“Rain is my favorite weather,” Alice said, gazing up at the stone globe and the man perched upon it. It was only drizzling now, sputtering raindrops, but already the sculpture was slick and hard to climb. Peter was having trouble reaching the top, and said so, and Alice helped him by shoving his feet upward.
“Tell me again why I'm the one up here if this is your brilliant idea.” Peter grabbed hold of David Brower's arm to keep from sliding off the model Earth.
“You weigh less than I do,” she said with a shrug, and it was true, much as neither of them might want to admit it in public. Peter was a twig-man, and Alice a little heavier set than she cared to be, but tonight all that mattered was performance. “I don't know how quickly the compound will work. We don't want it collapsing right off because someone's standing on it.”
Peter had to nod at that. It would be trouble if someone heard the stone crumbling while they were still around. Too many questions. Best if people think the sculpture fell apart on its own, to begin with. “You're sure the compound will work?”
“Of course.” That had never been in question for Alice. She'd chipped a sample from the glue weeks ago and set to work finding the proper way to slowly dissolve it. It was their own fault, she'd said, leaving the chemistry cabinets unlocked. Anyone could have done it. And it had to be done.
Alice handed up the spray bottle to Peter, standing on her tiptoes to reach his stretching hands. “And it's perfectly safe,” she assured before he asked. “Won't hurt you. Just make sure you spray it in all the seams up there.”
Easier said than done, Peter thought, but he scurried to do it anyway, clinging to the carved tops of Asia and North America as he reached to administer the spray. The rain was coming down harder now, and he was a little afraid the compound might wash away before it had a chance to work. Alice didn't seem worried, though, so he tried to relax.
It had been her idea from the start, from the moment she saw the completed sculpture and the statue at its peak. David Brower, Sierra Club leader, perched over a delicate “Spaceship Earth”. He looked so stern, Alice had said, as though people weren't paying attention, as though the sculpture's point was being quickly overlooked. Something had to be done, she said, so people would realize what he was saying up there before it was too late.
People understand destruction, she said. Better a broken statue than a broken planet.
Peter slid down from the globe, and Alice caught his arms to slow his descent. “They'll build it again, you know.”
“Yeah. They better.” She held her hand up toward the sky. “In movies, after a cataclysmic event, after armageddon has passed, it always rains. Like rain make the world be born again.”
They turned back toward their dorm, and behind them, a crack appeared in the fragile stone.
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