‘The Intensive Care Unit’ is a beautifully paced dystopian text written by Ballard in 1977, the very dark tale of a physical family reunion. Against all government recommendations, and having spent a lifetime only communicating via screens – in courtship, marriage, pregnancy and child-rearing – two parents and their children finally get together, for the first time, in real life.
The result, well, I think I should let you imagine how J.G. Ballard would write such a scene of unbounded love…
In terms of pyrotechnics, there is an article dealing with this subject entitled: How to Light Fireworks at Home – Without Getting Dead.
In Myths of the Near Future, Jonathan Cape, 1982. Also in The Complete Stories, Vol 2, Fourth Estate, 2014 and English Short Stories from 1900 to the present, Everyman Classic, 1988
