Breath at the Cost of Life
Iron lungs, re-imagined
The blades of grass are swaying in a wind that I can’t feel.
My husband is next to me, his hair and linen shirt stiff; behind him, the trees are dancing in a celebration that we weren’t invited to.
I know that it’s for our safety. That the air around us is inhospitable and that breathing it would reduce our lives by several decades. I know that our Auras are the only thing protecting us — that I should be grateful our insurance covers them. But I can’t help remembering how it was to be one with the world around me, to feel what the trees felt. Steering janky dirt bikes through squinted eyes, the dirt and wind and exhilaration bringing me to tears. Being a kid at the beach, covered in salt and a sunburn because I hated the feeling of sunscreen.
That isn’t even a thing anymore, sunscreen. Our Auras block UVA and UVB rays. Even though they’re only an inch thick, they do everything for us. A technological miracle, they called them. And they weren’t wrong. Everywhere we go, we bring a personalized atmosphere with us.
Your Aura modulates everything: lighting, temperature, humidity, sound, pollution. Glasses of any kind are just fashion statements now, since the Aura can correct your vision, reduce strain from blue light, and dim brightness like sunglasses used to. My younger cousins love to add filters to their Auras, turning everything to sepia or adding a faint rose wash. (I’ve tried to tell them about Instagram and the original filters, but they don’t care. And honestly, I don’t either.)
Glasses, coats, gloves. They’ve all become obsolete. Why wear layers of fabric when you’re always surrounded by an ideal climate?
Looking down, I flex my fingers, watching my Aura distort and bend with the motion. I guess it makes sense. For thousands of years, humans have adapted and shoved our way into any environment, no matter how hostile. That’s the trademark of humanity… we can make anything into a home, even at the cost of destroying it.
We tore down forests to build houses. Our rockets left debris when we first explored the moon, then Mars, now countless planets. We’ve forced ourselves into and onto everything, and now we’re paying the price for it by living on a world that doesn’t want us anymore. A world that’s trying her best to kill us, a slow revenge for the way we ravaged her, our first home.
The Aura’s early demonstrations were mockingly extraordinary: scuba divers exploring ocean shipwrecks with no equipment, mountaineers in t-shirts at the summit of Mt. Everest, even astronauts performing space walks in bikinis. All smiling, waving. Saying, look how happy we are that we can’t breathe on our own anymore. Look how free we are in these iron lungs.
I remember landing at the Philadelphia airport after vacations, breathing in the urine-tinged air and sarcastically, lovingly, saying how glad I was to be back.
There are no bad smells anymore. No more long car rides with my dog in the backseat, where her breath slowly envelops me in a damp, vaguely swamp-like aroma. No more laughing at the weird smells coming out of your friend’s fridge, daring each other to take a deep sniff.
Closing my eyes, I try my best to smell something, anything, right now. There’s nothing except a sterility and light-headedness from the sudden increase in oxygen. I know that for a subscription, I can get access to any smell and flavor I want. Fresh-brewed coffee to wake me up, lavender and eucalyptus to put me to sleep. For a steeper fee, I can experience the “ghost” perfumes of extinct flowers and cultures. Saffron, anise, honeysuckle. Anything valuable enough to be mimicked but not enough to be saved.
And yet, I don’t want any of this. I want gasoline and wood stain from my old garage. I want the pungent saccharine of over-ripe fruit on a countertop. And most of all, I want to smell people — their sweat, their laundry detergent, the last soap that they used to wash their hands.
I’ve never smelled my husband’s morning breath. When we have children, I will never smell my baby’s skin.
I’ve tried explaining this to my therapist before, this feeling of loss. At the time, I didn’t know such confessions carried consequences. As a mandated reporter for the government, she informed them that I had suicidal ideations, that I wanted to disarm my Aura. She called me ungrateful, reminded me of all the people that we had lost before Auras. Said that the next time I would get much more than a warning.
I haven’t gone back or spoken about it since. I’ve tried forgetting about it, distracting myself with every new update my Aura has to offer. Wind simulators, compressed air massages, voice modulators using helium and sulfur hexafluoride.
Other times, I blow all the air from my lungs and hold my breath.
One, two, three… The emptiness feels like relief. Too soon, it’s over and I feel my Aura slowly invading my lungs, into each bronchus, each cell.
Can I call it a parasite when it keeps me alive?
What is it called when you’re drowning in air?
The Aura is completely self-sustaining, as long as it has a network connection. In the 23rd century, this is a given. You don’t just randomly lose signal — you have to hide from it.
Every hour, I have to re-assure the car that yes, I want to continue straight. Five times in a row, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes. After the 10th yes, we were finally here. Ten meters ahead of us lies an old bomb shelter from centuries ago, remnants from a war with a country that no longer exists. Weeks of following rumors and pouring over paper maps (nearly disintegrating in my hands from age) has led me here.
Stepping out of the taxi, I tap the hood twice. The grey sedan begins rolling away, making it to the first bend in the road before it pauses. Its movements are sheepish, almost human in the way it hesitates, as if it’s worried to leave me behind. I raise my hand slightly and smile, for some reason wanting to reassure the two thousand pounds of metal. Satisfied, it continues and disappears behind the trees.
The shelter is well-camouflaged, its green steel dimpled and polished to simulate the wet foliage around it. It’s marked only by a slight absence of vines and a single robin perched on top.
I knew to expect the bird, but I still feel unsettled in its presence. Had I passed this robin on the street, I wouldn’t have looked twice at it. But now, locking eyes with it, I see it for what it is. A pint-sized Sphinx, its riddles told not in words but in the tilt of its head. A guardian.
I break eye contact, and it’s gone. I’ve passed.
Now, standing in front of the door, I feel the weight of the air inside of me. I press gently at first, then shove my shoulder into it when politeness doesn’t work. A sigh escapes from us both when it finally opens. Each step inside triggers a new system warning, growing increasingly frantic and faint. Network connection unstable, please check settings. Network connection dangerously low, check settings immediately.
Network connection failure.
And with those last words, my Aura fades. A tide gently pulling away, from my ears, nose, mouth. A rush of white noise with it, deafening me.
Seconds pass and I’m… alone. Bare.
Welcomed only by the smell of damp rock and the sudden gust of a shutting door.
