066. Transcendence, 7

(Zeslinry)

Somewhere in the heart of the countryside, we eventually found it.

A city not too damaged by history, still filled with goods and potential, but nobody else visibly.

By nobody I meant neither humans nor obvious oddities.

We scouted the town for a few good days, together and separated, finding nor hearing anything that would have led us to fear otherwise. This reasonable city is empty and in good condition overall.

It's reasonably beside the main roads and tracks. It has a small river passing through. It has numerous gardens growing all sorts of things wild, and the city has a few wide squares that could become walled gardens in time.

A little part of the choice is also our desire to finally settle somewhere a little, I won't lie.

So all and all Myls and I agree. This is where we'll be.

~

We pick the place and we start settling in. In the house we chose to inhabit, it's one of these old architecture of concomitant houses. Meaning it shares walls left and right with other ones that in the end make an entire street side fortress. Four of them surround a square, a wide one, with only a few streets to get access inside.

In the house of this old British style, the map is narrow but long. One long corridor and tight stairs climbing steeply in the entrance. By the side, the living room, then the kitchen behind, then a rear garden.

On first floor, same long corridor, for two rooms and a bathroom. On the second floor, one more room and an office used as a storeroom. And using a ladder, there's an attic below the roof, also used for storage.

We found also nests from missing birds, bats and bees or hornets. All are empty and cold. We would never see any.

We didn't have much more belongings to tidy up then if we had been passing by in a hotel. This would gradually grow.

First was first. We found some bottles of gaz by the neighbouring houses and tool sheds. We found and began gathering all sorts of supplies. Not randomly nor with a selling value in mind. Simply the most practical and down to Earth ones.

What would feed us and help us survive.

I made jams in bulk for the first time in my life.

All the fruits we could collect all across the city were turned to purees and sweetened, cooked, so it could last us through next winter.

Over the days, Myls brought me back duffel bags of fruits, but looked more and more puzzled over time.

Z - What's on your mind?

M - It's weird. I could have sworn I had made the harvest in these gardens yesterday, but today all the fruits were there. It happened a few times already.

Z - What if you marked the places where you've been then? You will know for sure tomorrow.

M - Good idea.

I gave her a lipstick I had found in another home. Myls took it and looked at it weirdly. She might have some memories of her mother using one?

She pocketed it without saying what had been on her mind. I'm curious but I don't need to pry.

~

The next day she returned really troubled. On her request I followed her to see.

I found an abundant little orchard, where the trees all had a mark.

Nothing visibly plucked.

Was this a joke? She looked so serious. No, something else might be going on.

I plucked an apricot and had a bite. All normal, just like yesterday.

Z - Everything... regrows overnight?

M - I don't understand it.

Z - Now that's weird... And unnatural.

M - What do you think we should do?

I think about it earnestly.

Z - Either it's natural, or it isn't. I think we should figure out more before doing second harvests on trees and plants you marked. Are other vegetables acting the same?

M - Some.

She points at carrots and potatoes that didn't regrow, but lettuces that did.

Z - For this garden, nothing more but tests onwards. Let's pick a few spots and selected plants where you will increment more harvests, but keep them aside, in the kitchen of this house maybe. So we'll see over time if it appears limitless, or if as I suspect it, it has a discreet limit.

I notice a branch looking freshly grown, while every other are tattered by exposure of the bark.

Z - Did you break a branch here the other day?

M - I think so?

I break the fresh one and an old one, and let them fall.

We both look at the tree with some concern, as if it was going to move suddenly to complain, or even regenerate its missing branches in a magical halo of light.

All is quiet. Nothing appears to happen so suddenly.

M - You think it's magic?

Z - Not more than you. So let's test it to comprehend it.

Myls acts as if she was a robot to mock me, implying I might be one. I smile at her mocking tone. I reply keeping a very monochord tone.

Z - We need more data to conclude.

Now she laughs.

And we agree. We won't push too far the oddities, but do some tests to try better understanding it.

~

Over the first week or so, not much changed. Fruits and vegetables with root remaining regrew overnight.

That seemed free.

But we both had intuitions reality might not be so generous and simple.

And we were correct. Because when it eventually failed to repeat after a certain number of times, it was as if the trees tried to drain the missing resources for the work, and failed to do so.

Things turned weird, incomplete, deformed and colourless. We could see it tried, making more and more sacrifices.

And pushed even further, it strained itself to death. The trees pushed to exhaustion died as if they had been animals. They turned to dried and brittle husks, entirely dead.

From bountiful, consuming unseen resources, minerals from the ground, water and carbon dioxide from the air. But ending sick and in starvation to eventually abruptly die.

With Myls we witnessed with stupor how plants could die and crumble into completely dry bits in a mere few days.

The trees tested to the limit completely vanished, leaving barren ground they had drained until the end, and eventually leaving absolutely nothing behind.

It was a little spooky honestly.

And the lesson was clear. As much as the plants can now regrow their missing parts and fruits much faster than before, their supplies to do so aren't endless. The availability of their nutrients in the ground and air didn't change. So we can kill the earth itself from overwork now, and fast.

So we really shouldn't harvest more than what the soil can currently offer and regenerate properly.

Which intuitively means most likely one typical harvest as in the previous years was normality.

We can continue testing and learning, but onward we will know these bounties aren't endless nor free.

Z - It's most likely a good lesson about chemistry and energy. Although as plants are generally concerned, energy is nearly limitless and free.

M - ... What do you mean?

Z - If it was just about soil nutrients, they wouldn't be able to regrow through the night. Only under sunlight. So since they do... That means, I think, that there might also be something compensating strongly that supply of energy that is normally light.

M - Warmth maybe? Oxygen?

Z - Hm, I wonder.

I have no idea if this hypothesis is even right, nor yet how to test or ascertain any of it.

But since that's likely the case anywhere, at least we've found the right place to stay here.

~