Exhibit

I miss the touch. That is what I think as I stare past the glass into the nursery. The carefully ordered squares of wildflowers beyond do not, I imagine, stare back. If they did, I’m sure it would be with narrowed eyes and venomous thoughts. Geraniums and fireweed and bluebells seem like the types to speak murder with their eyes. I wouldn’t even blame them for it. 

As it is, the nursery does a poor job of bringing the natural artefacts to us. The viewing section is an, albeit large, rectangular room, with two glass walls on either side, looking out onto the nursery. The other walls and surfaces are the same matt black as all the enrichment chambers. There are two rows of black oblongs that constitute benches, placed at even points in front of the windows, and soft lights installed around the edges of the windows and fixtures which illuminate the inside. The plants themselves lay within, neatly ordered and painstakingly catalogued. I imagine most of the viewing rooms are like this across London, although I have not been at leisure to visit another since they were introduced. Here, we have tidy squares of each flower ordered by colour at the front, while the scant array of trees and bushes are arranged at the back by height. During the evening, it makes it hard to distinguish anything beyond the third row, but the flowers at the front are always perfectly lit. It also occurs to me each time I visit that these regimented displays are but a pale fiction of the unmanaged beauty nature creates on its own. Altogether, it is adequate for viewing, but not ideal.

I appreciate what we do get, of course. There is something about that specific shade of green that cannot be mimicked. Something about that freshness – that earthiness – in the scent that cannot be replicated to the same standard. Something about that trepid whisper of the wind between the branches that sends shivers through me like nothing else can, even if I can only see it. Some traces of the flavours of fruit, too, are distinguishable in our meal capsules.

I would not trade any of that for a fancier unit or faster transport link. Not even for a permanent uplink. And there are people who would trade their children for that.

No. I would not give up my garden privileges for anything.

But I would trade all my earthly possessions to become a Handler.

They are the lucky folk. Richer than any high society Technogarch. I think their hearts must be so much fuller than those rich, rust-ridden cyborgs, hoarding their upgrades at the cost of their humanity. While they sit in their up-and-coming pads polishing their carbon fibre muscles, they say that Handlers get to spend hours with the greenery. Hours, multiple! Every day! There are even rumours that they get to plant them, in the soil, with their hands. Imagine birthing a sapling, knowing that you had given life to it, made the world that much greener. Try as I might, I do not think I can stretch my imagination enough to comprehend such a feeling.

I am almost certain my envy is as rich a shade of green as the very plants they handle. At times I have... struggled... to keep myself behind the glass. Only, seeing it all makes me so restless. There it is. A metre or less separates me from the edge of the grass. But I cannot touch it. 

Today, I am visiting at night. Most people prefer the day visits for the clearer visibility: they don’t let unnatural light into the actual nurseries, so they become shaded and ill-defined at night. However, I derive a special pleasure from the darkness. It is unorthodox – perhaps childish – but I noticed one day that the lack of illumination within the nursery made my reflection all the more tangible. Almost as though I were there – inside the enclosure! The thrill I felt wash over me that day! 

The thought blossomed in my mind. I knew that others there would not waste their valuable nature ration watching me, and I knew that I was committing no wrong to anyone else by indulging myself. So, I have developed a secret obsession.

This evening, like many others I have spent here, I arrived late, and for the first quarter of my leisure ration, I sat on the sleek black slab opposite the nursery, watching people filter in and out until it was almost empty. Some walk right up against the glass, letting their breath mist the surface. Others sit, as I am now, and just stare. Still more wander around the space, using the plants as a backdrop for their monologuing thoughts. No matter what they choose to do, however, they share one trait: none of them care about me. 

So nobody pays attention when I remove my shoes and socks, tucking them neatly against the side of the slab, and stand before the glass. Nobody even flinches when I stretch upwards, pushing my muscles as far as they’ll go, like a daisy pushing up towards the sun. Nobody questions the fragile smile on my face as I take my first tentative steps and marvel at my reflection pacing barefoot on the earth. I like to imagine the soft dirt getting lodged between my toenails, the grass grazing the webbing of my feet. And in the arboretum, I raise my hands to feel the scratch of the branches on my palms, the leaves and petals brushing against my fingertips. I wonder, even now, as I slide off my shoes and curl my transparent toes in between the bluebells, how close my mind gets to capturing the sensation.

Of course, I have considered the prospect of a temporary uplink. I could more than afford a week-long trip to my own virtual paradise. The technicians and my mind together could dream up a utopia of plants and animals for me. But what would a week living my dream do for me? How would I cope, unable to stay? And many of my associates have told me that their sensory memories from uplinks were faulty. How would it feel to have memories so obviously false, so dismally pale in comparison to the real thing?

Because I do remember.

I remember so much. And in dreams my memories sprout roots that dig from my head down to my heart. I wake in a dewy sweat with petals in my eyes and dirt in my mouth and no recollection of the beautiful world my mind let me live in. For a few minutes after, all I feel is a timid happiness, and an overwhelming sorrow at its loss. 

So, I come here when I can. I keep all the feelings locked inside, just like we are. We cannot contaminate a world we do not live in. I have to respect the logic behind that. We had our chance to live in tandem with the land. For some reason we did not value it. 

The tracker on my arm flashes an urgent red. Artificial red. My hour has come to an end. My shadow-self dies as I retreat, hastily slipping my shoes back on. It always makes me feel so stupid, the urgency of my departure. The people around me do not care, but the way the cameras stare makes me feel ashamed as I leave. The cold pedestrian corridors to my home do not help. The reflective black walls either side see my form abstracted and hazy. Here my shadow-selves are not free or happy. They are trapped in a two-pronged eternity. 

Walking back always makes me feel like this. Unsatisfied. Robbed. It seems unfair that we have to pay the price. I was not alive in the carbon age, so few of us alive now were. We did not trick the people into believing material happiness. We did not stoke the flames of greed and gluttony. We did not kill each other and the world to fill the pockets of false visionaries. Yet we cannot have the freedoms they had. Polluters. Insatiable, unyielding poisoners! Ravagers, rapists, ruiners!

I—

I wish I had been one of them. One of those lucky, lucky people, smiling up at me from my eduscreen in the dead of night, when I would take it out from under my pillow and turn to the same few pages. And I would trace the lines of their smiles and wonder why mine never reached so far across. Never looked as natural. If I could only have lived like they did. Like the hippies, or was it hipsters, wearing garlands of bright flowers on their heads. Or the poppy wearers, paying tribute to their fallen. Like the peacekeepers and the lovers, and like the pretty people in their patterned fabrics. Like the gardeners, or the keepers of vast estates.

For all their flaws, they had freedom.

As did my grandparents. I am uncertain whether to love them or hate them for letting me see a glimpse of it. The thin metal locket that hangs at my neck holds the last piece of nature I can touch. It was a whole flower once. A white rose. My grandmother had grown them, and when they confiscated the plant life, she had hidden them. All that remains is a petal. Faded and yellowing. I dare not take it out more than once a year. Even that is too much. But I remember the feeling from my youth. The delicacy of the petal. Its smoothness and its waxiness. Up close the smell was enchanting. So subtle but so romantic. The only heirloom I was allowed to keep. And I would not be allowed to keep it if they knew what was inside.

Touching the metal grounds me now, as I walk through the non-descript corridors to my home. Sometimes it is the only thing that feels real. And yet, at others it feels like a fragment of a dream trapped in reality. I often doubt whether it would still exist if I took it from around my neck, whether it would make a sound if I let it fall to the floor. These days I am less willing to chance it.

The walk back to my apartment, a large single room in a tower of almost identical units, is short, but the lack of any points of interest along the way makes it feel long. There were not many people either at this time of night. Most trade their free time for more social activities. These people are afforded far longer in their pleasures than those of us that frequent the nature exhibits. Though perhaps like my short but long walk home, they suffer a long but short time with associates. Other people steal time from us so efficiently. Unlike them, I am already back home and can do whatever I please by myself.

I stand in the centre of the room and toy with my necklace.

I want to look at the petal, but the last time I looked it seemed more faded than ever before. I do not want to let the air eat it up. I do not want to let myself destroy it. My fingers are conduits of chaos. Even rubbing my thumb across the small surface of the locket, I wonder how many strokes it would take before the detailed surface became as smooth and lifeless as the zones and corridors of London. I cannot bring myself to risk opening the locket. But I continue to stroke it, imagining my reflection a few millimetres below its surface, feeling the firm floral brush of a perfect petal within.