The Year 48

Thoughts | Hannah Weinberg

Image from *Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind* (1982).

All that you touch

you Change.

All that you Change

Changes you (Butler 3).

My finger hesitates over the fictional verse of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower. I sit at my desk, the candle beside me flickering with dying radiance. My overhead fluorescents have long been turned off—I read by the light of soy, wax, flame.

What did she mean? This fictional religion, Earthseed—is it really that different from any other story that we tell ourselves? I trace the letters with my fingernail, struggling to imagine anything powerful enough to create mass change. My contacts feel thick in my eyes and my vision fades out as I realize just how tired I am. I suppose a quick nap won’t get in the way of my studying… I rest my head in my arms.

Blackness.

I hear the quiet sound of water trickling quietly over a smooth surface. Oh no, are the pipes leaking again? I feel the soft light of my candle on my face. I groggily pull my head up, stretching backward in a blind yawn. As I open my eyes, I feel an immediate sense of dissonance. What… what happened?

The room of my student residence is transformed—the walls stand in the same rectangular box, and my table resembles its old shape. I notice that my computer and book are gone, but etched into the rough, recycled plastic of my desk are the words to Earthseed’s verse. Curious. The “heat” I felt from my “candle” instead comes from a humming, glowing stick propped up like a lamp. I notice it has a cord that runs to the wall and up through the ceiling. Hm. Small ferns, bushes, and other plants line the walls of my room and the trickling sound I heard earlier is the peaceful movement of water through aqueducts. It is as if my room contains its own ecosystem. The air is clean and sweet.

As I stumble outside, I notice the city has inexplicably changed. The “street” of Spadina is no longer a road, but instead an earthen path, beaten down by the wheels of bicycles and solid winter boots. Cars no longer congest the hub of Kensington and, as I cast my gaze down College Street, the pattern continues. I see seas of people, but no vehicles. The only thing that remains the same are the two cabled lanes in the center of Spadina—it appears that the famous Toronto streetcars remain a permanent fixture. The thing that astonishes me the most, however, is the color of it all. The city is washed in green. Huge maple trees arch out of the mossy earth, shading the walking path, formerly the sidewalk, from the warm, late summer sun. Vines creep up buildings and undergrowth fills the gaps where cars, trashcans, and debris once accrued. On the tops of every building are gardens, partially shaded by solar panels. It looks as if the forest had swallowed us whole and thrown this metropolis into a state of chlorophyll-supported digestion. And yet the total effect of this city transformed is one of healing, not of mass destruction.

As I take in the newly changed city, my feet start me on the path I know best—the fifteen minute walk to campus. Many of the chain stores I used to haunt—Burger King, 7/11, Rexall—no longer exist; instead, they have been converted into residences. I catch a glimpse of a sign on one of the windows: “Ending Houselessness, the year 48 PH: Reside with dignity.”

The year 48? What? Did I travel back in time? At this point, I am just rounding Spadina Crescent when I hear a gentle voice speaking through an open window. The old elementary school is now beautifully enveloped in wooded silence, but the adult voice rings clearly across padded earth. I catch a few phrases, something about “How did we come to be?”, and, intrigued, walk towards the school.

Looking through the window, I watch a young schoolteacher sitting on a desk, swaying their legs back and forth. Before them, a gaggle of schoolchildren sits, lolling on each other and only half-paying attention. A girl raises her hand.

“Can I tell the story today?” she asks.

“Yes, Judy, go on ahead,” says the teacher. The girl sits up a little straighter and begins to speak.

“There was once a land called Earth, and on that land was something called life. Life took form in many things—the swaying fern had life, and so did the little tadpole, and so did the thing called humankind. Life passed through each creation and bestowed life unto each new thing. The life in the grass fed the cattle and the life in the cattle fed humankind. Now, the thrill of life was very exciting and humans became infatuated with it. Their hunger began to extend beyond food and their greed devoured the vitality of their surroundings. What was once a cycle became an assembly line and the end of the sequence always culminated in destruction. Then came a day when no food was left to eat, no trees left to burn, and no earth left to destroy. Insatiable humankind was brought to its knees. They looked at the last fern and the last tadpole, who swayed their heads with disappointment, and humankind decided to begin anew. They collectively swore to curb their hunger and agreed to let go of the desire to consume. That was the first day of PH: Post Hunger. From that moment, our world began.”