘Welcome to Kulusuk,’ said Dinas, who was to be our boatman and guide for the next two weeks. ‘I suggest you put several layers of clothing on as it will be very cold during the two hour crossing to Ammassalick. Please follow me to the jetty when you are ready.’

      It was a bit of a struggle carrying all the gear the few hundred yards down to the sea where Dinas had his boat waiting for us. We were all hot and sweaty when we got there but would be glad of the warm clothing when we got out into the open sea. We slowly edged out of the small fjord, dodging several growlers in the shallow water and then accelerated as we entered the polar stream of Sermilik fjord with its majestic procession of huge icebergs, some a hundred metres long and over twenty metres high.

      We passed a long, low ‘berg. ‘Look, there,’ called Dinas, as he pointed to the ice. There was a seal laying on top of the ice, seemingly unconcerned by our presence as Dinas slowed the boat and steered nearer to give us a good look. The seal stared back as us with its big, black, baby eyes.

      It suddenly rolled over and wriggled its way frantically to the edge of the ice and dived into the sea. As he saw this, Dinas quickly revved up the engine to full power and steered us away from the iceberg.

      As we got a few metres away from the ice, there was a loud grinding noise and the mighty iceberg slowly rolled over. Dinas turned the boat so that it was pointing at the ice to minimise the rolling from the resulting wave – an icy tsunami.

      ‘I think the seal saved our lives,’ said Dinas, ‘the iceberg would have rolled on top of us and sunk the boat. Here in the wilderness you must watch the birds and animals because they always know what is coming. Welcome to Greenland.’

Twitterati – a story in 140 characters

Twitterati – a story in 140 characters

A quote from Jean-Paul Sartre,

probably when in Montmartre.

“Hell is other people.” He said

 I don’t agree, as people are just you and me.

So it must be you ‘cos it ain’t me.