July

Many theories have been proposed for the unique composition of Munch’s painting, all of which seemed to now resonate with what was going on. One theory suggests that it is a depiction of the painter experiencing his first panic attack, as everything around him starts to warp and spiral in an oppressive whirlpool. Another puts forth that he was expressing his feeling about his sister being committed to an insane asylum, which historians have deduced was close to the bridge depicted in the painting. More relevantly, however, a third suggested that the sky color and the figure’s reaction were linked to the long, massive volcanic eruption of Mount Krakatoa from May 20 to October 21 of 1883, which altered the hues of the sky for months, especially during sunset, as far as Norway where Munch was painting. But perhaps the creepiest explanation was that the screaming figure was modeled on a Peruvian mummy.

The Incas of Peru used to mummify their dead for centuries. Unlike the Egyptians, who would wrap the body lying straight, with the hands crossed over the chest, the Peruvians would put the body in a kind of fetal position, with the palms of the hands placed on the sides of the head, as if covering their ears. One such mummy was exhibited at the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris, capturing the imaginations of many, including the Impressionist painter Paul Gaugin, who used it as a model for over 20 paintings, including his Human Misery. And indeed, the head of the figure in The Scream definitely resembles a rotting skull more than a living human face.

The toxicity of the black rains that followed the explosions caused extensive structural and environmental damage, the most immediately noticeable of which was the way that the radioactive water would interact with paint, discoloring and peeling it in randomized fashion. The man-made walls and surfaces that used to be uniform in hue, now looked pixelated and patch-worked like and Impressionist painting.

The effects of radiation were seen on the faces of millions. The people nearest the impacts began to look sick and ashen. Some exhibited radiation burns, large spots of discolored skin on their faces and bodies. There was extensive hair and tooth loss. Another common problem was cataract formation, a clouding of the eyes caused by exposure to radiation.

So, over the course of the month, more and more people came to resemble the returners, just like the earliest victims of radiation poisoning over a hundred years were sometimes described as the living dead. While the returners still made up but a fraction of the general population, as the living came to resemble the dead, the line between decay and resurrection started to blur.

Paradoxically, even as the total population continued to decline, people felt like it was growing, estimating there being more returners than there actually were. This was an illusion caused by societies being forced into higher concentrations, as large regions became uninhabitable. The disturbances to farming and supply chains also created shortages of resources. In countries where most had grown up without ever fighting over the basic necessities, the new competition for even the most common things added to the perception that there were now more mouths to feed.

All this also led to a new kind of discrimination against the “living dead.” The returners did not eat much, their metabolisms seemed to be significantly slower than those of the living, so most of them could get by with minimal, occasional scavenging. But as the living came to resemble the dead, many either accidentally or deliberately misjudged this as the returners becoming more demanding. So, the sick were increasingly often denied food and sometimes violently chased out of living settlements. This was especially depressing to see happen to those with cataract clouding, who were helpless on their own, and stumbled around blindly, confused and scared, much like the very first returners to arise over half a year ago.

The explosions that happened in the oceans drastically altered water currents, which further disturbed weather patterns. Some beaches were littered with debris and dead fish. Places in the Arctic Circle suddenly started getting warm water and tropical fish, causing unnaturally thick fog and glacial melting. The scrambling altered the food hierarchies, and animals struggled to adapt to the foreign, new predators and prey.

Some of the residents of the ravaged coastal towns chose to stay and rebuild, despite the warnings of experts. The radiation that has seeped into the ground from the tidal waves was said to render the area unlivable, but many, especially the elderly, did not think the world would last much longer anyway, and preferred to spend what time they had left in familiar surroundings.

Besides, it was not all bad. Back when the first atomic bombs were detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, just a few weeks later, botanist reported finding several new species of flowers at the explosion sites. Later, in 1953, Eisenhower launched a propaganda campaign to manage the public fears surrounding nuclear power and warfare, called Atoms for Peace. The program aimed to educate people about the benefits of nuclear power and radiation, and one of its most memorable components was the technique of atomic gardening.

In its common form, the gamma garden, the plot is arranged in a circle, with a retractable radiation source in the middle, which is activated periodically during the day. Often the plants closest to the middle end up dying, those a little farther out develop tumors, but those past a certain threshold grow up healthy, and sometimes exhibit useful mutations, like increased size or greater resistance to wilt. Perhaps the most successful fruit of the effort was the Rio Red Grapefruit, which by 2007 made up two-thirds of the grapefruit grown in Texas.

Though atomic gardening, along with much of the Atoms for Peace program, faded from public attention by the early 20th century, as nuclear power had become common, while atomic warfare anxiety lessened drastically following the end of the Cold War, in this hot, radioactive, red July, when most of the usual staple crops refused to grow, it had made a comeback, as a desperate push to salvage some promise from the wreckage.