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.