Forest

There is nothing more beautiful than strolling through a forest.

The crunch of my feet over a path of fallen leaves. The rich smell of earth. The bright leaves rustling over my head. It calms my racing mind and grounds me in what once was.

It ends far too soon, when my quota runs out and the scene vanishes, replaced by the harsh shine of an underground tunnel, metallic air stinging my nose.

I sigh and press the implant in my temple, logging into my morning meeting. My colleagues appear as if on a round table in front of me. “The simulation is perfect” I say, after a brief good morning, “But why so short?” Five minutes felt like nothing. After so long without nature, that small taste only intensified my longing.

“Well we can’t have people walking through nature simulations all day,” says my boss. He is front and centre of our digital round table. “Nothing will get done.”

I’m not sure what needs to get done. After we destroyed the earth and raced to build an underground fortress, the only thing that needed doing, was to wait and see if nature would heal. “People are going to want more than five minutes.”

“Yes, exactly,” he replies, and everyone else at the digital table nods in agreement. “Free sample, to convince them to buy.”

“How much?” I say.

He shrugs his narrow shoulders “Hundred a minute.”

I clench my jaw, biting back anger. Greed got us here in the first place, and yet it’s still rampant. “Sir, don’t you think it should be accessible to everyone?”

“No,” says a collogue to my right. “Why should it? It’s a luxury, not a necessity.”

A luxury that used to be free, I think, but that doesn’t matter much, anymore. This is the new reality, and I have to adjust. Employee discount is the best I can hope for “Right,” I say, “And how much for us?”

“Complimentary half hour every day,” says my boss. “After that, you get half price.”

That was good enough for me. I zone out for the rest of the meeting. I only took this job for the nature simulation. There are a variety of landscapes available: Beaches, fields, parks and cities. But I always come back to the forest. It was my favourite place ten years ago. Now it can be, again.

I think about it all day and night, until I can wake up early in the morning and turn on my half-hour of forest landscape, walking through the cold tunnels as if it’s a brisk fall day, feeling a fresh breeze instead of stale air. Only a simulation, but it feels so real.

There is nothing more beautiful than strolling through a forest.