Terrarium Life It's that time of year again. Goddamn freezing rotten August and Lords' Day coming up. Soon I'll have to pack my things and board the ICE to Rousse City. My stepfather promised my relatives in Rousse that I'd be there for Lords' Day vacation. He wants to spend the entire week sleeping back in Seabord City, but as a teenager I'm a slave to family duties. So here I am thinking about all this, sitting on the Snake clutching the rawbread I just bought down in Southtown. My teacher was absent today and they released us. I seized my opportunity and took the Snake all the way to Southtown Station. Dad doesn't like driving much and Southtown Rawfoods is way too far for him. I don't understand how he can stand to eat that nasty rotten machine-made crap but he does. Anything to avoid driving. I didn't have enough money on me to buy meat. As it is I spent two days' pay on the bread in my lap. Rawfood is damn expensive. On the way home today I'll stop by Grandfather's house. He lives in the nearest Blue to my house, and he has an entire garden full of vegetables. Real ones. His garden is only reason he stays in the Blue, I think. The Blue has grown very, very unpopular in the last few years, what with the cold coming on and all. I get off the Snake at Rollingview and a thick wall of freezing grey mist smacks me in the face. I pause to pull up my hood and zip my jacket before walking on, stepping off the platform and then sprinting across the grass of Rollingview's largest greenway, battered bullet cars screeching at me and whipping by inches above my head. Past the main greenway Rollingview is much calmer; two-lane greenways bordered by pitted grey sidewalks. I walk along one of these ancient sidewalks, head lowered against the chill mist. According to record the sidewalks used to be paved with brilliant stones, but as years passed the stones grew dulled and we didn't know how to repave them. They were covered over with thick layers of cement, the making of which we've never forgotten. Other things used to be nice, too. Like the Snakes. In this one tourist video I saw of Seabord they were bright and clean and smelled like flowers. But now they're old and creaky and smell like a horrible combination of burnt sugar and burnt rubber. The Blue slithers steadily up the sidewalk towards me as I approach Grandfather's. The cold mist fades as I enter the Blue, but the temperature remains low. The grass dulls to a sombre steel-grey. Weird trees rear towards the cold sun. The leaves of most plants that adapted to the Blue are red, but in the strange light they appear purple or grey. Grandfather used to tell me stories about the world long ago. He said that the people of old built the cities so that they could live in a perfect, contained world. He said that the Dark came on only for a couple hours each day, and the world was always warm. That's part of why I like Grandfather so much; his stories. It's nice to think about things like that. Other people tell other stories; that the Lords destroyed their world and had to build the domed cities as a necessity of survival. The outside world is toxic and dead, but the immortal Lords remain watching us from the sky outside, making sure that the cities will always sustain us. But happy stories like Grandfathers' have gotten more popular lately. Once the manufactured food that the machines give us started tasting so rancid, we relearned the arts of cultivating land and animals. There were always a few weirdo communes that did it, but now Rawfoods are the big thing. People are trying to discover methods of heating and they've begun redoing all the cities, I hear. Downtown Seabord is full of workers, paving and painting and repairing. It's like this big pathetic Renaissance, but I think deep down most people know it's just whistling in the dark. We all know it's finally falling apart. The machinery of the cities is failing; it gets colder and darker every year and the food and utilities are failing. New bullet cars haven't come out of the remote factories in decades. But Grandfather at least holds fast to his cheerfulness. He's working in his eerie garden and he stands to greet me when I let myself in by the gate. I tell him gloomily about my impending trip to Rousse and he nods, taking the rawbread from me and walking towards the little cottage. "Glad you got some real food, Petra. Let's have a sandwich." Once inside we eat and I complain. And then he looks at me and says, "It's lucky for you you're going, Petra. Look sharp when you're on the InterCity. Who knows, you might get a glimpse of the Outside." He is referring of course to the unknown wasteland that lies Outside the domed cities and the tubes that connect them. I nod vaguely, swallowing. Sometimes I'm not sure if Grandfather's all there after living so long in the Blue. *** Rousse City is warmer than Seabord, being further North. It's almost like being in a foreign country, I think as I lie with my cousins in the orchard. My relatives are always cursing their luck. They own exactly enough land to raise food for themselves, but not enough to sell to the local Rawfoods store. At least one dinner conversation a week is devoted to this topic � one of the reasons I don't much enjoy my stays in Rousse. Today was Lords' Day, and we exchanged gifts and sat around for about an hour to give our thanks to the Lords. This was a particularly painful part of the ritual, as there were fourteen people (including myself) at the family gathering. We sit in a circle and go around, every person naming one thing they're thankful for. I thank the Lords for building the cities. I thank the Lords for protecting us from the wastelands. I thank the Lords for the machines. There are maybe a dozen 'thanks' that are traditional, but then we have to start being imaginative�you can't repeat someone else's 'thanks' and the circle of thanks goes around five times. So by the end we're all saying things like "I thank the Lords for building the greenways, because they're prettier than the Blue," and then my aunt the matriarch starts screaming that the Lords didn't make the Blue; the Blue is a fault, so it's not a valid statement. And you reply, "I thank the Lords for toothpaste, which helps eliminate morning mouth," and she shuts up but stares at you suspiciously all through the ceremony. All in all I was very glad when it was over with. The light is dimming, and the chill of night is coming over me. The plants beside me shiver and cringe. I don't blame them. I can't help but think that I'd rather live in Seabord than Rousse. Even though Rousse is slightly warmer and more agrarian, its stars have gone out. Seabord still has working star projections. They may not be the real thing but they're beautiful to look at, and they mimic the actual star configurations. It's time now for the evening ceremonies. My aunt the dictatoress bellows from within the house and my relatives gloomily return from the orchard. I stand and go in with them. There's no point in lying outside in the cold dark, when there aren't even any stars. *** My train back to Seabord was delayed for a couple hours, so I'm wandering around the station. There are quite a few people; practically no one travels during the rest of the year but on Lords' Day everyone is visiting relatives somewhere. I wander through the myriad tunnels alone, losing myself in thought. It's pretty nice here; a warm 68 degrees and just the right humidity. Maybe when civilization falls we can all live in the ICE station warrens. I wander around for half an hour and finally realize that there are no more people waiting for trains. It takes a minute more for me to realize that I'm lost. Another thirty minutes of being lost, and I'm starting to panic. These murky tunnels go on and on and never end. A small door comes up on the left marked MAINTENANCE ONLY: WARNING HI-VOLTAGE ELECTRICITY. Yeah, right, maintenance. There hasn't been maintenance down here for thousands of years. Everything's automated. I drag the door open and see a small flight of stairs leading up. I take the stairs two at a time, finally reaching a small brown door at the top and collapsing in a panting heap against it. When I catch my breath I gingerly open the door, hoping it might lead eventually to the main part of the ICE station. It doesn't. What stretches before me is a cracked grey plain. A cool wind blows gently across it, and a couple of bright evening stars twinkle in a soft purple sky. It�s evening. Somehow I never envisioned this. I'd always had images of men in pressure suits stumbling around a rank desert, with biting acid winds and electrical storms raging in the sky. There's a line of rich green trees in the distance, bordering the barren stretch. I think for a moment and then quietly shut the door behind me. I walk forward to meet the people who were waiting for me beyond the grey waste. It doesn't occur to me to question how they knew I was coming. When they reach me the man in front says, "Go ahead, ask, get it over with. Then we can leave this place. It's unhealthy, to be around the ruined cities too long." "What about them?" I ask, gesturing vaguely at the vast half-sunken dome that stretches away behind me, blurring the horizon. "They're doomed, aren't they?" He shrugs, and I look up at the empty sky of the world the Lords ruined and ask the question I've always wanted to. "Hello? Is anybody there?" �11.11.02
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