Monday, March 16, 2015

Dust

Preparing to leave the house, I enter the exit-cleaning chamber naked and close the door. It's the only way to go outside. It's a simple circular shaped chamber, large enough for 3 occupants, with multiple vents circling the walls from top to bottom. It has the power to vacuum out the entire room within seconds – able to suck-out and filter the smallest particle, down to the micron and possibly beyond. Everyone has a chamber now, otherwise living spaces will be unlivable, smells would become unbearable, disease would become rampant and life would be traumatically difficult; especially, when working with sensitive technology and laboratory equipment.

Entering the chamber, the door automatically closes behind me. In the middle are pole shaped handrails, held up vertically and bolted to the floor by multiple posts. Sections of the rails have ergonomic gripping, peppered with microscopic pores for sanitizing and cleaning the hands. Below is a grating with clearly visible turbines and propellers underneath it. The walls have vents interspersed with automatic mechanisms for open and shut. Above is a breathing apparatus. I pull it down. It covers my entire face, including my ears to protect my hearing. As I grip the railing, the machine senses my hands and begins to whir and churn. The wind picks up speed in iterations, forming a barely visible funnel of great strength, gently pulling me from side to side. In front, I see the status screen and hear a digitized female voice stating, 'Cleaning commencing, hold tight and do not move.' A small alarm bell rings. It lasts about one minute. Nothing discernible. It simply immersed and flooded the room with ultra-sonic vibrations to force-loosen any stubborn microscopic particles. I let go of a rail without thinking. An alarm buzzes loudly with a metallic voice, 'Warning, please re-mount'. As I grip the railing again, the second stage begins, this time with a much greater force of wind. I feel a vibration as my hands become stuck to the rail's grip. A suction begins to clean them. My entire body jostles back and forth. I can feel the air flowing up my legs, across my back and stomach, causing my hair to stand up. It gets stronger, slightly lifting my entire body – in order to clean the bottom of my feet. It then stops. Suddenly quiet. A few seconds pass. Third and final stage: A special gas is released. It causes the air to become extremely heavy, forcing any particle that refused to budge to give way and fall into the floor and down below. The pressure on the skin is immense as if going into deep sea water. The vents open and blow out the remaining particles and gas. Oxygen refills the room. The environment returns to normal. Finally, the voice says, 'Cleaning Finished'. I re-mount the breathing apparatus into its cradle above me. Next, I step forward to the clothing closet. Waving my hand in front of the sensor it slides open. The clothing closet , similar in operation, is a smaller version and shape of larger cleaning chamber. The difference is that has a much more vigorous cleaning-vent system. since there is no concern of harming life. I begin to dress, covering myself from head to toe with a seamless long sleeve shirt, air-tight connected pants, filter mask mounted, skin flush goggles, an impractical yet fashionable scarf, gloves to my elbows, boots up to my knees and a special hat equipped to cover, protect and enhance my hearing. As I push the button to exit the door, the voice warns me, “Self cleaning shall commence upon exit, re-entry not allowed for 10 minutes.” I step outside, exposing the chamber to the dust, close the door and hear the self-cleaning process of the chamber beginning. This time it is much louder and more intense than before. Since there is no risk to harming human occupants, it utilizes gale force winds, UV light, blistering heat pulses and bacterial killing fumigation to sanitize the chamber.

I walk to the local shop. I begin to ponder the endless dust. It is the dust that makes our breathing labored. It spins in the winds, sifts itself through the windows and crevices of buildings and cleverly penetrates our clothing. Without the goggles for protection, the dust would dominate my visibility and burn my eyes.

The dust is a part of who we are now. We used to prevent it. We planted shrubs, various plants and trees to hold down the soil. We regularly washed down our houses, cars, patios and gardens. That was until the water ran out, almost completely. There was a time when the fresh water was plentiful, or at least that is how it seemed. Some argue today that what is now is the norm, that our expectations were pure fantasy. It's quite possible. As this is considered a semi-arid climate – the water was never meant to be. The local inhabitants should be cactus, lizards, and snakes – not flowers and people with their domesticated pets such as dogs, cats and horses. Instead, as it is our nature to terraform every environment that we see, we decided this must be a place for people. It was a place that can serve every purpose and fulfill every dream. It had, and continues to have, a climate with warm winters and cool summers. Seasons were merely semantics for determining the location of the planet to the sun, to change the time or to mock our not-so-fortunate friends and family. So we built our cities, our parks, the golf courses and amusement parks. We had the tenacity to grow sprawling gardens. We had so much confidence in our ability to control nature, we harvested fruits, vegetables, livestock and dairy farms – enough to support the other-world colonies. We became the main source for food that everyone cherished and relied upon. We were the kings of agriculture. The envy of all dreamers.

The planners thought, 'So what if we didn't have enough water? We can always import it from the other climatically harsh regions.' Yet, their planning had its limits. Being near the largest bodies of water on the planet, we figured, we'll just use it when we need it. We can build anything. We'll convert the saline (salt water) to fresh water anytime. There is plenty of time for that... meanwhile, we can continue to fulfill our dreams. Never did they expect that the water would dry up in the plentiful areas – in fact, it dried out everywhere. Scientists continue to do this day try to explain why it all happened: why the great drought killed so many, why we weren't prepared, and why we could never have expected it. Yet, others say we saw the warning signs, we were told to harness the nurturing and inherit power of the oceans, but it was too late.

We started to see the first signs of the drought...

To be continued ...




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