Jo Ann Beard (B 1955) is an American Creative nonfiction writer, essayist, journalist and novelist. When she was working as an editor for the space-physics department's monthly publication in the University of Iowa, the 1991 shooting massacre took place there. Her 'Fourth State of Matter' that was published in ‘The New Yorker' in 1996, focuses on her grief, loss and shock of that incident. It also probes and investigates the violent shooting perpetrated by Gang Lu, a physics student, against five colleagues. Before he committed suicide.
The exploration of Plasma too is talked about in this essay. Plasma is the fourth state of matter, after solid, liquid and gas. When a gas is heated to such a high temperature, the electrons get separated from the nuclei of the atoms. The resulting plasma is a mixture of the positively charged ions and negatively charged electrons. It can be controlled by magnetic fields.
The essay begins with Jo Ann Beard's taking out her aging Collie to pee at night. She looks at sky and watches the flashing Mars and hidden Jupiter. As she works with Space physicists at the University of Iowa, she knows all these. Though she returns to bed then, Collie will wake her up within a few hours to pee again. Apart from Collie, her 'Vanished husband' and some squirrels that squeal and make thumps and crashes are the disturbing and haunting figures of Jo Ann Beard. But she doesn't want to get away from these, except the squirrels. However, her friend Caroline helps her to remove the squirrels from her spare bedroom.
Beard narrates the incidents that happen in the Space-physics department. The Doctoral Student, Gang Lu's resentment about Christoph Goertz’ bossiness, Bob Smith's condescension and his jealousy over Linhua Shan's getting treated as the department favourite student are revealed here. Chris is more than Beard's best friend. As Chris has to travel all over the world to deliver lecturing about the magnetospheres of various planets, on his coming back, he used to bring presents to Beard. A big piece of Amber from Poland with the wings of flies preserved inside it and a set of delicate bracelets made from the hide of an elephant are her favourites. Chris and Beard talk about many things including his current obsession about the dust in the plasma of Saturn's rings and about his mother's arrival from Germany. She also mentions about Gang Lu, who is sick of Physics. Instead of spending his evening in the computer lab, he spends his evening at the firing range, learning to hit a moving target with the gun he has purchased recently.
On the fatal Friday in 1991, Beard passes Gang Lu and leaves the department as she doesn't have any work to do. But, Beard doesn't have any idea about the letter in his pocket written to his sister informing his taking a few travelling companions with him to his grave before his committing suicide. Similarly, about the handgun and revolver that he takes to do the crime. Chris Goertz gets the first bullet in the back of his head. Linhua Shan gets the second bullet in the forehead. The third and fourth bullets hit Bob Smith. Then Lu reaches the department head Dwight's office and shoots him thrice. Then Ann Cleary, the administrator and the receptionist are shot. After this Gang Lu goes to an empty conference room and places the barrel against his right temple and fires. Thus within 12 minutes everything has come to an end.
Friends flood to Beard's home to support her. Even her 'Vanished husband' presents himself to help her to get through the shock. After the departure of all, including her husband, beard looks up at the sky on her taking the Collie outside and thinks that the sky is full of dead people, drifting the blackness like helium balloons. Actually, it is the plasmapause and equilibrium, where the forces of the Earth meet the forces of the Sun. So, she holds the Amber stone around her neck that Chris brought from Poland and asks 'like this'? As Beard believes that she has supernaturally connected with Chris, who has become an another State of matter, she seems to receive Chris' reply 'exactly'. Thus Beard concludes her nonfiction narrative, 'The fourth State Of Matter' in an exceptional way.
------Thulasidharan
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