Sunstroke

Sunstroke

Sun is acting up past 60 years. Man has excavated enormous caverns in his mountains, prepared great tinted greenhouses. In short, moved his civilization underground. Over a year’s time, the underground cities are filled. But they hold only 1/15th of man’s prior population. There have purposely been only a very few births in the last 60 years. At the time of the move, the population is so reduced that only those under 40 years old can fit underground. The above-forties must roast slowly to death above. If they take every precaution, they might live as long as 20 years.

Ray and Danette are 45 and 41. They now have their pick of homes. They may live in the most elegant of mansions — free power will be hooked up. They may select a home with an indoor pool, etc. They select a mansion. For the first few years their younger friends come above-ground to visit — but the sun becomes so harsh, Ray and Danette so ill, life below so ingrained, that they cease to come.

Ray and Danette return to their little home — the one they built themselves with Ray’s hard-earned income, and stay there till they die. Trees die of radiation (not heat). People cease to get out and about. Danette and Ray die together in an open field when Danette tries to rescue Ray after he had wandered out for a walk and sprained his ankle ~ Feb. 1980