AGRONOMIC FALLOUT

Safe Zone Entry No. 1 | We’re Here.

I didn’t know if we’d ever get here. Hell, I didn’t know these places existed. After miles, miles, emptiness, and a few more miles, we all got to a point where we walked because it was the normal thing to do. What do you do when no place is habitable? There’s always something wrong with each city we come across. Oil wells spew toxic sludge. Building insides rotting from the lethal combination of humidity and a lack of artificial air conditioning. Scorched earth melted peoples’ shoes, immobilizing them in their paths to nowhere. You name it, we saw it.

I almost don’t know what to do with myself. We haven’t seen a pristine, non-deteriorated building facade in almost a decade. As far as we know, it could be an alien craft, usurping natural resources because the humans ran the planet to shit.

As we walked though, that hulking wall got taller, its orthogonal openings more pronounced and repetitive. We unconsciously salivated at the non-descript opening we walked toward. 
The first batch of migrants probably carved this path; whacking the overgrowing corn husks away with giant machetes. Okay, it probably wasn’t that dramatic, they probably just bobbed and weaved around wild branches, hoping not to get too much chafing before reaching the Safe Zone gates. 
We reached the latticed-gate, and waited eons before the things started opening. What the fuck kind of futuristic, new-age colony has a puny gate that opens slower than my old garage door? The only…the ONLY difference between this entrance — which may be one of a handful to the only existing bastions of civilization and my garage door — was the sound. They’d have to kill me before I forget the sound of my garage door. It started with my wireless remote control. That sound of plastic indenting into itself. Clickkk. Why was that even necessary? Did it exist for the sole purpose of fulfilling humanity’s need for the tactile…the feeling of shoving physical objects? (so-called “smart-home” products existed way before the outbreak, I was just too old-school to buy-in). Half a second after that plastic compression and release, the churn of my garage motor would commence. I swear that sound resonates deep in my soul; I can see the single, measly motor, looking over to my plastic remote, confirming its recent button press, and making the decision to give me the privilege to finally enter my own goddamn shitty brownstone that I couldn’t offload to save my life. You know iron gritting against an iron track has to be shreak-inducingly loud to cause immediate goosebumps rise on my forearms. My windows were fully raised, my A/C on high. That little C with the arrow turned on. Who knows what the fuck that thing does but it makes my A/C louder so I assume it’s making me colder. That streak still permeates my soul. How many minutes, hours, days, did I spend sitting in the driver seat, waiting for that garage door to open? It’s not like I was there, pounding on the steering wheel cuz my jam was on and I was AMPED to get inside. NO. I just wanted to park my car, eat the last third of pad thai in the fridge, down a diet ginger ale and try to avoid how tasty a real ginger ale tasted after a salty-ass noodle dinner, brush my teeth cuz nobody wants cavities, crack the window because it’s hot as fuck inside even with the A/C on in July in Philly, and try with all my might not to think of the mountain of shit I have to do at the office tomorrow.

And this door…nothing. What the hell was this gate made out of? Paper? I wouldn’t put it past these post-outbreak newbie techno-ecologist fanatics. Let’s make a gate to prevent citywilds from coming in, and let’s make it out of fucking paper. They had us fooled though. Can you blame me for not trying to kick down a gridded surface that had a sheen of ironwork? How the hell was I supposed to know that shit was printed? I’m not the only one, you know. I looked back all of two times to make sure I wasn’t the only one totally flabbergasted at what to do next. Maybe they operated with more information than I, but everybody was all muddy and we were all desperate and everybody smelled like raw human.

I was really hoping to see some other people. God, I would have broke down and I cried if I saw a pale-white male in futuristic white overalls putting his hand on my shoulder as I kneeled down, speechless, asking for forgiveness that I did’t need because I didn’t fundamentally understand what the difference between him and I was. No humans though. Just three cameras bobbing in three dimensions. Two came from tracks at the sides of us, extending much like those cheap Ikea desk lamps people used to buy because they were cheap and people just like to clamp shit to other shit. The other robot looked like the queen for fuck’s sake. She didn’t even rotate in a third dimension. She was above it. Her head was slightly bigger than the others. What kind of sick joke is this? Do the new-humans take pleasure in seeing migrants enter for the first time, confused, tired, freaked out by swinging robots? This Queen robot, only using her two-axes of rotation, managed to zoom in close to my face. There we were; a perfect sphere eyeing an oblong excuse for a face, with full beard and eyebrow hairs that lost all color.

After a brief pause, it retracted into the ceiling, as did its other two henchmen.

I took this as an invitation.