untitled, by niha

ONE.

The plants started to take over twenty years ago. In my Modern History class, I learned that the first signs of takeover were seen in the backgrounds of old photographs people had uploaded to the web: tree trunks with grimey textures creeping up from the ground; brightly colored vines wrapping themselves around plant stalks, their small circumferences accounting for their ability to keep proliferating in the shadows.

It was in rural Wisconsin that the first case is said to have arisen. A reclusive old farmer had been feeding his cows when the weeds beneath his feet had supposedly wound themselves around his body, rising until they were choking him. He was found a couple of days later by his grandson, who reported a picture of the scene to the scientific authorities. The snapshot enclosed in our textbooks showed a picture of the man, bluish with asphyxiation, enclosed in the weeds. The plants around his corpse were dying already; evidence to their own fallibility. The case was passed off before even reaching the hands of a phytologist.

The grandson’ s name was Derek, and he was a postman whose scientific knowledge was restricted to a high school Biology class he’d failed, but it was he who made the key observation that saved us all. Derek, in the midst of auctioning the farm off, was most perplexed by the fact that all the cows on the farms were absolute bonkers. He was sure that they must’ve been healthy, happy cows that had been fed and adored all their lives, but they were now simply refusing to eat anything; from hay to grass to grain. He also noticed that they were astonishingly jumpy all the time, seemingly unable to keep their hooves on the ground. In his later diaries, he described the sight as 'a few dozen unhinged cattle, behaving as if the ground was on fire and thrashing around in an unseeming manner’ .

Rumors spread of the farm being possessed by a spirit of the dead farmer, who was said to have been a grumpy old man, and it remained unsold. It lay there like a useless lump of extremely fertile land, with a couple of cows that were dropping off one by one, dying of hunger. Derek found this development rather despairing. He went into town to buy a few books on cattle management, and tried everything to fix the cows, from dousing them in saltwater to coaxing them into eating some tasty oats. It was while Derek was doing so that the Earth under him attempted to betray him in the same manner that took away his grandfather.

He was bending over, attempting to feed a calf corn kernels out of his palm. It was a hot day, and he was panting and sweating in the hot afternoon sun. When the calf refused to eat and instead let out a plaintive screech, he decided to try a different approach and let out a loud moo instead. Unfortunately, it had the opposite of the desired effect and the calf, a lovely creature that was milkywhite and spotted brown, writhed away from him, slowly slipping down the hilly slope.

Derek swore loudly and turned to trudge down to retrieve the cow. It was at that moment that two vines shot out from the ground and wrapped themselves around his ankles, locking him into place. Derek looked down and saw thorny stems engulfing his own legs, trapping him in a thicket. They were prickly as they dug into his legs. Frozen with horror, he attempted to wriggle out of it, and then reached down to tear at the hostile greenery; but alas, they got his hands too.

He felt himself slowly being dragged down into the ground. There was no point in calling out, he knew; not a single soul was in the area. So this is how his end was to be! Attacked by a plant, in an attempt to feed a cow. Dear God, he thought, please make it quick. And if this is a dream, let me wake up now.

But there was sand in his mouth and his feet were touching hard rock and the thorny vines were tearing into his skin so ferociously that his eyes were watering up, blurring his vision. Tears mixed with grime fell into his mouth. He himself felt the absurdity of what was happening, but he was experiencing acute pain. The flesh on his thigh was ripped off with such might that a cry escaped his lips for the first time. The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness was the calf from earlier, its curious eyes blinking at him meekly from above, snow-white fur gleaming in the sunlight.

TWO.

My bed is my favorite place at home. It’ s tucked away at the corner of our ship, and there is a hole right above my head when I lie down. The glass is cracked at the edges and Father says it must be fixed, but I like it that way. Sometimes, starlight leaks through the cracks into my room. Stars are solid, unsmiling, diffident, but starlight speaks true volumes. It’ s shimmery and makes your insides glow a little. That's how you know that stars really are angels. A reticent being could not produce that much light.

Our ship is not much to look at. Compared to the majestic space dwellers of other countries, it is a homely little thing, its walls faded and its floors cold. I’ ve never seen it from outside, but a photograph from my father’ s days as Vice President shows a ship of a sleek design, painted a bright yellow and blue. There are very few windows. Standing on a smaller shuttle next to the ship are my father and two other men. They are Pavith and Amar, brothers who built the ship we live on.

Life in space is not that different from life on Earth. We collectively moved here as a species when I was a baby. I don’t have a lot of memories from the ascent to the stars, but my mother tells me that it was made under terrible circumstances. The trees were poisonous, she said; they were large and looming and treacherous, and they were everywhere. Mankind had been clearing away plants from their industrial and living space, and then mass deforestation for capitalistic gains had also occurred, but foolish humans had been advocating for plants until the very end. They had been conducting numerous campaigns to save the plants and replant with every deforestation, causing plant numbers to increase exponentially in many areas of the world. Even in early 2063, when the first recorded attack occurred, humans had been benignly snipping away at their houseplants.

At home, being an ex-Vice President’ s daughter, my life is relatively easy. Most people on the ship fall into the hierarchy below us, similar to social ranking in free market society. Each resident has an assigned role they were expected to follow, based on how they were specialized on Earth. Everyone is assigned value points based on how useful they are to the little colony we had on the ship. If you learn a new skill, or reduce your consumption of water, food, and energy, your value points go up. If you slack off, or waste resources, you lose points. When your value drops down to the minuses, you get lynched.

The system we have here is said to be essential for the survival of humankind in space with limited resources. After all, our move wasn’t a systematic, strategic one; it was an emergency departure. One can only describe it as a blast-off into space while our home was turning into a place where we were getting strangled by greenery, choking on the poisonous gases the trees emit, or getting sliced into pieces by the sharp ends of pretty flowers that came hurtling out of nowhere. It was a situation where the enemy was all around us, and yet we had no clue as to why the enemy was behaving that way, or how it was even possible.

Up here in the stars, we could have rewritten our story and lived as equals. There are signs of revolt among the lower class residents. Before my friend Mica was lynched, he’ d told me that Derek Singer, the man who had alerted media outlets of the Cleansing with a horrifying video of him being saved from a plant by a cow, had been silenced by the authorities on the grounds of sparking public alarm and mass hysteria. As more cases had been popping up across the globe, people went insane with fright, not leaving their homes, and chopping down all trees in sight, causing property damage. Singer had been ousted as a propagandist who’d concocted the whole story and video for political reasons; scientists and film experts went on TV to explain how the whole thing was a bluff, and so on. He told me how, behind the scenes, they were being threatened to do so by governments and corporate men, how these people were the ones who were secretly most scared. They all spent fortunes amassing spacecraft with the capacity of holding their close circles, and a few others to serve them. Some compromised by letting their loved ones go up in rigged government ships, which are said to have carefully curated populations and gene pools as to preserve the human races ’ ethnic and genetic diversity.

Mica had been my only friend up here in this ship. There were few people our age, so we generally stuck to each other. The ship was often cold and lonely, with limited ways of entertaining ourselves. We usually found solace in the archive room, where we could flop around all day and listen to old music from the few systems available. There was only a limited collection of books and movies, so we went through all the titles, rewatching them relentlessly. It was never boring because, while I was generally quiet, Mica was a sunshine; explosive in nature, always full of bright ideas and smiles. He made me laugh.

Our most favorite thing to watch was a video of the President of the United States at the time making his way aboard on the spaceship. The Earth was barren at the time, devoid of any plants or trees; they had been cut down by major machineries, with even fifty year old plants being pulled up like weeds. During those days, to prevent being attacked by the small shrubs that would sprout out of the ground sporadically, everyone on Earth would disguise themselves as animals. On this particular occasion, the assemblage of top government officials and their bodyguards played out like a herd of cows making their way on a spaceship. They had specialized fur costumes, and muck smeared all over them. Clippings of animal sounds would play out as they attempted to mimic the way cows waddled on their fours. It was an effective disguise, since plants did not harm animals; but comical, to say the least.

Mica’ s outspoken nature was what had gotten him lynched. His parents were both lower class workers on the ship, his mother a teacher and his father a maintenance worker. He’d held various one-man protests against the hierarchical system on the ship; one where workers had to earn the right to survive and upper class citizens didn’t do shit. Mica had always wanted me to join what he was doing, which was standing around shouting communist slogans we’ d gotten from old textbooks while holding up posters I’d drawn. I agreed with his cause, but, unlike a few others that eventually joined him, I had always been too frightened. It was my father who had pulled the lever that shot him into space; the only time in my life that I’ d ever dared to question his authority. I remember pummelling him with my fists while being pulled away from him, screaming and in hysterics. Mica’ s parents had been quietly crying.

It’s been around three years since Mica was lynched, but I think of him almost every time I look out into space. Where was his body now? Was it lying facedown on some unknown planet, subject to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions every now and then? Was his corpse floating around a galaxy somewhere, encircling nebulae and protostars? Or had he already been sucked into a black hole a long, long time ago?

THREE.

The Earth was feeling happy today.

She’ d just wrapped up checking in with all the continents today, and all seemed to be doing well. The reefs of the world had thanked her incessantly as usual, telling her in excited voices that they were now seeing colors they hadn’ t seen for many years. The oceans couldn’ t say anything, but they were all clear and blue in a way that she knew to be relief. The trees were growing well everywhere, and the animals, bless them, were happy fighting out on their own as they were always meant to be.

When the last human on Earth had died, a wave of remorse had shuddered through the entire planet; after all, they had lost some valuable friends, ones that had been of great help to them. Think of the people that had healed animals, that had cultivated plants with their bare hands, that had truly cared. But the Earth always had a rule she played by: there needed to be a balance.

When the trees had come to her with their pleas, she had outright rejected the idea; to think that the Earth, the home to all species, would be the one causing the human apocalypse! But the trees had whispered to her repeatedly, begging in their soft, rustling voices, until the Earth finally started to give in. And then there were the cattle, and the fish, and the birds, and the air itself; did she not have to save them?

There was anger in her grounds, she could feel; the trees and the animals rising up to revolt. They had been stagnant for too long; the humans did not know what they were capable of. She had not wanted a war to occur. To think of the foolish humans, who had freely roamed her lands for so long, suddenly at war with the flora they had been trampling on for years! But she had made what she felt to be the best decision. But she had set a few ground rules No animal was to be involved in the riot. All attacks should be to the death, and as quick as possible.

Dear Sun. Dear Sun. Can you hear me?

Yes, I can. You look lovely today.

Thank you. My soil and oceans are healing as we speak. Dear Sun, what does the universe think of me now?

There is word among the galaxy that you have saved us all. Mankind has been plaguing us all for too long now. Some ofthem still float among us, sending in their probes and shuttles on our planets.

But they did help us also. They cured our plants and animals, and tended to us with soft hands.

But Earth, for the most part, did they excuse what could have been forgiven? Did they lighten their step when the ground cracked? Did they tend to you with utmost gentleness, or did their greed prevent them from doing so?

They were kind creatures.

But they were selfish ones.

And that is not what we stand for. All day you burn endlessly, helping us all live. We would not be here without you.

I enjoy my job. It has been a privilege, and a blessing after many years of torment, to watch you heal.

Tell me, Sun, from where you are standing, does it look very different?

There is something missing. There are no more children playing, and there are no more ships sailing. There is no adventure, and there is no courage. There is no laughter and no singing.

The Earth felt her heart sink. But there are no more muddied rivers, she argued. There are no more creatures choking. This world is theirs as much as the humans’. For the first time, I feel as though I can breathe.

Then that is good. I see that your meadows are healing, I see that your cows are comfortable. I see a world full of light. There is a hole where the humans once were, but that is filling up slowly. There is a sound of relief in the air, and flowers everywhere.

Heartbroken, the Earth cried out, But I was their mother as well.

The Sun smiled down at her. Dear Earth, you did well. They knew that they were the ones who destroyed you, and thought they could save you. But that is not their place. You saved yourself.

untitled, by niha