The
world had stopped changing, and yet it continued to move. It kept
floating and spinning, circling the sun, cooling and heating as
seasons passed by. Life flourished upon it, and people did, too. They
created, destroyed, loved, and forgot — caught up in desire and
lost in their fears. Though an endless repetition had taken hold of
this world. There was, in a sense, no uncertainty left, nothing to
dance with beneath the long rain. Except in the minds of those truly
alive.
Amid
the far-reaching fields and their colorful plants, there was a mighty
machine. From its back hung a plough, heavy and wide, digging through
the soil without hurry. Inside it, comfortably seated, there was an
old farmer, dressed in long sheets of linen, and lost in her
thoughts. As they were running along, the tractor added a quiet hum
into the evening’s soft noises and filled its surroundings with an
ambient light.
The
farmer’s name was Nara. She had always been the one to take care of
these fields. Her friends had fled from the droughts, her family had
died from the rains, and her thoughts had dulled from the silence of
their absence. But her work had remained. The fields were all that
was left, and her life was tied to them like a tree to the ground.
And over the decades, again and again, life had flourished through
her hands in new colors and forms.
Nara
was about to turn in for the day. She had ploughed the whole sector,
which was now standing out like a brown patch on a colorful tapestry.
Slowly, the tractor came to a stop. She got off and stroked its blue
hull, praising it for being such a sturdy companion. Tomorrow she’d
sow. A joyful pride filled her body when she looked over the fields,
and so she kneeled down and touched the soil with her cheeks to thank
it.
The
farmer then left her machine and started to roam through the fields
without aim. It was a beautiful night. The sky was painted in heavy
strokes of ruby and blue with a few thin white lines stretched across
the horizon. A slight breeze was blowing through Nara’s hair and
the plants bent back and forth in a gentle rhythm. After some time,
her thoughts started to fade into a comfortable trance until she was
just listening to the sound of her feet.
Beyond
the fields, one could see the distant towers glimmering in the
falling darkness. To Nara, they were a reminder that the world was
finally in good hands. She appreciated that such matters were far
away and out of her reach. But when she was walking through the
fields on that night, she made out something unusual that woke an old
rusty feeling of excitement from deep within her heart. There was a
person in the fields, first barely visible from afar, then
increasingly clearer, running towards her and waving their hands.
It
took a few minutes until the stranger came into Nara’s reach. It
was a woman, dressed in a long cyan dress with two sturdy boots
sticking out beneath. Much smaller than the old farmer, with a fair
and spotless face and hair so short that it was barely visible. For a
second, the woman looked at Nara with curious eyes before she dropped
to the ground in exhaustion. Her body rose and fell with heavy
breaths and it took a few minutes for her to come back to her feet.
Then, in a tone that was careful but clearly excited, she started to
speak:
“Are
you from around here?”
Nara
nodded slowly and muttered her name. She had not talked to anyone in
a very long time, so her voice was brittle and rough.
“I
take care of these fields.”
The
strange woman looked around and praised the farmer on the beauty of
her garden.
“My
name is Yhi”, she added after a few seconds, “and I take care of
people.”
This
created some immediate sympathy in Nara, and they shook hands. After
that, she asked the strange woman what had brought her all the way to
her fields.
“I
am searching for something”, she explained, “Something that is
both old and new, that never breaks. Something always remains. Do you
know what I mean?”
Instinctively,
Nara looked back to her tractor, still visible as a slight blue
glimmer on the horizon behind them. Following the farmers gaze, Yhi
expressed in excitement:
“Of
course! And you never had any trouble with it?”
“Not
really, it’s been serving me well.”
The
mysterious woman asked if she could see it up close. As there was no
objection, they began to walk back to the plough. On the way, she
started to ask about the old farmer’s life. About her town, her
family, her past, her dreams, and so on. But Nara had little to say.
So the stranger surrendered at some point and started to talk about
herself instead. Nara learned that she was an artist. When she asked
her how that takes care of people, Yhi started to laugh.
“Maybe
it is more about taking care of myself. And what I want is just for
others to discover the same. Think about it, when was the last time
you saw someone dancing?”
Nara
shook her head, and the woman explained to her that there were many
such things that people had forgotten. But there were exceptions to
every rule. And she would find it and spread it like a disease in
order to return some uncertainty to the world. Nara stopped for a
second at this remark, wondering what that woman had in plan for her
tractor. But before she could say anything, Yhi had already figured
out what was on her mind.
“Bah,
this could be the most interesting thing to ever happen to you! Think
about it!”
Her voice was raised, and Nara got the
feeling that she was rather talking about her own life. After that,
they continued to walk in silence for the rest of the way until they
finally arrived at the freshly ploughed field, softly illuminated by
the ambient light of the tractor. With Nara’s skeptical look fixed
upon her, Yhi started to walk around the machine in amazement. How
curious it was for the farmer not to know what would happen next. And
how anxious it made her at the same time. It reminded her of the
past.
Somewhere
at the front of the machine, Yhi stopped her inspection and lifted a
hood. Nara came closer and saw hundreds of pipes that went around and
connected to each other without any clear system behind it. In the
middle sat a white little box, as big as a fist, so seamless and
perfectly formed that the old farmer was not sure whether she was
seeing an actual object. There was an obvious connection between that
box and the mysterious woman. They were like two pieces of a
different world, lost out here in the wilderness.
After
some careful investigation, Yhi removed the box from its slot and the
humming noise of the tractor died down. They then sat down and opened
the box. Nara held her breath and could hear the air fill the empty
space within the object. There was nothing inside it, it was as empty
as something can be. Just as seamless and perfect on the inside as it
was on the outside.
Yhi
looked devastated. All the strength and fire inside her had suddenly
disappeared.
“I
thought there would be something”, she muttered with tears in her
eyes.
The
old farmer wanted to console her new friend but still had little to
say. So she offered her a hand. Yhi got up to her feet and they
looked at each other for a while. Then, slowly, they started to turn
in circles. Step by Step. One breath at a time. They continued for a
long time, never going faster or slower, drawing circles into the
freshly ploughed soil as the ambient light of the tractor slowly
faded away and left them alone in the void of darkness.
When
they came to a stop, Nara realized that the faraway towers, as well,
had lost their light. Everything had become dark and silent. But
something unavoidable was on its way. At first it was only a soft
noise in the distance. As time passed, it became louder and
uncomfortable. And then, suddenly, a glaring light was aimed on them
from the sky.
Yhi
began to tremble.
“We
have to put it back”, she said faintly with almost no air in her
voice.
The
box was where they had left it on the ground, reflecting the light
like a diamond. In rapid movements, Yhi jumped towards it, closed it
again, and put it back into the tractor. Then she started to run. Her
cyan clothes fluttered wildly, and the dirt started to swirl up from
the ground as the helicopter started to follow behind her.
Nara,
in the meantime, was completely paralyzed. She had grown too old for
this and didn’t know what to do or how to react. Suddenly, a loud
noise ripped through the air and she saw her new friend stumble and
fall to the ground. But Yhi raised her body again and slowly turned
towards Nara with a bitter smile on her face. Looking genuinely
relieved but also clearly in pain, she shouted towards the farmer:
“Wasn’t
that quite an irregular day?”
The
old farmer stood there and looked as Yhi dropped back to the ground.
And then, just as fast as the trouble had come, it went away again.
The helicopter landed right next to Yhi’s body and a group of tall
men appeared. They moved the body inside and, without sparing a
second, the helicopter rose up again and disappeared into the
darkness.
After
a long time, the ambient lights and familiar humming of the tractor
returned and reminded Nara of the present. When she started to move
again, there were little feelings left in her heart, and no trace to
remind her of what had happened. She told herself that the story
would have ended this way with or without her. That this stranger had
died because that was what she had set out to do in the first place.
That death had been the only real change this person had possessed
the freedom to bring about.
And
so, there was nothing left to do for the old farmer but to keep doing
her work as she had always done. In the days to follow, she started
to plant new seeds on the field. And over time, the usual serenity
slowly returned to her old mind. Only every once in a while, when the
gleaming towers in the distance caught her eyes, she thought that she
saw a shadow moving through the fields. But it would fade away every
time, never to reach her again.
Thank
you to Marlene Wagner and Aaron Vansintjan for helping out with this
story.
Joël
Foramitti is a researcher and activist from Barcelona and Vienna.
Never for a moment would anyone have believed that Mr. Hayashi would become the most important person in the world, much less himself.
Mr. Hayashi, or Hayashi-san as one says in Japan, was ordinary in the extreme; average height, a barely expressive face, and dressed in an indistinguishable gray suit. Aged 37 years with a slightly stooped demeanor, he eked out an anonymous existence between an apartment in the distant Tokyo suburb of Machida and the headquarters of Yatohido Company. It was there that he was employed in the obscure but respectable profession of assistant accountant. His aged parents had retired several years earlier to their home prefecture of Kochi, far to the South leaving him alone in a capital city little friendly to young adults.
Nothing in the daily life of Hayashi-san would resonate with the ancient significance of his name meaning “forest”. On the contrary, he was dominated by the artificiality of this megacity of 26 million people which, in moments of reflection, makes one ponder at what point we are still actually human beings. The daily life of Hayashi-san had been upset several weeks prior by the arrival in his department of a trainee secretary, Miss Mariko – Mariko-san. Her smiles linked with the etymology of her traditional first name – “child of true reason” – were like a taste of sake to his parched throat reaching to his heart, even though he barely entertained the slightest possibility that she had actually noticed him with his middling status alongside the hundreds that made up the Yatohido social scene. Rumors circulating about her also suggested prudence, as the young woman was identified as a union type.
Proof of the matter came on one chilly day of 13 February.
Under a drizzle not quite rain, Mariko-san proudly appeared at the revolving door of the main entrance to the company headquarters, flanked by half a dozen strapping sumo wrestler types. A banner held above her head accused Yatohido Company of implication in illicit disposal of extremely toxic waste and called for a strike. Like all conscientious accountants, Hayashi-san was hardly implicated in the activities of his company. That is how the world is. The newspapers overflowed with evidence of increasingly serious environmental violations on the part of the company. He was not especially proud of it. However, his deeply-ingrained habits of meticulous labor rendered even the idea of protest virtually sacrilege.
Several employees had proceeded to the entrance, most of them indifferent to the troublemakers. Only a fewdonned head bands.
Strikes in the ex-empire of the rising sun differ significantly from those in the West.
For non-Japanese readers, it should be clarified that strikes in the ex-empire of the rising sun differ significantly from those in the West. Whereas Westerners gesticulate with vehemence, noisily yelling slogans and demonstrate outside of their workplace, the Japanese prefer to protest silently by wearing a white band tied around their head, before going to work, as a kind of symbolic protest. Sensitive to the code of honor as much as to the lure of gain, the Japanese bosses are generally resigned to grant concessions rather than see their employees express their discontent overtly in front of them, with the help of a cotton cloth of immaculate whiteness.
Hayashi-san had no will to participate in this demonstration. Yet, even when Miss Mariko turned her eyes upon him, he dared not look back at her. Even so, he committed the folly of turning his head towards her. Although petrified by the audacity of his act, Hayashi-san could not at the same time repress a frisson of wonderment at breathing the scent of jasmine exuded from the bodice of the young woman as she tied a cloth around the back of his head.
Despite this breach of the ordinary, the day began with metronomic regularity, reading departmental notes, checking bills, credits and debit accounts, all the little games that accountants play. At a quarter past eleven, as with all his colleagues, he placed a telephone order for a bento which was delivered at five minutes to twelve, with its heavy smell of perfumed rice and fried mackerel. Expertly wielding chopsticks, he carefully devoured the contents under the cover of a computer screen. It was at this moment he became aware that people were staring at him. The parade of company officials with scowling faces had not escaped him. It is true that very few of the accounting staff had participated in the strike action, but two tables further down, the grumpy Kazuki showed his opposition by wearing a white head band, without attracting the kind of sustained attention as himself. Even more surprisingly, Mr. Kosumi, the head of finance, entered the room in person with a mini-radio attached to his ear. The volume was sufficiently strong to indicate to Hayashi that the events associated with the strike now rippled through the company. The finance chief fixed upon him with an insistent stare before stifling a groan and turning on his heels.
In this atmosphere of general nervousness, Hayashi attributed the attention of which he was victim to the distinctive smell of the fish which he had just eaten. Struck with a certain shame, he disposed of the empty lunchbox in the bin near the elevator and not inside the office as usual. But the odor followed him for the rest of the day, at least he believed so given the searching eyes of those who observed in silence.
So many souls are prisoners of their illusions of success on which they have been lulled.
Hayashi-san’s stupefaction reached a height at the point when he exited the office at 6 PM. In order to economize on power, as is want in Japan, employees were no longer required to stay on in their offices until after dark. He really did not complain even if he sometimes wished to be able to finish off working on certain delicate documents.
His stupor was driven into fear at having nothing rationalwhen he noticed a group of journalists entering through the revolving doors. It seemed unlikely but they appeared to be personally awaiting him. Some of them knew his name and interrogated him on the meaning of his actions.
Deeply embarrassed, poor Hayashi-san stammered out vague contrite explications on the legality of the strike process notwithstanding of its potential damage to national production. In the wake of these maladroit verbal pirouettes, and profiting from the crowd and the gathering darkness, Hayashi-san made his escape. However, the looks he received in the metro and then on the Odakyu-Odawara line appeared to him no less inquisitive and suspicious than those of his colleagues and the reporters. Attributing this sentiment to work stress, Hayashi plunged into reading the Nihon Keizai Shimbun to check up on the stock exchange where he had placed his meager savings.
First observing the scorn in the eyes of his landlady, Hayashi-san then discovered the terrible truth in the image he saw reflected in the mirror of his minuscule bathroom. In his troubles he had forgotten to take off his headband upon leaving work. But the gravity of that forgetfulness was hardly equal to the surprise of discovering that the headband was actually green in color, not white …
That evening, switching from TV Asahi to Fuji Television and to Nippon News, he gained some understanding although not of the full depth of the disaster. His “statement” had become newsworthy. All the commentators questioned this novel mode of protest vesting the strike with a profoundly new forceful claim. Wearing the colour green had not escaped anyone, yet a great ambiguity surrounded it.
Many foresaw an environmental action, which made good sense in the light of toxic waste cases including Yatohido Company’s. Others forecast that it could be a protest against the excesses of Japanese acculturation. In reality, in old Japanese there is no term to describe this colour. Since olden times the term ao signified “blue” as well as referring to “green.” Other analysts passed comment that green is equally the colour of Islam. The fact that Hayashi-san had worn the green headband outside of his workplace was perceived as an act to draw attention to the fact that the world could no longer live in peace until the great questions dealing with Islam were resolved, commencing with the Palestine problem, otherwise threatening Japan’s petroleum supplies.
Wearing the color green had not escaped anyone, yet a great ambiguity surrounded it.
Hayashi-san preferred to sleep rather than listening to these rambling discussions. He could not be prevented, however, from asking himself why Mariko-san had given him a green headband, when all his fellow strikers were provided with classic white headbands. Was it just an accident? A mistake? Or, was she playing a joke on him? Or perhaps was she helping a colleague to takeover his position?
Hayashi-san’s night was interrupted by interminable periods of insomnia and horrible nightmares devoid of sense, even if some of them led to proximity with Mariko whom he would not have needlessly displeased.
On the morning of 14 February, Hayashi-san put away the headband and sought to forget this painful episode. That was impossible. All the passengers on the Odakyu Odawara line and, in turn, the metro appeared to scrutinize him with insistence. Without doubt it was an illusion of his fatigued brain. Still, he could not help but note that several Tokyoites were wearing green headbands.
A crowd of journalists, cameramen, and onlookers hurried in front of the Yatohido Company quarters. Even though the crowd was too dense for him to discern whether the strikers were still there, Hayashi-san did not imagine for a second that this was on account of himself. Nevertheless, as a precaution he furnished himself with an anti-pollution cotton protection mask covering his mouth and nose, to which he had added a gray scarf and wide-brimmed hat. Incognito, he flowed with the crowd of company employees and managed to pass through the media barrage without being noticed. Watchmen awaited in the interior of the building. Apprehended, he was led to face the shacho orcompany president.
Never in his wildest dreams had Hayashi envisaged to meet Yatohido in person. At least a dozen echelons above him were ranged, commencing with the certified accountant, then theinspector, then the deputy chief of service, the chief, and right up to the head of finance who alone could be expected to talk to the great patron. The interview was of murderous brevity. Yatohido did not even address a word to him. He merely turned a scornful glance – more contemptuous than angry – allowing a junior executive to explain that his deportment was totally unacceptable for a respectable company. They didn’t even ask him to explain himself. He was dismissed without any other form of process and enjoined to leave by the side door, so as not to add a new scandal to the actual dishonorable confusion.
His return trip was interminable. With eyes lowered upon his carefully polished shoes, Hayashi was certain that, in spite of his anti-pollution mask and hat, everyone was looking at him with repugnance and contempt. In his misfortune, he nevertheless was lucky that the landlady was absent at the time he entered his premises. With her characteristic cheek, she would not have held back from publicly insulting him.
Such horror! Not a single channel avoided this new style of green headbands.
With trembling hands Hayashi-san closed his double locks and collapsed on the tatami.The enormity of the situation rendered him incapable of the slightest movement. More than an hour passed before he found the energy to drag himself in front of a television. He reduced the sound to a minimum level so as not to compromise his shameful return. Such horror! Not a single channel avoided this new style of green headbands. Even the window dressers had seized the opportunity. On all cotton goods either sophisticated or customized, they offered the following groups: a creepy headband for punks, emerald with pearls for the rich class, a jade/black ornament style for the goths, and a lace-olive version for romantics.
The debate now entered a new stage with the engagement of the Midori no Mirai, the Japanese green party, which claimed ownership of the movement. According to this organization, by a courageous act, Hayashi-san had given tone to a new era. It was time that, in the country of the Kyoto Protocol, the population ceased to conduct itself in an irresponsible manner. Japan would, at the same time, be able show to the world the path of real change. In a surprising manner, the phenomena took on significant amplitude, not only in the Japanese archipelago, but numerous foreign journalists also commenced to cover the subject.
Hayashi-san switched off the television. Not only had he been dismissed for a grave error, but the association of his name with the movement compromised all chance for him to recover stable employment. If Hayashi-san had had the force of character of his ancestors, he would undoubtedly have committed hara-kiri. Better death than dishonor. In like fashion, he admired the determination of the samurai and kamikaze of glorious times. They too frequently adorned themselves with pennants, as with the white flag enhanced with the symbol of the rising sun, signifying the glory of the Japanese empire, not green flags of which a single thought brought tears of regret to his eyes.
Why him? It remained to be established whether or not Mariko-san had deliberately done this and, in either case, towards what end. He really didn’t know. At this stage, his options were limited. The best was to strive to forget and to move from Tokyo and rejoin his parents in the distant Kochi prefecture hoping that they themselves would not die of shame and deign not even to acknowledge him as their son. In the meantime, best to remain where he was for a few days to let the affair settle down.
Stocked with rice,preserved food,and bean cakes, Hayashi-san had sufficient provisions to hold out for a week. On several occasions he heard noises at the door and the hectoring voice of the landlady. He was careful, however, not to make the slightest noise. He no longer turned on the light including the television and remained dispirited, plunged into morbid thoughts which he was unable to give meaning to.
“In just one week hundreds of millions of people have donned green headbands as a way of signaling to their leaders that they don’t want to continue on a suicidal course.”
More so than even his hunger, repeated knocks and insistent murmurs behind the door confirmed his sense of isolation and resignation. One particular voice convinced him to open the door. It was that of Mariko-san.
— Open, I beg you, she repeated barely above a whisper so as not to draw the attention of neighbors.
— Mariko-san, what have you done? he was obliged to ask while allowing her to enter the genkan.
— I am so happy to find you, Hayashi-san, I was certain that you were dead!
Complex thoughts entered his mind. He was happy that she had taken interest in him including her concerns that he may have committed suicide. However, he still misunderstood her intentions. As the young woman continued:
— The movement has taken on an incredible surge, all over the planet. In just one week hundreds of millions of people have donned green headbands as a way of signaling to their leaders that they don’t want to continue on a suicidal course, whether economic or environmental.
Hayashi-san was not certain if he understood her entirely. He nevertheless managed to query:
— But why did you give me a green bandana?
— It was an accident. My little sister wished to help me with my preparations for the strike. It was she who cut up the cotton cloth. Without paying attention, she also cut up a green strip.
— But why me?
Mariko explained to him that this also was by chance. In the gloomy morning light, she likewise did not pay attention to the green color of the headband. When she came to understand the kind of scandal it provoked in the company, she warned the union boss. It was he who had the bright idea to alert the press in order to exploit the event, without imagining that it would take on such a dimension.
“A new fight is just starting. There will still be hundreds if not thousands of battles.”
— You used me, you brought it on, he inveighed, horrified to discover what really happened. And what will become of me now? I hope you are going to restore the truth …
— What truth? she declared, innocently. That you have become a hero all over the world.
The young woman took him by hand to the living room where she turned on the television.
In Tokyo, New York, Montreal, Rome, Paris, Beijing, Kinshasa, millions of people were wearing green headbands to work, on the streets, in the restaurants … Millions of others lit candles in front of his portrait.
— What are they doing? choked Hayashi-san.
— Most of them believe that you are dead. They learned that you were called up to meet Mr. Yatohido. Then you disappeared. In the meantime, everyone was talking about it. The trade in toxic waste was confirmed uncovering even more serious breaches. The collusion between business, government, the triads and yakuza, has been revealed. Yatohido was sent to prison along with his entire top management, as well as several ministers and Diet members. They were looking for you everywhere. Your landlady confirmed that you had never returned. Your parents were without news. Everyone thought that the yakuza had done away with you to smother the affair.
— It’s horrible!
— But this has also made you a martyr and brought the environmental movement to a level never before reached. The shock has shaken all of Japan, even leading to indignation on the part of the emperor himself in public statements. It has unleashed a global movement of protest on the part of those who are fed up with the situation. The New York Times has published your photo, designating you as “man of the year.” Some have even nominated you for a posthumous Nobel Peace Prize.
— But I have done nothing. I don’t want it.
— No matter, you have hit at the right time, she said with a consoling tone while grazing his cheek with her hand to calm him down. You are now the spokesperson for an immense movement for hope. You must return to the scene to continue the fight.
— But can we change so quickly as that? he wondered, not complaining about another gesture from Mariko-san, giving way to a strange tingling in his spine.
— For sure not. A new fight is just starting. There will still be hundreds if not thousands of battles. The lobbies are powerful. They have such money and power at stake, and so many souls are prisoners of their illusions of success on which they have been lulled. But you bring a new wind and a novel mode of protest to humankind.
— I shall never be able, he bewailed.
— I beg of you Hayashi-san, we really have need of you. The planet needs you.
To be sure, Hayashi-san could never have believed that he would become an important person, much less one of the most important in the world. Nothing had prepared him for this. However, Mariko seemed so convinced and convincing. Maybe it was worth trying.
This short-story appeared initially in French in the Canadian Review: Solaris (n°183, 2013). It was translated into English by the author and Geoffrey C. Gunn (former Professor at Nagasaki University).
Yann Quero has studied Environment and Oriental civilizations. In a meandering path between Europe, America, Africa and Asia, he devotes most of his time to writing, mainly in the field of science fiction. He has published six novels in French: The Era of Cain (2004), The White Man’s Trial (2005) The Future Will No Longer Be What It Was (2010), Mozart’s Tempest (2012), Planet 7 (2017), The Devil’s Bubbles (2018). He is also the editor of several anthologies of short stories on: The Diseases of the Future, Global Warming, GMOs, among other topics, and of a special issue of “Galaxies” review on Science Fiction and Ecology. Many of his short stories have been published in various journals and reviews such as: Galaxies, Solaris, Lunatique, The Vagabonds’ dream, Liberation, and others.
Alwena walked along the black scorched hillside of the Ménez Hom. In the distance, she could see dark clouds accumulating over the Crozon peninsula. The constant rain that used to be so emblematic of the region had become increasingly rare. Each droplet was a welcome relief.
As a mountain, Ménez Hom did not impress by its height, but by the fact that it completely dominated the landscape. One could stand at the peak and survey a large amount of the north-western French coast.
The Wehrmacht, having observed that during World War II, built a large radar and artillery base on the peak. The French resistance paid a heavy price to take it back from the fifteen thousand German soldiers sworn to defend it with their lives.
Alwena walked slowly over the small path of sandstone and inspected the fire damages. There had been fires before, but each year they were more frequent and destroyed more of the ecosystem. She remembered the landscape of peat and marshes, with wildflowers that added bright red and purple over brown like a painter’s brush on canvas. It was left dark and fuming now. Droplets of rain freckled her skin as the unpleasant smell of wet ash reached her nose. It wasn’t her first survey; the scent had become familiar.
A patch of colour caught her eye. Right in the middle of the devastated landscape, in the ruins of a bunker, Sundew was growing back. Alwena approached and reached down to examine the small red plant. She smiled at it. “Brave little one,” she said, “I don’t see any insects left to catch.”
After a few hours of searching for surviving plants by the mountain side, she noticed a pattern. June 11, 2043. Sundew survived on N flank but only near or inside bunkers, note: investigate passive cooling of concrete, she jotted down on her notepad with a pencil.
The wind picked up and ash flew into her eyes. It reminded her of tear-gas. She started to cough and cursed herself for not bringing a mask. She ran back to the surveyor’s van, trying not to trip among the spiky shrubs as the winds began to whip around her. The van was almost out of gas and not going anywhere, but it made for a perfect base for the surveyors. The sliding door opened and they shouted at her to get in.
When her eyes adjusted to the dim interior, she could see the faces staring at her.“You ok?” Wassim asked, handing her a wet towel. She looked for a clean corner and wiped her face and eyes with it. It came out grey. “I’ll be alright. That came out of nowhere,” she replied, “Find anything interesting?” “Some traces of a mudslide, heather and gorse is growing back, sphagnum moss isn’t. You know… the usual,” he said with a sigh, “How about you?” “Somehow sundew survived, near the bunkers.” “Who would have bet that out of all plants, sundew would outlive buckwheat.” “I’m going to look into how that happened though, maybe what worked for the sundew can work for the wheat.” “Maybe,” Wassim replied. She couldn’t tell if he was lost in thought or simply disinterested as he stayed silently looking out the window. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Uh…? Oh. I’m… I’m losing hope.” His forced smile barely hid his despair. “About the crops?” “Yeah, I mean, the weather. One second it’s calm, the other there’s a storm. It’s probably what they felt like, in cities during the war.” “What do you mean?” “You’re waiting for the airstrike, it could happen any time so there’s no point in hiding in a bunker. Same for the storms, the floods. It could happen anytime. Life has to go on, but deep down you know. You’re at the mercy of the climate, and the climate is at the mercy of crumbling ideologies.”
Life has to go on, but deep down you know. You’re at the mercy of the climate, and the climate is at the mercy of crumbling ideologies.
As a Zadist, Wassim spent years trying to build anarchist utopias while being under constant threat of expulsion. He knew what it felt like to keep hope when things could end in an instant. He had been labelled an extremist when he blocked airports and oil pipelines from being built. Now, years later, throwing a wrench in the gears of civilization was the new norm for young people. Quite often Alwena would get swept up by her group of friends into more trouble than she signed up for. She grew up in a world where she saw the damages of climate change in the news. They were raised in a world where the school’s cantina occasionally served moldy EU humanitarian aid rations.
Another surveyor in the van spoke, “Yeah I’m struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel here. I used to be an optimist like you, Alwena. I thought we could exit the system. Live on our own, demonstrate the alternative. But now with the floods and shitty soil, we can’t even do that anymore.” Alwena took a deep breath. Outside of the van, the storm was raging. A small burned twig impacted the window and startled her. “Guys, my optimism is fueled by the reality of the crisis. Yes, dozens of millions are going to die from famines, I know that. But when that’s done, the old world dies. I can guarantee you that we won’t be able to find a single person to defend industrial civilization when shelves and stomachs are empty. All we have to do is prepare to survive the next ten years.”
They waited for the storm to pass and rode bicycles down to the little town of Argol.
*
Alwena spent the next year down a rabbit hole to find out why the sundew survived in the bunkers. She obtained approval for the construction of multiple test greenhouses sunken ten feet deep in the limestone of the Ménez Hom. For Alwena, the way out was underground.
She walked down into the greenhouse and felt a strange satisfaction as she shut the door behind her. The carefully tended piece of microclimate was her pride. Many came to visit, perhaps to find hope. The fresh air almost made her shiver, or perhaps it was excitement. Many endangered flower species bloomed on the twenty meters of ground, while tomatoes grew on the side wall. The whole scene bathed in a serene and diffused sunlight.
The system was fairly simple and didn’t require any electricity. A few well-placed earth tubes would exchange warm air for cold using the massive thermal inertia of the mountain, smoothing out the sudden heatwaves. Alwena’s latest experiment was to tap into the cold air from the underground bunker complex. The structure of each greenhouse was twenty meters long but was almost invisible from the outside as it blended with the slope.
Alwena often called the greenhouse her “time-machine” for transporting crops to temperatures from before the Anthropocene. A time where scientists could still use radiocarbon dating to figure out the age of fossils. Alwena was still young, but the carbon isotopes in her bones appeared decayed, as if she were born nine hundred years ago.
She kneeled on a pad of wool and looked at the sensors. Temperature, moisture—she would record it all in a text file on her phone. Alwena angled the LCD screen towards the light to read the text better. “Phone” might be an overstatement—a mere hacked calculator capable of transmitting radio signals—but somehow it was so solid and the battery lasted for so long that she preferred it over anything else.
Just as she was about to finish reading all the sensors, she heard footsteps approaching. “Is someone inside? We’re looking for Alwena Bihan,” a voice said from the outside. Through the blur of translucent plastic, she could see the silhouette of a man and a woman. Alwena stood and opened the hermetic door. A camera and a notepad: news reporters. A large number of them showed up during the food shortages, but they soon lost interest in Alwena’s project. “Yes?” “We’re looking to get a few words from you about conservation efforts in light of the recent developments.” “Sure… But first, get in there! I’m losing fresh air,” Alwena closed the door behind them. The man threaded carefully through the plants to get both her and the reporter in the frame. “What recent developments?” “The construction of a phased array radar system on top of the Ménez Hom?” “What… Why?” The camera man lowered his camera, and the woman laughed nervously. “We thought you would know. Since you’ve been so invested in the site. The radar and surface-to-air missiles will be part of the new nuclear security reinforcement program.”“So, do you want to comment about how the construction might affect the biodiversity of the Ménez Hom and your food security experiment? We’ve also seen a large mobilization of the green resistance on the internet after the announcement, what do you have to say about that?” She said, inching the microphone closer to Alwena’s face with every word. “No, sorry. I need to think about it,” Alwena said, holding her head in her hand, “Please leave.”
Once the door closed, Alwena lowered herself to the ground. She had heard that countries throughout the world were boosting their anti-nuclear defense in preparation for famines. All the leading game-theorists said that it would end in threats of annihilation, or protection in exchange for food and oil. They said it could only result in the four biggest nuclear arsenal countries—France being one of them—dominating the flux of food and energy and escalating tensions. She didn’t think it would impact the Ménez Hom.
The vibration of her phone took her out of the storm in her brain. Wassim. “Have you seen the news?” he asked. “I heard it from some reporter who showed up just a second ago. It’s crazy. Does this have to do with L’Île Longue?” Alwena asked, fearing the worst. L’Île Longue was the biggest stockpile of nuclear warheads and submarines in Europe, and it was right in her beloved peninsula. “Exactly. The army wants to put some anti-air stuff, and an observation tower on top of the Ménez Hom.” “Wait, it’s a protected site! I remember when I was a kid the regional government didn’t even authorize the army to install a mobile base for NATO exercises. How can they build a permanent base? That makes no sense.” “Times have changed, I don’t think they care anymore. Countries with empty stomachs and an obese nuclear arsenal is not a good combo.” “Also, are we talking about a local garrison or… the Cog?” She asked. “The Cog, it’s the real stuff.” Alwena’s head was spinning. What started as an ecological conservation experiment now put her in the centre of a massive conflict. Continuation of government or, as they called it, “The Cog” was both the boogeyman and the saviour. A plan originally designed to keep critical functions of the government running through any crisis. A plan that turned into a second government, operating in some secret bunker with no oversight. The Cog was always silent, but it sure kept the engine of the old civilization humming.
Continuation of government or, as they called it, “The Cog” was both the boogeyman and the saviour.
“So what’s your plan?” Wassim asked her. “My plan?” “Yeah. We’re not going to let the army build the base, are we?” “I… I don’t know. Maybe Paris will see that prioritizing military security over food security is a self-fulfilling prophecy. But what can Paris really do?” “But right now your thing is just an experiment, how many greenhouses do you have? Three?” “Yeah three.” “So we need to help you scale up then. It needs to become the embodiment of biodiversity, food security. Like a symbol, you know?” “We?” “The whole Zadist crew is talking about it, we’re ready.” “Ready for what?” “To make a stand, on the Ménez Hom.”
*
It didn’t take more than a week for word to spread, and soon Alwena was running around trying to explain to hundreds of Zadists how to build the greenhouses without harming the land. But that wasn’t why most people showed up. They showed up to defy the state’s authority once more, showing that another way of life was possible.
Alwena was torn, she resented Wassim for bringing all these people to the fragile landscape of the mountain. She changed her mind when someone working in l’Île Longue leaked the construction plans for the radar. They were going to dynamite entire parts of the mountain, drain out the marshes to make roads for armored transports.
Alwena had studied the plans and leaked photographs of the base, too. L’île longue was built on the side of a massive cliff, and the eastern side facing the Channel and the Atlantic was virtually indestructible granite. That also came at a big disadvantage; from inside the base, you couldn’t have a line of sight on enemy aircrafts coming from the west. The base was constructed before AI drones, assuming that a pilot couldn’t possibly fly below radar line of sight, or handle the g-forces from the hard turn required to strike the eastern side when coming from the west. This meant that enemy drones had a limited window to strike without being detected.
That was the flaw the Cog wanted to patch. The Ménez Hom had a line of sight over the entire peninsula, the perfect place to install surface to air missiles and radars pointed at the sea.
Alwena knew that none of that would save the country from starvation. The role of the Cog was to preserve the old world; its states, armies, and national identities. While many around her still believed in the concept of “the army” fueled by the passion of nationalism, for most people there was no choice but to feed the Cog in exchange for protection. More and more unemployed young men joined the military each year, when what the country needed was an army of farmers for the war effort of healing the land.
If they are going to destroy it all anyway, Alwena thought, might as well highlight the potential we’re losing.
She was surprised by how quickly the militants made caring about the mountain a social norm. Marginalized people who came to challenge the state stayed for the learning, food, and community. Alwena had always dreamed about this; a technological dystopia merged with a social utopia. The opposite of the world she resented.
Months passed in a blur, rhythmed by the attempted expulsions conducted by riot police. A trampled sign lay in the mud, it read “build farms, not nukes”. The riot police was ordered not to use tear gas or mortars up until that point.
Then came one day she could never forget. An early morning in August 2044.
*
The escalation of international nuclear threats eventually meant the end of roundtables and compromises. The Cog needed the mountain.
Alwena had heard rumors that local garrisons were ordered to finish the expulsions of militants and Zadists once and for all. Everyone shared one last beer and laughed nervously awaiting the deployment of more than five thousand men and armoured transport. This time, there was no way out.
One common tactic for Zadists was to chain themselves to a heavy object—a tree or metal pole—with handcuffs. She argued in vain with Wassim to not tie himself to that wooden beam. He tried to hand her the keys to the handcuffs but she refused, hoping that would dissuade him. Instead he gave the keys to a friend causing Alwena to instantly regret it. “…Plus it’s stupid, they’ll just pull you off the beam and then you’re just handcuffed.” “Good point,” he said, looking around him to people preparing for the expulsion, “Hey, you over here with the hammer! Mind nailing this plank up here?” he said, pointing to the top of the wooden beam. Alwena stood there arms crossed while he was getting attached. Wassim was like the little brother she never had, always getting into trouble. “Wait, where’s your mask?” Alwena asked, “You need to protect your eyes.” “Oh shit, it’s in the greenhouse. Can you get it for me?” Alwena instinctively dropped to the ground after hearing explosions in the distance. “No time, take mine,” she said, fitting her gas mask onto his face. “What about y…?” he tried to say before his voice became inaudible through the mask. “I’ve got spare glasses,” Alwena said after taking out safety goggles from her vest, “They never use tear gas here, I should be fine.” And before anyone could heed the screams of warning, mortars sprayed a barrage of tear gas canisters.
It all happened in a few seconds. Alwena groaned in pain as a rubber bullet hit her flank. She collapsed, out of breath under the impact. A canister fell near her and she saw the dry shrubs combust. Panicked, she looked side to side as she saw many more projectiles land in the shrubs. She ran towards the smoke grenades and threw her jacket over one of them to squelch the fire. She had begun to choke on the tear gas when sound grenades detonated.
Flashing images of heavily armored figures charged uphill and downhill in blinding coordination. It wasn’t just the police this time—the operation started with military precision.
She tried to look for Wassim but was already becoming disoriented. When her hearing finally returned, all she could hear were screams. Flames had quickly spread causing a wildfire that burned resistance and police alike. Those who chose to barricade themselves inside the greenhouses were caught in the fire and burned alive; others died after breathing the fumes of burned plastic. The finished greenhouses were completly fire-retardant, but many were in the middle of construction.
Alwena turned around and saw Wassim burning alive on his cross. She screamed as she was dragged away by the firefighters and handcuffed by the army. There was nothing she could do to save him. Neither the firefighters or the army managed to stop a small group of photographers from immortalizing the scene.
Alwena couldn’t witness any revolution from her prison cell, but she could hear it. The voices were loud, but that wasn’t enough to stop the Cog. Then, the food simply stopped coming. Alwena heard it on the radio: A general food strike. All farmers would simply refuse to give, or sabotage any food meant for the military, even under threat of death. Any acts of brutality from the local garrisons or the Cog would paint them as they really were: a mafia at the nation scale, offering protection in exchange for food but destroying anyone who declined the deal.
Alwena ripped open the last emergency ration package with her emaciated hands when she heard the announcement that a garrison flipped. They made a deal with the local farmers: the garrison would continue to receive food, but in exchange they would receive orders from a citizen assembly and reject the Cog’s authority. One by one, not without its shares of skirmishes and scare-tactics, every unit, battalion, base, and vessel turned peacefully against their central command.
“Drink! This might be your last one” a guard said, his gaunt face startling her. She took the glass and watched the bubbles. “Champagne? Where did you find that?” “It said ‘for a special occasion’ on the label, so we saved it until now,” the guard said with a faint smile crackling his lips. “What’s the occasion?” “We’ve been told there’s a submarine in the roadstead of Brest, with tactical nukes aimed at whoever flips.” “…And?” “We called bluff, so we’re flipping,” the guard replied, clinging his glass against hers.
*
Not long after that, she was free. A newly formed 6th republic built by Zadists and the food-strikers called for her help, to be a symbol against COGs and military rule in other countries, but first, Alwena wanted to see the Ménez Hom again.
A lot had changed in five months.
With streaks of burned earth barely visible under the layers of flowers, it seemed as if the surface of the mountain had already forgotten. The wind was ruthless and her locks were a tangly mess, but she felt alive. She placed blue thistles by a commemorative plaque. Red and blue wildflowers were scattered all around the base of a statue.
Wassim on the cross, a martyr in granite.
At the top of the Ménez Hom, between the earth and the sky, history had displayed the ability to repeat itself.
Granite remembered, as always.
*
In memory of my great-grandfather Jean Guennal, résistant on the Ménez Hom.
Efflam Mercier is a concept artist and writer with a passion for shining a spot-light on the effects of climate change. His upbringing in the French countryside of Brittany gave him a deep sense of responsibility to nature and its ecosystems. Efflam is currently working on a post-collapse painting series and resides in Los Angeles with his wife and two dogs.
This is just wrong, Cariappa thought. The abstract had already tipped him off, but now that he had scrolled through the entire CDC report and compiled a mental list of all the inaccuracies and omissions along the way, he knew the conclusion was wrong. Even the writing was slipshod, superficial, like a homework assignment hastily completed five minutes before it was due.
Cariappa put down his notepad and let his eyes glaze over while he considered the facts. An outbreak of naegleriasis with multiple clusters, all located in seven states and two former territories of the United States. In the space of a summer month, the outbreak had infected 309 people, with 182 dead so far. The spike in fatalities had alarmed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with agency investigators initially fearful of a novel strain of naegleriasis that could be transmitted between people. This was quickly dismissed by flagellation tests and molecular analyses, and Cariappa got the impression that those results had relaxed the investigation to the point of complacency.
The rest of the report was academic guesswork derived mainly from the geographic distribution of the outbreak. Since most clusters were located in coastal regions with poorly maintained (or a complete lack of) seawalls and surge barriers, CDC investigators had concluded that increased flooding had resulted in more stagnant pools of water and thus a more fertile ground for Naegleria fowleri, the free-living amoeba that causes naegleriasis. The ongoing continental super summer was also marked as an environmental determinant, as N. fowleri are thermophilic and thrive in warm water sources.
It made sense at a cursory glance, but fell apart with even mild scrutiny. As he reached for his notepad, Cariappa briefly felt like a detective taking a closer look at a murder scene where the police had arrested an obvious patsy and summarily closed the case. He started reading the report a second time.
* * *
I don’t feel wrong, Sunil thought. He was sitting next to his parents in his teacher’s office when he realised they were talking about what was wrong with him. He had never been in this room before so he was counting the ceiling tiles (eleven down, fourteen across), but then his teacher mentioned something that made his dad a little angry. Now he paid attention to what was being said, with words like ‘preoccupied’ and ‘difficult’ coming up. One of the words he didn’t know was ‘autism’. He made a mental note to look it up as soon as he got home.
* * *
N. fowleri cannot survive in seawater. It was right there on Wikipedia. Cariappa had already reacquainted himself with naegleriasis when news of the outbreak first reached him, but now that the CDC report had compelled him to get up to speed properly, that one simple fact undermined its conclusion more than any other. If an increased abundance of N. fowleri was the cause of the outbreak (and Cariappa believed it had to be), coastal flooding was at the very least not sufficient to explain it. Neither was the super summer, which had started two months earlier.
Photo: Daniel Sturgess
Timescale discrepancies also complicated the other environmental determinants listed in the report, each of which had been in play since before the turn of the century. Thermal pollution and habitat disturbances that eliminated N. fowleri’s competitors for bacterial food supplies had already resulted in more documented cases of naegleriasis over the last two decades, but plotting that graph still produced a flat line with a steady slope. Under the conditions detailed in the report, the sudden spike in infections caused by the outbreak, which now turned the graph into a hockey stick, should have occurred much sooner or in a broader trend.
Next, Cariappa reviewed the two available appendices, the first of which included several interviews with infected people. They were at least treated as unreliable, given that naegleriasis tends to leave its victims in a state of confusion. This had led Cariappa down the roadmap of the infection’s pathogenesis, which affects the central nervous system. When water containing N. fowleri is inhaled through the nose, the amoebae are passed to the olfactory bulbs of the forebrain. Once there, they multiply by feeding on neurons and glial cells in lieu of bacteria, causing rapid neurodegeneration and death within two weeks. It was no surprise that N. fowleri was commonly known as ‘the brain-eating amoeba.’
The second appendix was a set of water microbiology analyses conducted at three of the cluster sites and then conveniently extrapolated to the other six. Besides a high abundance of N. fowleri and multiple bacterial concentrations, the results also confirmed that the samples came from freshwater instead of seawater sources. When he noticed that, Cariappa had to stand up and do anything else.
* * *
The writers consulted with noted medical experts to develop an accurate perception of a pandemic event. Sunil was checking out the Wikipedia page for Contagion, which he had just seen for the eighteenth time since it was released on DVD. That fact stood out to him and he wanted to know who these experts were. The idea that there were people who professionally occupied themselves with charting the spread of diseases fascinated him. After having seen so many doctors, Sunil had thought about becoming one himself, but now he wanted to be an epidemiologist more than anything.
* * *
352 million dollars. That was the CDC’s current annual budget, brought down from twelve billion since 2015. Cariappa had been aware of the agency’s decline over the years, mostly due to successive Republican administrations inflicting a chronic amount of deficit. He would occasionally commiserate with CDC officials and investigators on their stringent working conditions, which was the only reason the outbreak report had reached him in the first place. One of his CDC contacts had sent it to him attached to a mail that showed no subject line or body text.
Subsequent correspondence revealed that budgetary constraints had not been the only challenges plaguing the investigation. One of the cluster sites had to be written off because it was located in the Texas territory of a religious cult, which abhorred all government interference and saw the naegleriasis infections as ‘divine discipline.’ Media coverage of the outbreak was limited to a few local reports that only deemed it newsworthy because ‘brain-eating amoeba’ made for a juicy sound bite.
That made Cariappa think of a general correlation he had repeatedly written about. More funds and resources were allocated for visible, disaster-level consequences of anthropogenic climate change (like hurricanes, droughts, wildfires, and mass displacements) because they still dominated headlines. The micro effects all but disappeared in the clutter, especially those related to diseases and infections. Even inside that particular box, stories about permafrost viruses and pandemics claimed all the attention, so an outbreak that killed less than two hundred people was lucky to be investigated at all.
Photo: Raza Ali
It was a familiar struggle for Cariappa, whose work at the Public Health Agency of Canada was mainly focused on the application of climate change studies to disease outbreak models and simulations. When his thoughts dwelled on that, he suddenly remembered a series of studies going back as far as 2018, which had demonstrated that bacteria cause stronger infections when they incubate at higher temperatures. He had no idea why his train of thought had brought him there until the report’s second appendix started tugging at him.
* * *
30,363 Canadian dollars. If Sunil was going to enroll at McGill University’s Faculty of Medicine, that’s what his first year would cost. The irony of having to graduate as a Doctor of Medicine before he could tackle a course in Epidemiology was not lost on him. With his parents unable (and maybe even a bit reluctant) to put up that kind of money, Sunil had no other option than to qualify for an entrance scholarship. He was eligible for several ‘visible minority’ allowances, all of which required personal essays and in-person interviews. Only the latter frightened him.
* * *
Pasteuria ramosa. It had to be the answer. Two of the three available water microbiology analyses noted a higher-than-average presence of the bacterium P. ramosa. The CDC investigators had ignored this anomaly because N. fowleri feeds on many different bacteria, and a slight predominance of one species was not nearly enough to explain the increased abundance of the amoeba.
Cariappa too had dismissed this anomaly until he remembered that one of the studies on bacterial infections at higher temperatures had been conducted with P. ramosa and its preferred host organism: the water flea. After digging up and reviewing this study, a potential chain of events dawned on Cariappa and he started pacing around the room to let it settle.
Water fleas are ubiquitous in freshwater habitats. P. ramosa, which is an obligate pathogen that needs a host to survive, infects water fleas by propagating inside their bodies and releasing endospores for further infections. At higher temperatures, bacteria cause stronger infections and reproduce through spores faster. This would imply that water fleas infected with P. ramosa could be serving as a novel food source for N. fowleri in a way that would not show up in a microbiology analysis. Since N. fowleri feeds on bacteria in the trophozoite stage, which is a stage in its life cycle where it can cause naegleriasis in humans, it would explain the spike in infectivity.
Cariappa went over it a few more times and laughed at the idea that this scenario was contingent on the heat wave after all, only now as a vector for bacteria rather than thermophilic amoebae. He sat down again, held up his notepad, and started dictating a mail to his CDC contact.
* * *
Sunil “Gregory House” Cariappa. One news report had referred to him as such because of his astute diagnosis of the naegleriasis outbreak, and the moniker stuck. He should have been bothered by the fact that an American audience still needed to see him through the shorthand lens of something American. Instead he thought it was funny, and not because the show’s lead was played by a British actor. Cariappa used to love House and would consistently look up the diseases mentioned in each episode. That’s when he had first learned of naegleriasis, which featured in the show’s second season. He had always thought it was cool.
Joannes Truyens is a writer with a fondness for near-future hard science fiction. He is currently working on his first independent project after having written for various game studios and online publications. This story was expanded from one small corner of that project and found inspiration in the works of Australian sci-fi writer Greg Egan.
This piece is part of Not afraid of the ruins, our series of science fiction and utopian imaginings.
