“The apogee to the left of the pendulum is no more balanced than the right swing, and gravity will never stop pulling both back down to earth, to where real people live.”
–Dolster Idaho, First Democratically Elected Leader of the People’s Republic of Friedl, who was assassinated along with his wife, 5 children, and his entire cabinet for crimes against society, by the Aggrivites that seized control of the entire Northwestern Hemisphere.
“We live in a country where a self-imposed government controls every aspect of life in the name of unity. It is a utopia devoid of racism, poverty, and dissent that usurped all privacy and freedom to the illusion we are now equal, if equal only in obedience.“
“A feigned cultural power-shift gave the Working Party elite dictators protection in the absence of genuine advancement. The Working Party owns the media, which regards the party as heroes. They decide what it best for all now.“
–Frederic Totita, Editor of the Morning Enterprise, before he was taken away, never to be seen again.
The now dismantled Bookkeepers, of which I was a founding member, was a group that secretly distributed books and underground news to operation points across the continent of Aggrivite of the northwestern hemisphere.
I was snatched in nighttime raids on the charges of domestic terrorism. There were over 1000 of us captured in that one night in a net that expanded over the 3 northern territories of Gosses, Freidl, and Shamora. Some people were just innocent bystanders that could not be tolerated as witnesses.
I was placed in a small cell that had room enough to sit. It became my home for a year. The morning edition of the Ringing Bell was thrown on the floor, the sole state-sponsored news source in Aggrivite. Our sudden disappearances were addressed on the front page.
Deadly Emerald Flu Sweeps Through Vulnerable Populations. Medical Military Personnel Quarantine the Infected. Scientists Race to Create a Vaccine Against Alien Pathogen. Meteorites Identified as Possible Origin of Lethal Disease. It was the only read I received that year.
Kristian Anderson, the Central IMP (Infectious Diseases Medical Professor of Central University), stated the highly infectious disease results in death, sometimes within four days and up to 10 weeks, depending on the viral load. The virus pollutes the blood, kidneys, bones, brain, and liver with a sudden onslaught of toxins that affect the very composition of cells, turning one green from the inside out.
Death comes in many forms; not always does it come for your body, but instead, your whole life.
For the year I lived in that cell, I was dragged out daily, injected against my will with experimental shots called chlorophylth that binds plant DNA to human cells. At the same time, blood was taken from me. My skin was gouged for samples that left me with unsightly sores and scars. Over the weeks and months, I watched my skin turn green in horror as I wasted away. I was sure death would come, but never soon enough.
Buzzing lights were kept above us in the day and turned off for long nights. It is hard to say which was worse. The lights did not seem to follow the natural rhythms of day. Time passed with a slow vengeance.
The rancid smell of decaying wet stone filled our senses daily. I could hear the moans of my faceless comrades that faded in time with defeat. It was impossible to know how many of us were there, how expansive the prison was, how many other similar facilities were in the territories.
When it seemed as if there was no health left in me to experiment with, they pulled me from my cell and threw me in the back of a truck with some others like garbage. We were ill, unwashed, and feeble.
Some prison officers drove us for what seemed like hours down a bumpy road and pushed us off the back of the truck at a remote northern location far from civilization. For sport, they kicked us motionless, leaving us for dead, but not before they took some pictures. We, their failed experiments, were mere fodder for the Ringing Bell propaganda machine, proof the disease is real.
I feared the officers would return to complete the job while my legs had no strength to run. Some of the bodies around me did not move. Some stirred. I lay still, heart racing. My ears grabbed tight to the sound of rushing water as my resolve mapped my consciousness to it.
I crawled through the grass, cognizant of the soft, cool life underneath me. I reached the stream and drank, splashed it upon my face. I was vaguely aware others were mirroring me, fulfilling that same urge to live.
As we became reoriented, we tried to find survivors. Some of us made it to the water’s edge out of 32 bodies, though there were more that still had a pulse. We tended to the live, then dragged the dead to the cover of the trees. It was getting cold; our clothing was thin. Most of us made it to the morning light, huddled together, though 3 more had passed in the night. Only 17 of us lived.
Some yards from the bank, we buried the dead in haste the best we could, retreating deep into the refuge of the land. Some local green scouts found us, and we connected to other green communities. We remain hidden, growing in strength.
As Rumors swirled for months that the disease was a government coverup, dead green bodies in various states of decomposition littered the territories. Public hysteria grew to new levels.
The government issued a mandate that the sighting of any dead body, green or not, is to be immediately reported to the authorities while avoiding personal exposure at all cost. The bodies are removed by “ghosts” in hazmat suits and burned in safety pits to impede the spread. Black smoke stains the horizon as a constant reminder of what will become if you do not comply. The process conveniently delays any expectations of research.
There is no returning. Word got out some of us escaped. The Ringing Bell reported scientists prolonged our lives in the search for a cure, but we are still highly contagious. They said that during our escape, we betrayed those who aided us, infecting them to die. They consider us deadly fugitives. Kill or be killed.
It was additional torture – to be branded, destined for murder, never to return to those you love most.
In the weeks that passed, it was mostly quiet. We all ached in the silence and duty of survival, besides the nervous rattling of a couple of voices that reflected our own state of shock.
But life finds a way to plant itself in the dark lifeless places of a shattered soul. The lessons of becoming green, becoming part plant, took root. The first welcoming sprout was humor.
We call ourselves Leaves, a metaphor that extends to all parts of our lives. The teachings of the Tree of Life bring guidance as we relearn what it feels like to inhabit a new kind of body and world.
To this day, none of us know the reason for the shots. No answers fell to unwilling research subjects. It is doubtful the actual implementors of shots were aware of anything beyond their own immediate cruel role.
Theories float: Was it to see if they could utilize chlorophyll inside people to solve a potential food crisis of an inevitably unsustainable population? It seemed a bit lofty for such a callous journey. Perhaps they were trying to perfect it without changing skin color, to be administered in secret to the common folk so that none would be alarmed.
Some believe they were trying to create soldiers or easily identifiable sub-human slaves that require few provisions. There are likely other experiments in different facilities that will provide answers once we find them.
The timing of our creation was masterfully opportunistic, as fear replaced the political unrest and the urge for freedom that rustled across cities and towns that threatened the status quo.
As we rebuild a world for ourselves, our comparative technology is inhibited by a lack of resources and laborers, though we continue to push forward.
We will keep on building. Life carries on.
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