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Spec-Fic

Liquid Sunshine

Placing her birthday card on the floor of the tent, Dara shuffled again inside her sleeping bag. Her left side enjoyed a moment of respite, but her heels and shoulders would soon begin their own protests. Had Irish lawns always been so unyielding? She knew very well that the answer was No.

In the glow of the Solarva Lamp, she read her card again. Without question, 2095 was a bad time to be turning 19. That hadn’t been her parents’ inscription, rather something Dara had concluded for herself.

It was sweet, and not a little risky, of her parents to continue the physical card tradition. Normally, your 18th birthday was the last occasion on which you could look forward to greetings cards that contained genuine wood pulp. Thereafter, sustainability legislation mandated that ‘Happy Birthday’ was a sentiment solely expressed digitally.

Little wonder her mum had discreetly slid the envelope into Dara’s duffel bag as she left for Cork and the protest. It wasn’t handmade, though; no scavenging of old cereal boxes had occurred – it had been bought directly from Dara’s favourite local illustrator. There was an aura of care and love.

All around Dara, the frantic rustling of Gore-Tex could be heard as activists clattered around inside their tents, posting monologues to their social ecos about how excited they were to wake up tomorrow and speak the truth to the GDL. Dara should probably do likewise – her following on HiDrant could do with a boost.

Since Irish Distillers had merged with Diageo’s Scotch arm to form Gaelic Distillers Ltd. in 2052, concerns around whiskey sustainability had only grown. When Dara’s parents were at school, Net Zero for every business was still a recent achievement, and one that was roundly celebrated. The whiskey industry had given itself a collective pat on the back as one of the first to get there.

Then more severe symptoms of climate change had wreaked havoc, as earlier greenhouse gas excesses refused to be so neatly offset. Talk turned from beef in the Amazon to distilling in Speyside, Kentucky and Cork; was the diversion of so much barley to brewing and distilling justifiable?

The climate action group of which Dara was a part decided that it was not. Just like the eating of bluefin tuna and cheap beef, whisky now faced similar opposition as a frivolous use of the Earth’s resources. Yet it continued to be made in large volumes, for the wealthy. As the costs of growing cereal crops outdoors mounted, and the scarcity of cooperage oak worsened, no one Dara knew could afford the genuine article anymore.

There was a lot less land now. Sea levels had risen by 2.3m, not quite the 2.5m some mid-century estimates had predicted for 2100, back when her grandparents stopped eating meat altogether. That was a shift that had come too late, as well.

“We didn’t know, Sparrow,” her grandfather had told Dara when she was little. “We were raised on mince and potatoes. Couldn’t do better than Irish beef for a growing family.” He raised a tumbler of whiskey to his lips and Dara’s sensitive 6-year-old nose had recoiled slightly at the hot sweetness that wafted towards her.

Back in 2095 and it still didn’t sit quite right with her, protesting the industry her grandfather had loved, had worked in for most of his life until the distillery buy-out. Dara had talked it through with her own father, who made it clear that Gramps would have been proud of her stance.

“You aren’t protesting whiskey, Dar. You’re opposing a company that has grown too big and whose record over topsoil retention needs to be a lot better.”

While more of her counterparts harangued millionaires for drinking what hungry people might have eaten, Dara tried to focus on her father’s argument. Surely there was a place for whiskey?

Dara put the card back in her duffel bag. Reaching deeper, questing for an inside pocket, she retrieved a little glass bottle. Greenish/grey, like wind-dried dulse, the glass itself proudly showcased its high, post-consumer, recycled content. It made the canary yellow liquid inside appear translucent. Could she crack the capsule? Now, on the eve of the protest?

Dara knew that hot, sweet smell would revive more than just memories of Gramps. The spirit would sing of soils now blown away and underwater. The curious toffee/caramel headiness the whiskey had pulled from its wooden nursery would speak of thriving white oak forests in Missouri and Kentucky, forests that had been further depleted each year by the eastward spread of the wildfires.

There was a tap on the tent. “Dara? You in there?”

She stuffed the miniature back in her bag. Getting caught with Public Enemy #1 was not what she needed before her speech, planned for the perimeter fencing of the Midleton Complex the next day.

“Hey, Josh! Just a sec.”

Dara wriggled out of her sleeping bag and checked her trousers and jacket all had the right zips done up. Opening the tent flap, she peered up at the boy who was even now tucking those wilful black curls into his bandana. “What’s up?”

Josh smiled easily, but Dara could tell the excitement was straying into stress. This was definitely the biggest protest he’d organised. 2.5 million followers on CHANGE got you most of the way there, though.

“I’ve just been to the harbour! Another forty KAYnos arrived today, with 200 people on them! We’ve so many good friends in England and Wales.” Another ringlet escaped from the bandana cordon and he made to sweep it back again.

“That’s great, Josh. I can’t wait!” Dara could hear the buzzing from his wristwatch as countless notifications assailed the superstar protest leader. Keira was always saying she should go for it with Josh. They had briefly dated in school. What Keira saw as charisma, though, Dara had started to interpret as something else.

“How’s your speech?” Josh asked.

“It will be fine. I think I’ve just about memorised the statistics.”

“Amazing – that’s superb. I’m so pleased you’re here.”

There was a pause in the flow of motivating chat. An activist walked past swaddled in a dressing gown.

“I was thinking of turning in,” Dara said. “See you at the coordination meeting tomorrow?”

“Of course, yes! We all need some rest. Good night, then.”

Dara resecured the tent and regained her sleeping bag on the hard, sun-baked earth. She glanced across at her duffel bag. In the darkness, away from the Solarva Lamp’s glow, her Gramps’s whiskey waited for its chance.