What Makes The Season
by Bruce Burn
It had come as a surprise. The year was almost over and plans were set for the holidays. Not that there was a long holiday. Just the feast days of Christmas and the lay days of New Years, and a few days between them.
In some ways she was almost reluctant to give up work for the short break. In amongst the more important projects, she'd been working busily on Her Project all year; trying to figure out why very little had happened last New Years. The night of the hyped-up Y2K Bug when the electronic computer world had tried to come to grips with the omissions of its own impetuous youth. The missing numerals from dates which might have confused computers into thinking the 1900s were starting all over again. It had been more of a problem in anticipation, she thought. But just a problem - not a bug. Nothing contagious. Like a wiring error in electrical supplies, this problem was little by itself. But the ramifications of the simple problem of missing digits had seemed quite terrifying during the build up to Jan 1st 2000.
There had been the scare stories, of course. How the world would end with a relay that might stick open in a nuclear power plant. How the aeroplanes would drop from the sky because their computers couldn't recognise the date of the new three-zeroed year. How toasters wouldn't toast anymore and hospital machinery would cease to work. There were even worries about heart pace-makers, and all the automated world created since the early seventies when microchips were first installed as controllers for the machines of civilisation.
Like most computer programmers and network managers, she'd worked and worried through all the problems. She'd checked the codes, tested the software, and set up new hardware. Then... nothing happened.
No-one had known whether to be happy or annoyed: had it been a big confidence trick, or were their preparations and investments of time and money so good that any potential problems had melted away? Well, there'd been a year to review the work and time passed and everyone got busy on keeping up with new developments and the newer problems they presented. But, for her, there was always the niggling thought: why did Jan 1st 2000 produce so few problems. So, she toyed around with Her Project: chasing down the little problems (and there were many, but they were little), and trying to find why Big Problems didn't happen.
Now, a year later she was no nearer a solution, and people were getting prepared for the real start to the New Millennium.
Like most people, she'd joined the general acceptance of the New Millennium starting at the beginning of the year 2000. But, like most mathematicians, she'd known all along the real excitement for her would be at midnight on December 31st 2000: the last second of the thousandth year of that millennium. Right after that the first year of the new millennium would start.
She'd had a busy year, and just as she was making final family plans for the brief holidays of a white Christmas, her employers gave her a surprise. The corporation said they needed someone to keep a close eye on things as the new year came and went. Last year, they'd done the same, with most staff working through the days around the turn of the year. In a way, that had been an exciting time: no-one really knew quite what to expect. This year, the Great Minds of the corporation had decided to get just a core group to standby while everyone else could enjoy the parties of the season. And they wanted her to travel half way round the world so she could be on hand as soon as the new year began. They said this would enable them to get ahead of any problem: to be on the site as the new year developed and the counters all clicked off the last seconds of 2000 and began rolling into the movie-title year of 2001. Yes, they understood the Millennium hadn't actually ended with the end of 1999, and no, they didn't think anything was going to happend with the start of year 2001, but they just wanted to be sure. Belts and braces, they said.
The importance of Her Project was suddenly, belatedly, recognised. Without warning, she was pulled from the warmth of family and friends in the bleak snows of Denver, and shunted into what seemed a bleaker world of summer a long way from home. Gone, the excitement in her child's eyes. Gone, the warm embrace of Nat. Gone, the warmth of the apartment that had become their haven from the winter winds. From the preparations of Christmas at home to an alien world where the seasons were wrong. Christmas in summer! Blue skies, warm air, a foreign land: where was Christmas in that?
The corporation had been so apologetic. Sorry to rip you away from home and loved ones at this time, but…. Sorry to turn your world upside down, but…. We need someone to pick up on any problems early enough so we can do something about them. Please, here's a plane ticket to zip halfway round the world. Rooms in a great hotel. You'll meet some interesting people. Have to leave now, it's urgent. Shopping? Gifts? Give us a list; we'll buy them for you and deliver them. No, no, the firm will pay. Consider it a bonus for all the trouble….But it's just not the same to make a list and have strangers select the presents. "I like to wrap my own presents." There's a lot of love in sticky tape and tinsel paper. The plane was late to leave the winter hills of Denver anyway, and she'd found some presents in the airport shops. They had tinsel. They had sticky tape. There'd been a short time for writing hasty notes and wrapping presents. Not the presents she would have chosen at the shops she liked, but they'd have to do. The corporation PAs would deliver the packages home right away they said.
Then the plane was ready. A quick call to Nat, worrying at home. His mother would come visit, was expected later that day. Keep warm. Come home safely…
Then the flights. Briefly on land in Hawaii. The heat! Wrong clothes. Wrong season. Wrong foods. Even the time of day seemed wrong as jet-lag kicked in halfway across the Pacific Ocean. Flying time was full of reading background material to refresh her mind about the millions of potential problems they had worried about a year ago. Might as well be sitting in a bus back home for all the glamour of international jet travel. The fussy detail helped her forget home for a while, and she welcomed the preoccupation of burrowing into volumes of conjecture. The big problems that might give us a tough time. The tiny insignificant problems that might topple the commercial bedrock of society.
Then, the landing in the middle of summer in Auckland. Blue skies, blue seas, yachts with huge multicoloured sails on the harbour waters. People in summer clothes, sunglasses. The heat seemed stifling after the air-conditioned plane. Corporation PAs flunkying around her. Strange speech, cars on the wrong side of the road. Meetings filled the first hours of being in a strange land. No one seemed too worried about any problems. Couldn't really understand why the Great Minds of the Corporation had sent her. They'd run their system checks over the last couple of years before the start of 2000, and eliminated all the problems they could find. No-one expected any more problems this year. No missing digits in the dates now. No curly coding which assumed year-dates began with 19. The banks seemed almost smug that they'd solved any problems before the New Millennium. The stockmarket was a little less certain; not because of their technology, but because they dealt with so many other organisations who may not have been so thorough. Traders were absolutely positive they were problem-free, having up-dated equipment and software during that last frantic year of 1999. The utility people from gas, electricity, communications, and transport all seemed confident they'd done the right things, and anyway nothing had gone wrong all year.
But they were happy to have her along, and set her up with a desk in their network communications offices as an observer. Set up an open communication channel to the corporate offices in Denver. That might be a lifeline on the big day. Big night? She'd lost her sense of time in the flight.
Two days later it was Christmas. Without Nat, without Mary. She even missed Nat's mother. Phone calls weren't the same and she kept them brief. An exec of the corporate office in Auckland invited her to Christmas dinner at his home. Of course it couldn't be the same as the Denver Christmas she had looked forward to. No snow. No icicles on the streetlights. No cosy fire and hot toddies.
She felt quite strange, sitting on a wooden veranda outside a beachside cottage, eating turkey while watching kids run and play on a white sandy beach. The breakers rolled in with surfers on their boards. The sun was clear and hot in a deep blue sky. The country rose in dark green hills above them. It was lovely, but it wasn't home.
There were presents exchanged and people were happy and kind. They'd been sure to include some presents for her, too, which was thoughtful. The day was a break from the pressure of the problems, but it just wasn't Christmas for her.
Boxing Day came and went. The week flashed passed, then the last day of the year began and the worrying and pressure became even worse. Constant messages from Denver to check on details. The small core group back home wanted to know instantly if anything went awry in New Zealand so they'd have several hours to make sure the Denver systems would not have the same problems.
Evening. She was vaguely aware of a celebratory atmosphere around the offices and in the large control room where she and others worked through the last hours of the old year. Some people had caught an air of concern, simply because she was there, but gradually their concerns were allayed and they began to reflect the confident happiness in the scenes on the tv screens. Scenes from all around the world as well as from, it seemed, every nook and cranny of New Zealand. Everyone seemed full of hope for the new year. Midnight approached. In Auckland, that is. In Denver it was still too early in the morning of the last day of 2000 for many to take much notice. But in Auckland, there was an electric quality to the air, an anticipation everyone felt. A dread, a concern, a hope that all would indeed be well.
She checked her communication lines. The telephone, the cellphone, the fax machine, the ancient teletype machine they'd rolled out as a precaution. The internet hookup via satellite. The desk clock with digital numbers showing the time in hours and minutes and seconds. All seemed well. The voice on the phone from Denver was her own assistant, sounding calm. He was tired approaching four in the morning, but they ticked their way through the long lists of figures used as controls and checks in their systems. All the primary observations seemed okay. They worked their way through backups and contingencies.
Midnight approached. The digital clock on her desk clicked through the last seconds of the year. She could feel the tension grow in the room around her. People staring at computer screens, urgently examining printouts, scanning dials, listening to audio reports on phones from far and wide.
For a moment, the clock face read 00:00:00. In that second, her mind raced and there was a silence in the room. Then, an almost audible click as the last zero changed to a one, a two, …and time continued.A few cheers from people round the large room. Some louder noises from the tv monitors, a few new year greetings were exchanged, a few people hugged or shook hands. Someone wished her a happy new year. Smiles. In some faces, relief could be read; in others, tension relaxed to acceptance that time was moving on. Most just got on with their jobs. Another year gone; another one begun.
The machines in the room kept producing printouts, showing tv pictures, running programs, providing audio, rolling out fax documents. The lights stayed on, the passing seconds glowed briefly on her clock, someone was filling a cup with water from a faucet. All seemed well. Except, now the tension was over, now she was reporting to Denver that all was well, now she missed the spirit of the season more than ever. What had annoyed her previously while she was so busily involved in potential crises had been replaced by a yearning to shorten the distances between her and her home. To find a more positive potential.
At her elbow, her fax machine whirred into life, and paper issued from it. Without thinking, she picked the paper up and glanced at it. It was a simple drawing, a fax copy of a childish crayon sketch of a house, a sleigh, a big bag of bulkiness, a snowman, and a message "I luv you Mummy. Mary …and Christmas Love and a Happy New Year from me. Love, Nat. Please come home soon." Suddenly the season was made right. She relaxed, and began to smile, then noticed the clock on her desk as the digits began to wind backwards.
Copyright Bruce Burn © January, 2000 - 2,287 words
