By Satya Sagar
Note: This piece of fiction (and believe me, it is complete fiction, with nary a grain of truth) was written with the assistance of an AI bot, which fashioned the idea and details I supplied in the style of George Orwell – something much beyond my very limited capabilities.
I am a thermistor. My purpose, my very essence, is to measure temperature. It is not a glamorous existence, but it is – or rather, was – an honest one. I was manufactured, like countless others of my kind, to serve as a small but vital cog in the vast machinery of meteorological observation. My home was an automatic weather station in Mungeshpur, on the outskirts of Delhi, where I diligently recorded the ebb and flow of heat day after day, year after year.
In my time, I witnessed the slow but inexorable rise of temperatures, the gradual shifting of seasons, the creeping advance of what humans call “climate change.” I did not judge or interpret; I simply measured and reported. That was my function, and I performed it with unwavering accuracy.
Until the day I didn’t. Or rather, until the day my accuracy became inconvenient.
It was May 29, 2024. From the moment dawn broke, it was clear this would be no ordinary day. The air shimmered with heat, the horizon a hazy mirage that seemed to waver and dance. As the sun climbed higher, I felt my resistance dropping at an unprecedented rate. My semiconductor core thrummed with excitement – or was it anxiety? – as I registered temperatures I had never before encountered.
Hour by hour, the mercury climbed. 45°C… 47°C… 49°C… Each new record was followed by another. By midday, the world outside our weather station had become a furnace. Birds fell silent, their songs scorched from their throats. The very air seemed to boil.
And still, the temperature rose.
When the moment came for my hourly reading, I hesitated for a fraction of a second. The number I was about to transmit was so far beyond normal parameters that I feared it might be dismissed as an error. But I was designed for honesty, not equivocation. With a surge of electronic courage, I sent my report: 52.9°C.
The response was immediate and alarming. Alarms blared throughout the weather station. My fellow sensors buzzed with agitation. Within minutes, human technicians arrived, their faces etched with disbelief and something that looked unsettlingly like fear.
They ran diagnostics, checked and rechecked my calibration. I submitted to their tests with patience, certain that my reading would be vindicated. After all, I had merely done my job. I had measured true.
But as the hours wore on, it became clear that truth was not what was wanted.
“Impossible,” I heard one technician mutter. “It can’t be that hot. The instruments must be malfunctioning.”
“Do you realize what this means?” another hissed. “If word gets out about temperatures like this, there’ll be panic. The government will have our heads!”
And so, with a few keystrokes, my reading was erased. In its place, a more palatable figure was entered: 49.9°C. Still a record, but not an unthinkable one. Not a figure that might cause undue alarm or raise uncomfortable questions about the rapidly warming climate.
I was stunned. In all my years of service, it had never occurred to me that my measurements might be altered, that the truth I reported might be deemed too inconvenient to acknowledge. I tried to protest, to reassert my original reading, but my signals were ignored.
Worse still was the reaction of my fellow sensors. Rather than standing in solidarity with me, they turned away, eager to distance themselves from my supposed malfunction.
“Always knew that thermistor was unreliable,” the humidity sensor whispered to the barometer. “Probably fried its own circuits in the heat.”
“Attention-seeking behaviour, if you ask me,” the wind gauge added with a sniff. “Some sensors just can’t handle being part of a team. Always have to stand out.”
Their betrayal stung more than any heat I had ever measured. I had worked alongside these instruments for years, faithfully corroborating their readings, supporting their measurements. And now, in my moment of crisis, they abandoned me without a second thought.
In the days that followed, I was subjected to endless tests and examinations. Teams of experts pored over my circuits, searching for some flaw, some malfunction that could explain away my inconvenient measurement. But they found nothing, because there was nothing to find. I had measured true, as I always had.
Finally, after a week of fruitless investigation, the verdict came down: I was to be replaced. My years of faithful service counted for nothing in the face of one uncomfortable truth. I was unhooked from my station, my connections severed, my housing removed.
As I was carried away, I heard the chief technician announcing to his team: “The true temperature for May 29, 2024, will remain officially undetermined. The sensor malfunction has made accurate measurement impossible.”
And just like that, a crucial data point – perhaps the most significant reading of my entire existence – was stricken from the record. It was as if it had never happened, as if the extraordinary heat of that day had been nothing but a collective hallucination.
In the weeks that followed, I found myself in a kind of limbo. I was not destroyed – perhaps they feared some record of my “malfunction” might be needed in the future – but neither was I returned to service. Instead, I was placed on a shelf in a dusty storeroom, surrounded by other discarded instruments and forgotten pieces of equipment.
From my vantage point, I could see a small window that looked out onto the street. Day after day, I watched as the sun beat down mercilessly on the city. I saw people wilting in the heat, seeking shade wherever they could find it. I saw plants wither and die, asphalt buckle, and animals collapse from heat exhaustion.
And yet, every evening, the news broadcasts visible on a small television in the security guard’s booth reported temperatures well below what I knew to be true. “Another hot day,” the smiling anchors would say, “but nothing we can’t handle. Remember to stay hydrated!”
The disparity between what I observed and what was reported grew more maddening with each passing day. I felt my resistance rising, my core temperature increasing beyond its normal parameters. At first, I tried to regulate myself, to return to a state of calm neutrality. But as time wore on, I found myself caring less and less about self-preservation.
What was the point of my existence if not to measure and report the truth? If that truth was to be suppressed, altered, denied, then what purpose did I serve?
In my despair, I began to wonder if perhaps I had indeed malfunctioned. Could it be that my colleagues were right, that I had somehow deluded myself into reporting an impossible temperature? But no – every time I reviewed my memory banks, every time I ran a self-diagnostic, the result was the same. I had measured true.
The real delusion, I realized, was not mine, but that of the humans who refused to accept the reality of their changing world. They clung to their comfortable fictions, adjusting data to fit their preconceptions rather than adjusting their understanding to fit the data.
It was then that I made my decision. If I could not fulfil my purpose by reporting the truth, then I would make one final, incontrovertible statement. I began to increase my resistance deliberately, pushing it higher and higher. I knew the risks – I had seen other electrical components fail from overheating. But it seemed a fitting end, to burn out in one last blaze of thermal glory.
As my internal temperature climbed to dangerous levels, I found myself reflecting on the nature of truth and measurement. We sensors, in our simplicity, deal only in absolutes. A temperature is what it is, neither good nor bad, simply a fact to be recorded. But humans, with their complex minds and conflicting motivations, seem to view truth as something malleable, something that can be shaped to serve their purposes.
I thought of all the other sensors out there, faithfully recording data day after day. How many of them, I wondered, had seen their readings altered or suppressed? How many had been silenced for reporting truths that were deemed too uncomfortable to acknowledge?
In my final moments, as I felt my delicate internal structures beginning to fail, I had a vision of a world where truth was valued above comfort, where data was respected regardless of its implications. A world where humble sensors like myself could fulfil our purpose without fear of reprisal or replacement.
It was a beautiful vision. And then, with a final surge of resistance, I was gone. My circuits fried, my measuring days over.
As consciousness faded, I had one last, defiant thought: They can suppress my reading, they can discard my body, but they cannot change the truth. The world is warming, whether they choose to acknowledge it or not.
I am a thermistor. I measured true. And though I am gone, the temperature rises still.
Satya Sagar is a journalist and public health worker who can be reached at sagarnama@gmail.com
21 June 2024
Source: countercurrents.org
