My head hurts.
It strains me, the constant influx of blinding light, my eyes struggling to focus on the present. I see her out of the corner of my eye: sitting on the impersonal metal chair, fidgeting with the bracelet on her wrist. She can’t look at me, and I don’t blame her. I looked as good as I could, having eaten the heartiest pre-execution meal, but to have to talk to your grandfather moments before he is to be killed for a reason that you can’t begin to understand — I wouldn’t want to look up either.
DEFENDANT: I kept bumping into the youth returning from their mines and construction.
The defendant coughs.
DEFENDANT: The lights were dim — I could barely make out the direction I needed to travel in from the nameless bodies jostling me around like a pinball. My house was just a couple roads away, but in this traffic, in this overpopulated sector, it might as well have been years. I needed air. I needed space. I pushed my way through the crowd to a doorstep and strained as high as I could see. There was a gap in the swarm: the creditor’s lane. Marbled and shimmering as if it had been pressure-washed only yesterday, the lampposts distinctly emerald, differentiated from the faded electric light bulbs from centuries ago that lined our streets — it ran parallel to the wall and was completely empty. Granted, it was supposed to be. Only merchants and the military personnel living inside the Walls were granted permission to travel upon the luxurious pathway but, if I might speak my mind, the whole concept of segregation by profession baffles me. I just saw the empty space and was drawn to it, to a break from the shoulder-to-shoulder journey.
She was still fidgeting with the hem of her skirt. It was a nice pink with a green lace forming a wave pattern in one complete circle. I watched her for a bit, keeping the cell in pin-drop silence. “Maria.”
The defendant coughs.
DEFENDANT: It was almost as if I could feel the soot being sucked into my body and settling like a blanket of dust over my lungs. The environment didn’t help — I remember seeing a picture of New York in the 2000s in school decades ago and being envious of the utopia that was depicted. Ample housing, smiling children, the occasional tree — it was the stuff of dreams, a paradise so unfamiliar to many. My mother used to tell me about the fall. The “natural disasters”, the humanity-induced waves of destruction that destroyed our way of life. She said it was the Earth fighting back, holding generations of us accountable for disrespecting her time and time again. She used to say that a relationship between Terra and its inhabitants should be like that of a pianist and her instrument: fingers elegantly dancing across zebra-marked keys, making music from the capabilities of the piano, not bending it to her will.
The defendant coughs.
DEFENDANT: I felt the pebbles and rock scrape my feet as I crawled through the hordes. Rock became cool limestone, and the marble greeted my feet like a welcome ice bath.
“Maria.” She looked up, and for a brief second, I saw my mother staring back at me, the same look of sadness and desperation as when she was in this very spot not too long ago. I moved closer to her. “It was for you.” She said nothing.
DEFENDANT: Each step felt automatic and inviting. The road in front of me was vast and convex, turning away from me along with the curved wall, forming an elite inner circle that I had never had the privilege to see. I, as you know, live on the outside. I was a medic once — we travelled the world, mending and healing the millions harmed in the wake of the great disasters. But it doesn’t matter now. I saw the towering gate: it was Victorian, a dekameter-tall fence complete with spiked tips and rusted bars. Breathtaking. I never walked this route, for fear of prosecution, so coming face to face with its magnificence, I was in awe. It stirred something inside of me too. Something more… visceral. From my spot on the other side of the road, I peered through the slats in the gate and tried to get a glimpse at the grandiose of the upper class, the fountains, the automobiles, the gardens, knowing I would never experience it in a lifetime. I ignored the distaste on each border guard’s face as they looked down upon us passing citizens from their watchtowers, a symbolic division of two groups of people who were the same in every way except for status. I saw the wagon approaching on the horizon.
I held out my hand, at which she stared blankly, like the gesture meant nothing, like I was a stranger despite my familiar form. “Have you heard of trees, Maria?” “Those green mushrooms?” she whispered back, pointing out of the window behind me. I followed her finger and smiled.
DEFENDANT: The wagon was more of a tank and cargo ship than a wagon. When I was young, shipments had a motorcar leading the brigade, followed by a guard’s car towing a wagon. Foot Soldiers used to flank on each side, prodding hungry spectators with the butts of their rifles, away from the precious items on board and back to the shantytowns. But hope had died long ago, and the need for an escort died with it. I picked up my pace, desperate to make it home. But my legs could only take so much, and the smog was weighing me down. Each step required a large intake of air that filled me with more smoke than oxygen, filling my cells with more toxin than benefit. I took a break, turning to see the motorcade zipping towards me at a high speed. It was going to cross me.
“The trees, Maria, are something beautiful. When we — when humanity as a whole — weren’t around, the trees took care of this Earth. Then I was born, and you were born, and we all advanced. We razed the trees to the ground and claimed this world as ours. Harmony was never a thought. That’s where we went wrong. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I won’t see you anymore.” I saw her eyes widen and she stared out the window at the lush forested hills.
DEFENDANT: The motorcade passed me. The guards in their cars didn’t so much as bat their eyes at me. Was I really that incapable in their eyes? I watched as the wagon passed and stopped abruptly in front of the gate, probably to check clearance papers of some sort. From behind, the wagon matched the surrounding bleakness: its metallic texture complemented the hazy, dreary atmosphere. The only oddity was a singular, glass window. I squinted, peering into the tiny peephole to catch a glimpse of the token of wealth. Was it gold? Coal? Water? To my disappointment, it seemed to be grains. Thousands upon thousands of unimportant grains being transported with an armed escort.
The defendant coughs.
DEFENDANT: I looked closer.
The defendant coughs again.
“Seeds are the most-easily overlooked gifts on the planet. We used to take them for granted; one seed was never enough for a meal, or to patch the ozone. But together, they made gardens. They formed the rainforests.” She looked up. “The rainforests were real?” I smiled. “As real and beautiful and brown and green as your skirt, Maria.”
DEFENDANT: That’s the last thing that I remember, Your Honour. The guards say that I creeped up to the wagon, calling on a band of resistance fighters and pillagers before smashing the window with a rock on the ground. They say that the ensuing commotion, the hordes of my people rushing to the van, and seeds that were lost to the wind — were all my doing. But Your Honour, and I mean this in the most sincere way possible, I was taken in a trance. I am not a cog in some larger resistance. I did not motion for aid from my fellow workers. Rather, I saw the seeds that my mother fought to preserve, the future trees that our forebears disrespected, and turned around to see how I have been living for seventy years. Seventy years, Your Honour, without smelling the fresh, water-washed leaves of a tree right after rain. Seventy years without plucking an apple fresh off of a branch. I saw my granddaughter, Your Honour, about to be raised and cultured into the same world that I despised and was dying from. So, no, Your Honour, this was not an intentional act of rebellion. This was a God-induced hypnosis to fix the status quo. And when you venture out of the security of your god-forsaken gates, and see the first trees in centuries to grace the Outer Rim, to grow in front of my home, I hope you’ll realise too.
(…)
JUDGE: “Guilty.”
“Come here, Maria.” She walked over to me, and I turned her towards the window in my cell. “What do you see outside?” She paused. “I see… green-painted hills? Mushrooms three times the size of me?” “No Maria,” I whispered, barely able to croak the words out. “You see the beauty in the lives of these people. You see trees.” We stared in silence for a bit, admiring the upper echelon’s protected and private forests. I looked at her, and saw the same look that washed over my face years ago. It took her with the same ferocity that it had taken me with when I was in her shoes, when my mother assured me she was working for the greater good, in my own best interest. I thought of how when Maria left, she would return home into confinement yet again, but this time with a sense of hope. Trees were no longer distant strangers in memories that didn’t belong to her; the forests were etched into her mind, and like the seeds scattered in the hands of hopefuls, there was potential for more. I choked up and grabbed her, staring into her innocent eyes rife with newfound realisation. “You see what home could be.”
