The Green Way
The Green Way
When Aiden crossed the raging waters of the great gorge for the first time she was a child. She had always remembered her trip there as a grand adventure. She had been amazed at the size of the place and how wild it was. She hadn’t known that soil could take on so many different colors. The images of that time had stayed with her. If she closed her eyes she could still see the ancient sandstone cliffs blown smooth by the wind, the dark blue sky stretching out in all directions. She could hear the wild rushing water that had carved its way through stone. It had been a very different time then, and a very different world. People lived in constant chaos in those days and nature simply could not absorb the things that were done it. Now there was no longer a clash between humanity and nature. People understood what nature was now and things were much better.
Things had gone wrong back then, in the decades before the revolution. People did not really have freedom. They had been told that they had it, but they didn’t. They had been deceived by those who used politics for their own ends, trying to force their will and way of life on a world that did not want it. The revolution had been unavoidable. Sometimes people write the future in stone just like those rushing waters had written their own signature into the rock.
The two great factions had been at odds in one form or another for thousands of years and on two very different paths. The wise ones had known that the people needed freedom and that many of the governments around the world would never change. They knew that the voice of freedom was not being heard, that the voice of wisdom was not being heard, and that those in power would never do what was necessary; what was right and correct. Some people saw that change was coming. They said that if the governments did nothing, if they did not change, that path would end in bloodshed. Nothing had been done and so of course blood was spilled. Sometimes people just don’t listen. Sometimes they just won’t see the truth when it is right in front of them.
Eventually the liberating armies waged their own wars where the governments would not do the moral thing, the right thing. They set the people free from their own stupidity. Given time those governments that would not change fell from within; often they were taken down from within. Humanity had been saved from its own stupidity, but it had almost been too late. It was only through the use of biotechnology that the world had been set on track.
Now people were truly free. There was true peace and true harmony throughout the world. There was a sense of order, and the wonderful feeling of being a part of one great community. Back in those early days there was only chaos and the creep of dangerous biohazards across the planet. People had no sense of belonging back then. They were cut off from the great family. So it had been since the beginning of the great heresy.
Aiden was no longer a child now. Her round face had matured and then grown old and worn. She had watched the world shift, watched as it had been thrust into turmoil by selfish people with no respect for freedom. Now she was old and her body was failing her. Soon it would be her time. She wanted to see the green waters of the gorge one last time with the same eyes that had seen it in her childhood. Perhaps it was foolish and sentimental. Her friends and family thought so. They thought (and they said) that she would be better off in a proper medical center in the last days before her time came. She had always been a little stubborn. So she had made plans to take the final trip that she would make in her tired and age worn body, to see those waters again. It was an expensive journey, but she had the money. She had invested in eco-tech in the early decades after the revolution. It was an obvious solution to so many problems. She purchased a ticket for a flight to the gorge that she remembered, packed a bag, and started her holiday to see the sights.
The flight was quick, but very crowded. The advantage of flying so rapidly at the very edge of the atmosphere was the speed of the trip. The disadvantage was the cost. Even with her money she could only afford to be stacked and strapped down onto a bunk with all the others. Her feeble body was strapped into the fourth bunk from the floor. It was an odd feeling, being cradled in plastic and foam with so little room above and below her. She was glad that she was not claustrophobic. Some people, even people who were not claustrophobic, had to be sedated to fly.
Her flight landed two hours after take-off. It had been mostly uneventful. She had heard the muffled cries of a few passengers, those who should have opted for sedation and had not, but that was nothing new. After she had been unloaded by the service crew she made her way to the tour desk so that she could see what she had come so far to see.
An hour later she was there, and it was much more beautiful than she could have imagined. The revolution had healed the land from what it once had been. The chaos of mismatched trees that once arched out over the churning waters of the gorge was gone, replaced by the perfect regularity of revolution. Each tree was a perfect duplicate of the others. The insanity of random parasitic bio hazards that had once filled the churning waters were also gone. They no longer leapt into the air, disturbing the perfection of nature with their frightening ways. There were only three species of fresh water fish in the world now, the guide told the tourists, and ten species of salt water fish for the worlds oceans. They were all perfect in every way with immutable DNA, free from the insanity of natural selection.
The muddy churning channel had been smoothed with synthetics so that there would be no more erosion. There was no more chaos and no more insanity in the great gorge of her childhood memories. Everything was balanced and perfect in every way. The word belonged to humanity now. It had taken nearly fifty years to eradicate and replace the old bio-hazards of the earth with new and proper life forms for each of the natural places designated for their use. It was all so beautiful now.
Aiden felt herself start to cry. It was perfect. It was the green way, the right way, the only way. The tour ended and it was time for her return flight. Perhaps she would come back again after her regeneration. The colour of the steel and synthetics would be so much more brilliant with her new eyes. Perhaps she would come back again to see the world as it always should have been, through her new eyes, her new child’s eyes. Perhaps then she would be able to erase the last of the nightmares of the past that haunted her dreams and her waking hours. Maybe the images of the great gorge of her child hood would finally vanish as they should.
