The Sum of Our Parts: Reflections upon the Concept of Estrangement af Paul Buzoianu
Year 73, day 472. (472.73) This is my last day here. Tomorrow at dawn I will be harvested1. As I sit here, on the red cliff hanging above the vast, desolate Chasma Boreale valley, I watch the Sun as it slowly descends towards the line of the horizon, engulfing the sky in an aura of blue and cyan. The sheets of polar ice stretch white and magnificent across the rusty plains. Behind me, far beyond the ever-expanding Fields of Refuse, the towering Drills and habitats of the Amazonian Corporation-State – one of the last two remaining – rise menacingly. Slowly and unnoticed, day fades into night, and the first stars begin to appear. As I contemplate the beauty of the heavens, my eyes stop on a tiny little speck that has just risen above the horizon, only slightly brighter than its surroundings. That must be Earth, I think to myself. It must have once been a paradise to live there. They say there were entire oceans of liquid water, and lush, green forests teeming with all sorts of alien and wondrous lifeforms. That’s the circulating story, at least. Only the most spectacular footage from Earth remain, most of them featuring explosions, catastrophes and the like. Still, when I was little I used to dream of going there. Could 1 Harvesting is a procedure in which an individual who pawned themselves is dissasembled into its constituent organs which act as “spare parts” for their new owners. Usually people pawn themselves (renounce their right of property of their own selves in exchange for a sum) as a last resort when faced with imminent death due to lack of finances to pay for oxygen
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