John laughed as he remembered a mere 2 decades ago, when the global concern was a lack of energy, and now the Energy Distribution Department was begging citizens to use as much excess electricity as they could. His grandfather was the man who originally proposed the idea for the inter-solar gravity well, which attracted the solar flares into Earth’s collectors. What was then the salvation of mankind has proven to feed a problem we didn’t even know existed.

As it turns out, the Earth had plenty of energy all along. Just like a child wanting more candy, however, we consumed until it was too late. The planet was in the middle of a huge, metaphorical belly ache. John turned off the light. Well, to be precise, he turned on another light, of opposite polarity, so as to cancel out the first light. Many such devices existed now, and apart from the green glow of the global aurora, life appeared the same as it had always been.

It was a problem much bigger than lamplight that worried John that evening…