I stand on my balcony and look over the dull colorless city. You’d think I’d like it here in a billionaire’s penthouse apartment after growing up an orphan on the streets. The truth is, I don’t hate living with him, I hate living in this fucking Dome. A bubble surrounds us to keep out the harsh toxins of our abused planet. The air in the dome is filtered and everything is kept pristine. There is one I thing I do like about the dome is the massive tree that sits in the center of everything. The tree gives us life. It is a man made oak tree that helps keep the air clean and helps us grow food. All the animals died out so we are all vegans. The tree is the closest thing we have to what earth used to be. It is also the most color you are going to see in New Terra. My father walks out and stands next to me.

“Enjoying the view?” He asks “Yes.” “New Terra is beautiful, isn’t it?” “I like the tree. Everything else is kind of bland do you think?”

I look at the clothes we are wearing:our same bland white uniform that we wear every. single. day.

“It isn’t bland, it’s clean as should be.” “I don’t disagree but who says color is dirty.” “White is the color of clean.”

I roll my eyes. Suddenly a breeze blows. Something from the weather machine attached to the dome. I notice a leave blow off the tree. It blows towards us. I reach into the air and grab it. The leave is partly brown.

“Something is wrong with the tree.” I said “The tree is fine.” “The never loses leaves and it’s leaves never turn brown. It was grown over 2000 years ago and it’s always been green.” “Aelia, I think your just being paranoid.”

Damn it! Those shitty neurotoxins in the air. The designed to keep people in a constant state of bliss. Somehow I’m immune to it, but people so ignorantly blissful that they don’t care. I leave the balcony and go to the tree. I place my hand on her bark. She feels scared. Something is definitely not right.

“Howdy!” Says Fredrick.

Dr. Fredrick Glasier is an old friend. He used to be a spy for the government but was fired when he went rogue. He then became a scientist and was named head caretaker of the tree. He was one of the only people who treated me with kindness when I was living on the streets. He would bring me food everyday.

“I think something is wrong with her. I found one of her leaves. She’s turning brown.” I say

Fredrick’s face goes from jolly to worry. He takes the leaf from me and studies it.

“I need to look at this under my microscope.”

I follow him to his underground lab. He turns on the lights and goes over to his microscope. I watch him. My phone vibrates. I answer. A hologram on my dad pops up.

“Where are you? Did you forgot about the important meeting with the investors?”

“Shit! I’m on my way.” I say.

“Hurry”

I hang up.

“I’m sorry I have to go. Let me know if you find anything.”

I rush home. I hop in the super elevator and it instantly opens up at the penthouse.

“There she is. This is my daughter Aelia.”

I press a button on my wrist and suddenly my disheveled look is smooth and pristine. I shake hands with all the investors as I perfect my waitress smile.

Later that night I am woken up by my phone. I answer. Fredrick’s hologram pops up.

“What is it Fredrick?”

“You need to get over here now.” He says with a sense of urgency in his voice.

I sit up.

“Okay, I’m on my way.”

I do the secret knock on the doors to Fredrick’s lab. When I get down there, Dr. Fredrick is looking in his microscope.

“What is it?” I ask.

“I’m afraid she’s dying.”

Nature was flourishing in the past few centuries. Where there had once been pollution and trash, it had all been cleaned and there were laws set to ensure the world never became that polluted again. There wasn’t jail time for polluting, but there were hefty fines that would put even the most wealthy into debt, and all the money gained from those fines was put toward advancing technology even more.

Other problems had been solved over the years of course, but the lack of garbage weighing down the planet helped a lot. There was more space to grow food, so no one went hungry. How could they? Once the planet had been cleaned and restored as best it could be there was near infinite space to build eco-friendly spaces for food. Other industries had suffered of course. Where there was once booming industries that produced masses of meat, those farms disrupted the environment greatly. So they had been restricted, and nearly died out. Most people lived off of plants now, and all office spaces would be equipped with at least one type of shrubbery.

Bug phobias had near disappeared as well, almost all bugs were useful for was killing each other, and once there was a type of plant to kill almost every bug they died out. That was in the cities however, in other places they were so abundant it might make your average city person faint.

There were also immense forests that were protected by law. They couldn’t be deforested and the animals and bugs that lived there could do as they pleased. The world seemed like a safe-haven, but discrimination hadn’t completely disappeared. Germaphobes who couldn’t stand being around dirt were ostracized, and they had no communities of their own. There had been talk of setting one up.

People had spoken of a place where the air would be perfumed with the pollen and scents of those plants, so they too, even if they were considered the lowest of society, could live in peace.

I stared down at the city from where i was standing. I wished they would announce the project. Everywhere i looked, all i could see was pine needles, dirt, leaves. I couldn’t stand it. My skin was crawling thinking of the bacteria that still lived in those plants. Every few decades a pandemic would begin from the bacteria hiding in the newest manufactured plant. I didn’t think my phobia was so unfounded, but most other disagreed. We were always able to get a vaccine fairly quickly, but that didn’t change the fact that it could happen. And maybe, just maybe i’d be the unlucky one who died just before they could be cured. It was just too awful to think about.

50 years ago people probably aussumed the worst about the future of our planet. I think there were even books written called dystopian novels, where authors wrote stories about how distructive our planet and community would become if we don’t take care of it. Well I’m currently living in what they call the future except we didn’t fall apart, we fell into place. We collectivity decided we didn’t want to knowingly poison the planet anymore… shocker I know right? But as what the people of the past did wrong we did right. Instead of talking about how we are distroying our one planet, we took action. Instead of taking down forests and life we build into it. Our buildings help the earth and plants living there while sustaining us humans too. It feels like a utopia, and a utopia is an illusion of perfection. I am starting to see cracks in the porcelain. Life on earth is still delicate but stubborn and I feel that. So much so that the plants seem to react to me differently… I guess I am living the sad reality of one of those silly little dystopian novels they wanted to get rid of.

(Rough draft😂🫣)

Hi, i am a a time traveler, teleport person thing. What ever. This one i am going to the future, but like a long time in the future. Here we go!!! Wow, we are really greeny in the future. I can smell the flowers, I can feel the soft grass. I can here birds chirping. I can feel the clean air. Let’s go see some things! Look there they brought Dino’s and mammoth’s back! That’s a cool sight. Is that a 3d printer that makes living things! I might take one when I go back. The houses are flying? (Me asking some one is there taxes) no?!? That’s amazing. How much money is for a 3d printer that makes living things? You trade in this place. Guys I think i am going to stay here I can bring my stuff trade a house ( me being told houses are free) what! Yeah I am staying here guys. Come see me every now and then. Ok? Good. Wait your going to stay here with me! Yay!!

Change. Change has always scared me, but isn’t that true of everyone? Besides, this was good change. Improvement was finally being made, the changes were visible—I could reach out and touch them. But, I couldn’t help but feel like the something would come crashing down. I subconsciously darted my eyes towards the broad shouldered woman sitting on the park bench, swiping her thin, auburn coils from her pale face as she obnoxiously slurped her iced latte from her paper straw. She met my eyes. I shook the woman from my view like an Etch A Sketch and let my gaze fall across the pond, opaque and littered with water Lillies, and to the bustling part of the city—free from the intrusion of revved engines or entitled honking. Instead, the cars hummed and the incoherent babbling of hundreds of people floated across the pond and over to me.

How did I get here? This new fashion of life. When did everything become this way. I feel…. miserable here.

We thought everything would be better. They told us it would be and everything is, to them atleast. Life just isn’t the same for me.

Why am I the odd one out? This new world isn’t like the stories grandpa used to tell, Nothing like it at all.

There’s no bar fights and genuine woman like my grandmother anymore at all. Am I becoming like everyone else? No definitely not that’s why I’m alone.

It all started with those damned ecologist. First went gas.,Next they came for our food and now even electricity is barely permitted.

Where did we go wrong? Is there even a way to fix this world. I don’t want my children growing up like this.

Ha, like I’ll even be able to have any with my luck. There isn’t much I could do regardless on my own on this cursed planet alone, this isn’t the only one those conservationists have conquered.

Twelve hours of travel and Jazzie’s view outside the holo window of her AirTram looked much the same as when she set out early this morning. Tall, silvery domed skyscrapers stretched out for miles, past the horizon. Patches of green spread out among them (100 by 100 foot squares, as regulated by society ordinance) filled with all kinds of crops: corn, wheat, lentils, various orchards, vineyards. She had traveled through what we would call Colombia, Guatemala, Texas, Arizona—and it all looked exactly the same. Skyscrapers alternating with lush fields. Agricultural discoveries from centuries ago had made it possible to regulate microenvironments on any part of the earth, so that any type of plant could be grown and harvested anywhere. People began settling in deserts, tundras, rainforests, even on top of oceans. All areas that were previously inhabitable became habitable. It changed everything. Population boomed from 9 billion to 346 billion and counting over the next few centuries. Society adopted a one world government, currency, and language. Aside from a few key historical sights (like the pyramids), people tore down their homes and opted to live in uniform, bioefficient skyscrapers. In these buildings, new technology allowed human waste to be converted to fertilizer that supplied the fields at a 98.2% efficiency rate, and you were paid for your waste services in the amount of food produced by said waste. Poverty was eliminated. People spent their time as they pleased. It was a utopia of discovery and innovation like none other. But, as you’ve realized already, dear reader; efficiency doesn’t eliminate the world’s problems. It certainly didn’t eliminate Jazzie’s problems. In fact, all that Jazzie wanted was to run away from the world. She was an agricultural waste profitability scientist, which is a fancy name for someone who tests excrement and runs analyses on ways to make it the most efficient. She spent her days pondering questions like, if a person’s diet consists of 32.5% lentils, 16.8% soy protein, 37.6% fermented cabbage, and 13.1% of raw vegetable matter, would their excrement yield a more favorable growth outcome to the wheat fields than a person’s diet consisting of the same, but with a 1% variation in soy protein consumption? It was all very tedious, very boring, and very stinky. Twenty-six years old and she felt she had only ever seen the inside of a lab. She had done what society and her parental figures demanded of her—studied hard, placed well on exams, overachieved in a respectable number of classes and extracurricular activities. She pursued botanical science because plants absolutely fascinated her, even from a young age. Each household was allotted one houseplant that wasn’t a part of the bio fields, and her family always chose a spider plant, which would make little spider plants of its own every couple months. These, of course, needed destroyed since they exceeded the single houseplant allotment, but its natural propagation took root in Jazzie’s mind. Did other plants grow like these? Propagation in the fields was entirely automated, down to a 0.1% growth variation from parent to daughter specimens. What began in labs continued worldwide in those tightly regulated microenvironments, except in one part of the world, in what used to be California, a place once called Yosemite National Park. Here, supposedly hundreds of acres existed with no skyscrapers and no regulation—only wild creatures, natural rain, and ancient trees. Ancient trees. Redwoods, thousands of years old. The trees found in your typical orchard only reached 20 some years at their eldest before they were destroyed (their yield decreased too much as they got older, and you can’t have inefficient trees taking up space). Jazzie was determined to study these trees and learn why society held onto them, even though they didn’t produce anything consumable for humans. She saved up for years to visit the park, lobbying for grants to perform her studies. Suddenly, the park shut down. Permanently. Why? No one could answer Jazzie’s question. So, like any overachieving, curious soul such as herself, she decided to take all her savings and trek the 1000 miles to find out with her own eyes. The day she announced as much, she was fired.

Humans were not always like this. We use to be careless of our planet. Discarding of what we no longer whanted or needed, killing the plants growing from beneath the grounds soil. We were destroying the planet. Until years later a scientist by the name of Albert Clark, designed a new invention. An invention that could help us solve climate change, and save the planet. And now in today’s day to day life, we live in a eco-friendly planet, as people would call it but I like to call it, a better world.

Grandma had once told me about her childhood home.

It was a cozy, ranch-style house in what used to be the Midwest. She described having a huge garden planted below her bedroom window, and that she would watch her tomatoes and carrots everynight like clockwork, anxiously waiting for them to grow.

She would have to drive with her father in something called a “Ford” down to a nursey 30 whole minutes away to pick up soil and tools. Imagine that? To think of how slow transportation used to be! I would get bored to death on the journey over, I imagine.

Apparently, her father owned the very lost model of a “Ford” ever produced. Which is the original branding for what is now the Q-90. It had a rusty metal pipe that would blow black smoke everywhere. If the windows were rolled down, and they were driving at a decent enough pace—at least 35 miles per hour—her eyes would water from the fumes.

I couldn’t imagine choking on the very own air we depend on, endangering not only ourselves, but the very structure of the city itself. Altough, she says every vehicle used to do the same thing. No one batted an eye at such a display. Some days she has a particular gleam in her eye, like she misses it the toxic sting of it.

I sometimes stop on my walks to school and take in the sights around me. The bright orange solar lights above, the whisping trees lining my path. If I close my eyes at night, I can depend on the light hum of the 8th Street Hydro Train to lull me to sleep.

One day, i’ll remember this world fondly for what it was, just as my grandmother does. I hope to be content in my nostalgia for the world I live in, just like she is, but I get worried sometimes. Society has changed so rapidly in a such short time, will it be too fast for me to catch up? Will it slip between my fingers before I even get a chance to realize it’s leaving me behind? Will I one day sit outside and yearn for the very same plants around me now?

I wonder if my grandmother ever had the same thought, that we may all haunted by places and feelings we can never return to.

Earth, is no more. At least, not the earth they tell us about in the historical records. Few photographs remain of the world before the Greenhouse Initiative. From what I’ve gathered the world was lush and green bursting with life and vegetation. Rivers stretched out like the veins of the earth and water fell from the sky, hydrating the soil of the ground. Sunlight kissed your skin with warm rays and gentle winds caressed the hair of your head. Beast and bird roamed the earth, displaying their grace and majesty. And the moon and stars, illuminated the night with their brilliant radiance. But, despite all of it’s beauty, the government’s of the world, thought the world too difficult to tame.

Fields were covered with concrete, oceans with glass, the sky was shut out and the animals caged. The elements needed to be contained before humanity sent their only ecosystem into disarray. They said the world would die, if we did not take these precautions. From my point of view, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Our leaders now preach that the world has been sanitized, and finally made clean. We have discovered renewable energy and purified our air. Scientists have found a way to create artificial day and night which hold to a strict and accurate schedule which regulate a livable temperature across the planet. Our entire population is contained within the walls of the Dome. The colossal structure which covers the face of the earth and protects us from the harsh environment of the world outside.

Life is better now I’m sure. That’s what they tell us after all. And I have never seen the outside world. No one has in at least a century. But I can’t help wondering, if the old earth, could ever be reborn.