I’ve been on a search of the fabled New York City grounds, which has been abandoned for a few centuries. A medical treatment, mandated for all, was administered in the early 21st century, and most of the recipients died. There was no need for them to empty their homes, they would be going nowhere, so the city is now a treasure trove for the likes of me. The city infrastructure still stands for the most part, although people were very afraid to go there for a very long time, because those few who survived were told, wrongly, that the city was contaminated by radiation.
Most of the survivors of the biologic and terror attacks on the people, perpetrated by their own governments, fled into the woods, mountains and hills – the cities were no longer habitable by humans for many reasons, primarily the lack of food and electricity. The use of fossil fuels had been prohibited, so people had no way to heat their homes, cook what little food they had, drive any kind of car, get water, or communicate with others.
Once out of the cities, we easily relearned the old ways of surviving as beings of the earth, not as rulers of the earth. The land was teeming with foodstuffs that grow naturally, water was plentiful, geo-engineering and radiation were no longer threats, war came to an end, and the predicted climate change never happened. Humanity became human again.
I was standing outside a structure on the east side of an island that was once called Manhattan, in an area fronted by a curved wall and curious vertical poles every ten feet. I could not quite make out the words that had been carved in the wall. VNITED was fairly clear, but the rest was obscured.
I entered a building that must have once housed many people in smaller units. Each of these units had a large box in it. I believe these boxes, in what was probably the food preparation rooms for the domiciles, would have been called “refrigerators.” These were used to keep perishable foods cold – apparently most people at that time lacked many of the skills needed to preserve foods that we employ today.
When I opened the box, the smell wasn’t as bad as one might expect; any foodstuffs had had at least three centuries to rot by then. All that was left of food was a bit of dust, a smattering of bones, and a few shriveled up fibers. I could not tell what these creatures ate, but I sure could tell what they generally stored their foodstuffs in. The refrigerator was full of what used to be called “plastic.” So full of plastic, that there couldn’t have been much edible stuff in there at the time of the person’s demise.
This is not my entry to Hive Garden Community's new weekly creative garden challenge because the countdown expired two days ago! But thank you for reading, and please join us next week for the new prompt.
