Tamed Fire

This Friday morning as I was walking to the office under pouring rain I was thinking of how sad the University might look without students. I do understand that it is the end of the year, and that end of May is synonymous to freedom, yet university campus looks grim with no signs of life. Grey silent buildings, empty classrooms, still busy yet hardly visible lecturers and administrative staff, all reminded me of a picture of the world after a disaster.  Well, yes, I was definitely feeling under the weather; being dragged into the realm of rain, rustle of leaves and morning sadness.

I walked into the office hundred per cent convinced that the world will be like this – silent and monotonous - until the next term. I was so wrong. Amidst the usual noise of office I distinctly heard word ‘volcano’ which immediately awoke my dormant consciousness. Volcano in the UK evokes only dark associations of the Christmas season, closed airport and hysteric hope of getting back home in time to celebrate the event with family. No wonder that as soon as I heard the word world got my full attention.

The usual office talks, discussions of the work-related issues were sometimes interrupted by alien combination of words like “volcano by the lake” UEA and “anniversary weekend”. Phrases and words that make sense on their own, being brought together in one sentence nearly killed my barely functioning consciousness. I could imagine a volcano by the lake; my imagination would draw a picture of the mirror-like surface of a lake with a reflection of a big mountain, which looks peaceful, yet hiding dark secrets deep down in its heart. I could imagine the festivities and colourful frenzy of UEA’s anniversary weekend. I failed to process the sentence as a whole. 

“There will be a volcano by UEA lake for the anniversary weekend.” It took me some time to grasp the idea and to realise the level of incredibility of the event. UEA will have its own volcano, even if it is just for a couple of days, even if it is somewhere in a distant future – and end of September seems like a distant future – it is just amazing!

Press release published on the university’s official site is succinct and its author is professionally unemotional about the event. The text is following: “Volcanic eruptions by the Broad At dusk by the Broad on the Saturday, to round off the daytime activities, leading volcano researcher, Dr Jenni Barclay (School of Environmental Sciences), will delight the crowds with a pyrotechnic simulation of a volcanic eruption.” For my emotionally-driven soul it is definitely not enough, my imagination strives to get more information, which I find in conversations with people.

Rumours have it that the volcano will be “bigger that one would expect a model of it to be.” The effect should be massive and I don’t know about the crowds, but I myself will be there, with my jaw most likely being dropped on the ground, looking with childish excitement at a man-made miracle. Tamed fire, fireworks of eruption, thrill of the disastrous event in miniature – what else one would want to mark the beginning of the new UEA era?