by JT Lawrence
“Be careful,” warns Lewis, looking at the humming machine. “These are industrial chippers. They’ll chew your arm off if you daydream.”
They start feeding the appliance with the hunks of wood. It makes short work of even the hardest wedges of timber. They both grunt and sweat with the effort of hauling the heavy pieces.
“No offence, but … aren’t you too old for this kind of work?” Zack is only half joking.
“Sod off,” says Lewis. They both know he is the stronger of the two.
It's gratifying labour, and the air fills with a dusty forest fragrance that penetrates their paper masks. They bag all the wood chips and pack them into trolley cages which are wheeled away by another team. They sweep the floor till it's spotless; so that no one would be able to say there were twelve men in here making whole trees disappear.
After an exhausting eight hours, the bell rings, and they stroll back to their residence, stretching sore muscles and rubbing dirt off their skin. Bernard follows them from behind. Zack ruffles his hair and sawdust falls onto his shoulders, and his cuff beeps green.
“Hey,” says Lewis. “The gods approve!”
Zack frowns at him, and Lewis slaps him on the back.
“You got your first credit. You get a Reward! What are you going to choose?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Lewis wipes his arms and hands with a damp rag.
“I guess I’ll look through the catalogue.”
“You need to set up your wishlist, man. Most of us have lists a mile long. You don’t even have an idea?”
Zack still doesn’t have an appetite, and there’s nothing he’s seen in Lewis’s room that he wants to replicate, but then he gets it.
“A book,” says Zack. It’s exactly what his atrophying brain requires. “I’ll request a book.”
Lewis shakes his head. “Sorry, man. Down here? No books allowed.”
The next day, Zack and the other SkyRest prisoners are led into the hall to work. They are given special protective gear. Thin plastic overalls that crunch when you walk, wide face masks, and biolatex gloves. Even though they are still deep underground, the air is less stale than usual.
The prison guard with grey hair and a voice like dusk stands in front of them. His name is Xoli. The younger guard—a blond, fresh-faced assistant—films him so that his face is broadcast in the hexagonal holoframe above the residents.
“Good morning,” he says, and the men mutter their replies. “You’ll be wondering why you’ve been given extra kit. It’s because we’re dealing with a new substance today. It’s part of our experimentation in a new, cutting-edge technology, and we need your help. It’s not without risk, though, so please be careful and keep your prophylactix on at all times.”
There’s a murmur of interest. Virgin tasks down here are few and far between, so getting to do new work seems like something to look forward to. The men are instructed to move towards the trestle tables, and the day leaders peel away the covers to reveal large tubs of dark brown organic matter.
“Now for those of you with foraging experience,” says Xoli, and there are a few laughs, “You’ll know that this—” He holds up a large lily-shaped, charcoal-coloured mushroom. “—is called a Black Trumpet. Cornucopioides. Also known as black chanterelle, and … Trumpet of Death.”
Zack studies the tub in front of him. He can see the fungi between the humus and decayed leaves.
“Now, mycologists would usually tell you that there’s nothing to fear from a black chanterelle, and they’d be right. In fact, these mushrooms, in the wild, are really quite delicious and will do you no harm.”
Xoli holds up his specimen, and the camera zooms in.
“However, this batch of fungi has been adapted by our bioburial scientists, who spliced its helix with Dermestid.”
The room is quiet.
“Anyone?”
A few frowns and head-shakes.
“Derme-stid. Skin Beetle. A Dermestid is a flesh-eating beetle.”
Zack’s skin crawls with imaginary insect legs.
“So, I introduce to you … Carnacraterellus cornucopioides.”
“A man-eating mushroom,” says Zack.
Xoli looks pleased. “Correct.”
The men murmur. Xoli talks them through the process: find the mushrooms, identify the mycelia, harvest the spores, store them safely in the envelopes or soil trays provided.
“Please work carefully,” he says. “And, whatever you do, don’t breathe the spores in. As you can imagine, you don’t want these suckers seeding your lungs.”
Later, in his room, Zack lies on his mat and swipes through the SkyRest Reward Catalogue. What he really wants now is sleeping pills, but those are contraband, too. He hasn't had a good night's sleep since his arrest. Although, even if he had the pills, he probably wouldn't take them. Only one thing is worse than Bernard watching him sleep, and that's not even knowing she's watching him sleep.
He might request a bed or a decent mattress at least, but those cost a lot more than the one credit he has. He’d have to save up if he wants a big purchase like that. He sees a small mirror advertised. Perhaps he should get that for above the sink? He doesn’t know what he looks like anymore. Maybe it’s best to keep it that way. Prison pyjamas and artificial light, shrinking brain. Thinking about looking at himself every day in these conditions make him decide against it. He imagines himself as hollow-eyed and hollow-boned. That’s what it feels like, anyway.
He scrolls and scrolls until he eventually finds something to buy. The app congratulates him on his redemption (if only it were that easy) and informs him to expect delivery in the next open chute.
The dinner bell rings, and Zack joins Lewis’s table in the cafeteria. Lewis points at him and says, “New guy. Girdler,” for the benefit of the other prisoners. The men shoot him cursory glances. One or two mumble hi.
“You’re not eating?” asks Lewis.
Zack shakes his head. “Not hungry.”
“You gotta eat.”
“What is it?” asks Zack.
“Who bloody knows,” says Lewis, and some of the other men laugh.
Zack grabs a tray and chooses the least unattractive option at the counter. Some kind of tofurkey with grey sauce and matching mash. Some fresh green and purple leaves on the side that makes the food look slightly less dire.
Back at the table, he takes a bite of mashed potato. Or, at least, he thinks it’s mashed potato. It’s difficult to swallow.
“You’ll get used to it,” says Lewis.
“I doubt it,” Zack replies.
“Soon you’ll be eating decent food,” says a shiny-scalped man to Lewis. He wiggles his eyebrows at the colourful stripes on Lewis’s lapel and points his fork up to the ceiling, smiling. There is grey mash in his teeth.
“Ah,” says Lewis, clearly relishing the thought. He’d been working down here a long, long time and was so close to earning his release.
"I heard they've got an artisanal ice cream shop up there," says a man who looks like a professional wrestler. "There are, like, a hundred different flavours. And if they don't have the flavour you want, you can make a request, and they'll make it for you."
"Ah," repeats Lewis.
“I’d ask for salted butterscotch,” says the wrestler. “In a sugar cone.”
“Black Choxolate,” says the bald man, but there’s not much hope in his voice. He only has two stages on his lapel.
“Eighties Bubblegum,” says Lewis. “Remember that? Summers at the South Coast. Blue ice-cream dripping down your chin.”
For a moment they all look lost in their memories of childhood treats and open skies.
“And you’ll forget all about us,” says baldy.
“I bloody won’t,” says Lewis.
“Yes, you will,” says the wrestler. “And you should.”
“I’m ready,” says Zack to Lewis as they finish their game of table tennis.
“Hmm?”
Lewis scoffs. “You’re not ready. You’ve barely been here five minutes.”
“Lewis. Please.”
He puts his bat down and takes a long, hard look at Zack. The ball vibrates on the table, then comes to a stop. Eventually, Lewis capitulates with a shrug.
Lewis and Zack enter the small dim cineroom, and Lewis dials up the lights, interrupting the prisoners watching an old nature documentary.
“Hey!” some of them say, before realising who it is.
“Sorry to interrupt, gents,” Lewis says, pausing the film. “We need the room.”
The men complain under their breath, but no one dares confront Lewis. They stand up and stroll out.
Zack flips through the available titles on DVD. The titles are milquetoast. No new releases, no sex or violence. Just old wildlife shows, clean sitcoms, and vintage feel-good films. He picks one out, cracks open the cover and inspects it. ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’.
Lewis laughs at the old tech. “When’s the last time you saw one of those?”
Even the dusty DVD player looks a hundred years old.
Lewis changes the amp source then types in a code to unlock a SkyRest-branded video. When prompted to confirm, he looks at Zack. “You sure you want to know this shit?”
Zack nods.
“It’s like bad porn,” he says.
“What?”
“I mean, it’s not X-rated. But, like bad porn, it’s not something you can’t un-see.”
Zack nods again, and Lewis purses his lips and clicks play.
They grab a seat in the front row, and the film begins. The initial shot is drone-footage of the architecture that rises a mile above them: flattering angles of the white honeycomb shard among the deep green of the surrounding forest, and a woman's honey-tongued voice-over begins.
“Welcome,” she says, “to SkyRest.”
The voice sounds like Gaelyn’s, the attractive woman who had overseen his admission and appointed Lewis as his babysitter.
An ultra-realistic animation of a tree falling in a forest occurs. The tree soon greys and shrinks as it breaks down, and new growth—bright green saplings—shoots up from the nurse log.
“It’s easy to become disconnected from nature when you’re living a high-speed urban life,” says the calming voice. “Part of this disconnect is thinking of death as an inherently negative experience. But what makes SkyRest different from other urban vertical cemeteries?”
Unseen things click into place one after another in Zack’s mind, like someone shuffling a deck of cards.
“SkyRest offers clients a variety of burial options—”
Hexagonal frames appear on the screen to illustrate the available alternatives, and the first frame is enlarged: Inside is a tombstone.
“Our traditional burial contains all the hallmarks of a conventional burial, except that it takes place on one of our sky storeys. You are welcome to visit the resting place of your loved one any time of day or night.”
The next frame is an urn on a mantelpiece. “If you end up selecting customary cremation, we have a variety of options to deal with the ashes. These include, amongst others: having them mixed with oil paint, and commissioning an artist to create a unique work for you. Having them distilled and turned into jewellery, or having them buried under the rootball of a sapling that you can take home and plant in your garden.”
Seems sensible. So far, Zack doesn’t see what the big deal is.
“If you don’t want to keep the remains, we also offer water cremation.”
Okay, that’s a new one, but still … hardly controversial.
“These are all popular burial solutions,” says the speaker, “but none of them are environmentally friendly, and at SkyRest we strive for a carbon-double-negative footprint. If it’s also important to you to leave the world causing minimal damage, you may consider our earth-friendly options.”
Zack’s ears prick up; the SkyRest logo animates on screen.
“SkyRest introduces … Recomposition™. Your Doorway to Immortality.”
Immediately Zack thinks of zombies. Does this place bring dead bodies back to life? A shameful amount of bank has been spent on immortality tech, but as he thinks it, he knows this isn’t that kind of place. Everything he’s seen has been deep green and eco-devoted—and he’s petty sure zombies don’t fit into that equation.
“For most people, the suddenness and permanence of death is difficult to accept, especially when it’s a loved one. With SkyRest’s trademarked Recomposition™ technology, your spirit can live on by nurturing the earth that sustained you during your lifetime.”
Zack hardly blinks.
“Traditional burials are anything but natural. Bodies are preserved with the known carcinogen, formaldehyde, and then sealed in caskets that further embalm them, taking up valuable land and leaching poison into the ground. Even cremations are not without environmental damage: a single cremation pumps a toxic cocktail of chemicals into the air. In fact, our legal team here at SkyRest predicts that both of these options will be banned by 2040. Recomposition™ offers a positive solution to those looking for an earth-friendly burial.”
The animation of the nurse log returns.
“Recomposition™ interlaces the cycles of life into the meaning-hungry, time-starved urban fabric and reminds us that, as humans, we’re deeply connected to the natural ebb and flow of Mother Earth.”
A young woman is lying on a forest floor, asleep. Dead? Naked, apart from some strategically placed autumn leaves. Her long blonde hair is styled against the dark ground. More and more fallen leaves cover her pale skin until she is no longer visible. The earth has swallowed her up.
“There you go.” Lewis pauses the video. “Happy now?”
“Yes,” says Zack. “No. I don’t understand what the big deal is. Why the secrecy?”
“What can I say? It’s death. People get cagey.”
“How does it work?”
“You want me to draw you a bloody picture?”
“Can we watch to the end?” Zack already knows the answer and is frustrated. He kicks the cabinet of DVDs. He just wants answers. Is it too much to ask?
Lewis turns off the screen. “You’re not ready for the end.”
“I’m sorry about last night,” says Zack to Lewis over breakfast. Lewis raises his white eyebrows at him and motions for him to sit.
"No worries. I expected it. It's always difficult for initiates to process the work they do here." Lewis pushes his plate away. Zack sits and looks at the abandoned food. No-egg omelette? Dutch baby pancake? He can't stand the idea of eating food he can't identify.
“No one’s perfect, right? We’ve all done wrong. Inside of here and out.”
“Right.”
“But there is one thing.” Lewis traces a scar on the table. “And I don’t mean to offend.”
Zack looks at him.
“Have you looked in the mirror, lately?”
“What?”
“You look like shit, man.”
Zack finger-combs his hair, rubs his eyes. “I haven’t been sleeping.”
“I can see that. Your eyes have more baggage than a supermodel.”
“I actually think I feel worse than I look.”
“Not possible,” says Lewis, and throws his head back, laughing. A few residents stop eating their omelette/pancake to look at him, and Zack laughs too.
“Any advice?” he asks.
“Advice? Sure. Get a bloody mirror.”
Zack laughs. “Funnily enough, I did consider it. But being down here is torturous enough without having to look at my own reflection every morning.”
"No, seriously," says Lewis. "You'd better start sleeping. And start eating! The way you're looking, well..." He gestures at the building above them. "If you're not care
ful, they'll be using you in their next video."
The now-familiar siren sounds, letting them know that their work shift is beginning. The men sigh, bin what's left on their plates, and lope out of the cafeteria. This time they're led to a hall Zack has not yet seen. A warden shows them how to re-pot plants that have grown out of their containers. Roses, hydrangeas, maples, trailing Boston ivy, Virginia creeper. Considering yesterday's video, he reckons taking a thriving Boston ivy plant home instead of ashes is a good thing. You could have this urn of ashes in your house that you don't know what to do with, or you could have this plant that can cover a whole wall—a whole building—and flicker from season to season between green and red. A daily reminder that the person you've lost is not really lost at all. Or a rose bush: the blooms of your beloved.
They tap the plants’ containers to release the roots, then ease them into the soft new soil. It’s therapeutic work, and Zack starts relaxing for the first time since being here. They play classical music over the sound system. His shoulders unknot; his brain untangles. After the re-potting, they have to shift some soil in wheelbarrows, then they’re instructed to sweep up and bag the sawdust and kindling in the wood-chipping room. The exercise feels good. The work is easy and monotonous and becomes like meditation. He keeps checking his cuff for his next Reward, and wonders how long it will be till he gets the first stripe on his lapel.
This place isn’t so bad. Then he corrects himself: It could be worse.
After they’ve showered, and they’re waiting for dinner, they hang out in Lewis’s room. Lewis is still in good spirits, doing arm-lifts and eating protein pretzels. His bare chest ripples with muscles a man half his age would be proud to have, and his tattoo seems darker than usual, the colours richer. The illustration seems to pulse on his skin, as if the dragon is alive.
“Getting ready for that swim?” Zack asks.