She tasted lemons. Cherries. Tomatoes.
'Excuse me miss, these lip blams are not for testing. I'm afraid you'll have to buy them.'
She closed her eyes and tried to shut out the voice of the woman in dark lipsticks talking into her face, smelling like powdery Popsies. Sickeningly sweet, She thought.
"Excuse me! you'll have to pay for these.'
'Why?' She signed, letting her hair fall into her eyes.
"Because you broke the seals on the products.' The sales-woman started to tap her feet impatiently.
She sighed again, and took out her purse, made the purchases and left the shop. As she walked out, she caught the woman making a face at her colleague, saying "another one of those curious scumfugs who can't afford something new."
The labels on the lip blams read LEMON CHERRY TOMATO. All in bright colours. The colours hurt her eyes. She studied them in detail, the Lemon one was in a bright blue and it had a picture of something she presumed to be the fruit on it. Fruit. It looked ugly. It was grey and looked synthetic. So that's how a lemon looked like. She tasted it again, it tasted sweet with a tinge of sourness. But the sourness was barely noticable. She took out the cherry lip balm and studied it. It was in a bright green with the picture of a lump of clear glass-like thing. A cherry. Hm.. It was a tad bitter. She cringed at the weird aftertaste it left on her tongue. She kept her newly acquired possessions with a kind of loving care. It had cost her three months of her salary. But it was worth it. She can now show her children what fruits taste and look like.
When she got back to her dull leaky apartment, the girls had already prepared the meal.
'Hi Mummee, we are having 30% carbohydrate, 5% calcium and 2% protein tonight."
She had felt bad that her children were not getting the nutrients they need for growing, but she could not afford fats, zinc and iron. Those were luxury goods for the rich. She hoped her surprise would please her daughters.
After dinner, she showed them the new products from Zioq. Zioq had been the company that allowed people to find out what nature was like. They claim that they alone have information of how nature use to be, before it was wiped out. Historians studied what nature use to hold, many belived that nature was merely a myth created and that it had never existed. Zioq on the other hand was churning out pictures of forests, cans of sea breeze, clear bottles of waterfall mist every other week. It was a dream that people held on to. Rich and poor alike want a taste of nature.
Most people believed that nature once existed and that it was infinitely beautiful and rich. The common story goes that people destroyed nature when they over developed and over ultilzed the planet. Not to mention polluted it. Many however, could not picture a world where nature and man-made things shared a common planet. The world has always been this way, most argued. It was destined to be a habitat of mankind and mankind alone. Of course and robots, technical beings, computers. And yes, bacterias. If nature was once even more beautiful than all of mankind's creation, then the world then must have been like a dreamland. But this dreamland was hard for people to imagine. Their modern world was made up of all possible shades of colours, from invisibility to blinding black. There's blue-of-nothingness and the red-of-space And all of the artificial textures and sounds. They could not picture a world that was anterior to man. Something man had little or no control over; something they destroyed in trying to tame. Most felt that if it was this fragile, it was not worth keeping anyway. Moreover, life was still interesting even without this so-called nature. They had virtual experinces ranging from near-death, to ecstasy. Nevertheless, curiousity and nostalgia for something lost made Zioq a multi-zillion company.
The mother smiled as the girls each took turns tasting fruits out of these plastic containers.
'You know, I heard that nature used to be free. People were free to appreciate it for no cost at all.' the younger girl said.
'And where did you hear such a ridiculous thing from?' her sister taunted.
'Just heard.'
'Free? Now that would be the day. Beauty for free! Hah! Whoever has heard of that.'
'Free...'
For a moment, they felt an indescribable sadness. Then all three of them burst into laughter.
'Excuse me miss, these lip blams are not for testing. I'm afraid you'll have to buy them.'
She closed her eyes and tried to shut out the voice of the woman in dark lipsticks talking into her face, smelling like powdery Popsies. Sickeningly sweet, She thought.
"Excuse me! you'll have to pay for these.'
'Why?' She signed, letting her hair fall into her eyes.
"Because you broke the seals on the products.' The sales-woman started to tap her feet impatiently.
She sighed again, and took out her purse, made the purchases and left the shop. As she walked out, she caught the woman making a face at her colleague, saying "another one of those curious scumfugs who can't afford something new."
The labels on the lip blams read LEMON CHERRY TOMATO. All in bright colours. The colours hurt her eyes. She studied them in detail, the Lemon one was in a bright blue and it had a picture of something she presumed to be the fruit on it. Fruit. It looked ugly. It was grey and looked synthetic. So that's how a lemon looked like. She tasted it again, it tasted sweet with a tinge of sourness. But the sourness was barely noticable. She took out the cherry lip balm and studied it. It was in a bright green with the picture of a lump of clear glass-like thing. A cherry. Hm.. It was a tad bitter. She cringed at the weird aftertaste it left on her tongue. She kept her newly acquired possessions with a kind of loving care. It had cost her three months of her salary. But it was worth it. She can now show her children what fruits taste and look like.
When she got back to her dull leaky apartment, the girls had already prepared the meal.
'Hi Mummee, we are having 30% carbohydrate, 5% calcium and 2% protein tonight."
She had felt bad that her children were not getting the nutrients they need for growing, but she could not afford fats, zinc and iron. Those were luxury goods for the rich. She hoped her surprise would please her daughters.
After dinner, she showed them the new products from Zioq. Zioq had been the company that allowed people to find out what nature was like. They claim that they alone have information of how nature use to be, before it was wiped out. Historians studied what nature use to hold, many belived that nature was merely a myth created and that it had never existed. Zioq on the other hand was churning out pictures of forests, cans of sea breeze, clear bottles of waterfall mist every other week. It was a dream that people held on to. Rich and poor alike want a taste of nature.
Most people believed that nature once existed and that it was infinitely beautiful and rich. The common story goes that people destroyed nature when they over developed and over ultilzed the planet. Not to mention polluted it. Many however, could not picture a world where nature and man-made things shared a common planet. The world has always been this way, most argued. It was destined to be a habitat of mankind and mankind alone. Of course and robots, technical beings, computers. And yes, bacterias. If nature was once even more beautiful than all of mankind's creation, then the world then must have been like a dreamland. But this dreamland was hard for people to imagine. Their modern world was made up of all possible shades of colours, from invisibility to blinding black. There's blue-of-nothingness and the red-of-space And all of the artificial textures and sounds. They could not picture a world that was anterior to man. Something man had little or no control over; something they destroyed in trying to tame. Most felt that if it was this fragile, it was not worth keeping anyway. Moreover, life was still interesting even without this so-called nature. They had virtual experinces ranging from near-death, to ecstasy. Nevertheless, curiousity and nostalgia for something lost made Zioq a multi-zillion company.
The mother smiled as the girls each took turns tasting fruits out of these plastic containers.
'You know, I heard that nature used to be free. People were free to appreciate it for no cost at all.' the younger girl said.
'And where did you hear such a ridiculous thing from?' her sister taunted.
'Just heard.'
'Free? Now that would be the day. Beauty for free! Hah! Whoever has heard of that.'
'Free...'
For a moment, they felt an indescribable sadness. Then all three of them burst into laughter.
posted by Nippy at 6:43 AM
1 Comments:
This is really nice. It made me strangely moved to see things from this point of view, something we've always taken for granted...
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