It never rains but it pours

The white walls contrasted the mahogany flooring and table-tops. The room functioned as a kitchen and a dining room and felt too big for just three people, as if they were incomplete as a trio. Two islands existed in the room, one near the oven, which had drawers filled with chopping boards and cutlery. The other was a painted-over wooden-table; this table was square-topped and had four chairs, one at each side, with four white plates and sets of mahogany-handled silver cutlery. On the wall closest to the table hung a flat-screen TV showing an advert.

Jumanji was Nazareno’s favourite film, he first watched it when he was four and it became a tradition to watch it at lunch-time on his birthday. He made eye contact with his parents hoping they would be able to predict his anticipation, thinking it rude to ask directly; he was growing impatient for his present. Ines gave a light chuckle and her tongue stuck out of the left edge of her lips; her eyes were distant for a second but when she felt her son’s eyes on her she tried to hide it with a smile. A dimple appeared on the right to her mouth and her eyes reluctantly joined in with the smile before she said: “There’s a box on the sofa with your name on, honey!” When she finished, she winked and he erupted from his seat – stopping himself before he left the room, he asked his parents an important question: “Will Amara be joining us today? I miss her.”

Momentarily returning to her lost thoughts, she caught herself and adopted a sincere serious manner, reached over to her husband, Matias, who had blood-shot hazel eyes, and gently slid her hands under his to hold. She composed herself, trying to assume control yet feeling as helpless as a claustrophobic locked in a booth; she clenched her jaw and inhaled through her nose to combat her teary sinuses. “Honey, she can’t come home. She’s with her friends in the Under-Earth, now.” Naz frowned, knowing he couldn’t do anything. His expression changed and excitement returned when he realised his present was waiting for him, and he fled to the living room. Ines turned her attention to her husband: “Mati, I know, I feel the same as you but we must be strong for Naz. Come and join us in the other room when you’re ready.” To punctuate her empathy, she held him by his cheek and slowly kissed him on the other. He returned the favour by cupping his hand over the one she had on his face, almost trying to offer her even a morsel of strength whilst taking some of hers for his own.

Pieces of rich emerald wrapping were picked off as Naz eagerly teared through the paper. Underneath the ripped off-fragments was a box the colour of soot; he excitedly ripped away at the paper, revealing letters and sometimes words depending on the size of the tear. He was solving a puzzle as he unwrapped the present, with more clues as he teared more. The first word he saw was ‘immersive’ in white letters.

His parents joined him in the living room, holding each other’s hand with a half-smile and half-something-else written in their expressions.

The boy was too focussed on opening his gift that he did not notice the something-else on his parents’ faces, a look of restorative nostalgia or regret. Two more words were revealed, ‘headset’ and ‘reality’, and the ecstatic boy ran to his parents who picked him up. He held them both in a hug so tight as if the grip itself was a currency and he was trying to pay them with all he had.

Matias kissed his son’s sandy hair before kissing Ines on the lips; a long embrace and the contact filled them both with reassurance that they could endure anything and survive, as long as they were together. Eww, exclaimed Naz before dropping down and running back to his present. Matias smiled at his wife, although it did not tell a tale of cheerfulness but rather a ballad of gratitude through pain. He sighed as if to expel any sorrow or to hide it before announcing he was off to the basement. Ines winked at him and gave a smile of her own, one much like his, and then turned her attention to her son, offering to help him open the present; she showed him her trick of cutting through the tape in a way that kept the wrapping intact. It took more care than his irrational jovial approach, far too much care in his opinion, and he carried on rampaging until three quarters of the sofa was covered in paper. Finally, he got down to the box and opening it caused him to frown: his shoulders lowered and his head drooped down, his arms crossed and he disapprovingly pouted at his mother. The box was empty.

With some amusement, Ines hugged Naz. “We know the box is empty; you’d rather play straight away instead of having to fiddle with wires for hours. Shall we see what Daddy is up to in the basement?” She initially used a higher pitched sympathetic tone, but morphed into a suggestive one, a playful tone to help Naz realise where the contents of the box really were. As a seven-year-old he wasn’t gifted in the arts of reading between the lines, so he sighed to breathe out his frustration and hesitantly reached for his mothers’ hand. His lips took on a permanent angled pout to express his dissatisfaction and he walked with Ines through the living room to the kitchen where the stairs leading to the basement were.

Decades ago, before Naz was born, there was a time where greenhouses were huge glass structures – a home for tall trees and plants, a safe haven for them to grow without worry. Some of these structures still exist, however they are part of the Compromised Layer, as it’s officially called. Some have already succumbed to cracking, chipping, and shattering. The trees and crops in the greenhouses of old are classified as Lost Causes and any humans that meet the same fate are Untreatable and doomed. Matias and Ines worked hard to convert their basement into an indoor greenhouse for access to clean, uncompromised crops. Humanity shelters from the danger, trapped indoors in hiding save for those providing delivery services.

Naz and the plants of the basement had one thing in common: they had never been out in the Compromised Layer. Confined by the same four walls, his house was a prison to him – as it was for Matias and Ines. Sometimes one of his parents would bravely or recklessly venture into the garden to pick trees and bushes that couldn’t be grown in the basement, returning with bananas and berries and apples and figs; however, only a fraction of these pickings was edible.

As well as a safe-place for crop yielding, the greenhouse room was also one of Naz’s favourite pastimes. He was well acquainted with the smell of the various plants and crops, an earthy aroma with a metallic tinge mixed in with hints of different vegetables. The floor resembled a cross-framed window, with narrow planks of wood lining the edges of the room and a plus joining the centre of each of the sides together. Naz would often sit at the centre of the room with his eyes shut; his imagination would wander of lands of the past that his parents had the privilege of breathing in and smelling and experiencing. To him these places were but a dream, it would be self-destructive to go into the Compromised Layer – you would only do so if you wanted life to end.

Ines and her boy, who had her pointy, small-lobed ears, reached the bottom of the stairs and opened the door. The basement was well-lit, with dark yellow grow lights randomly scattered above the plants to give them a sun-light alternative. The white walls appeared mustard or grey depending on the amount of light they received. Plants growing carrots, onions, garlic, tomatoes, and all sorts of other necessities filled the room. At the centre was Matias and his son bolted to him and hugged him tightly when realised what he was doing. Matias ruffled his son’s hair and tapped him on his freckled button nose.

Matias had placed cable clips to the sides of the wooden planks in the room and cables connected each of these clips from a power-socket next to the door all the way to the centre of the room where a newly-placed platform sat. It was a cylindrical platform about 3 metres in diameter with a smooth ashy grey canvas and adjustable-height railings. This was the setup Naz had always dreamed of, to be able to transport himself to the Compromised Layer before it was unsafe; with the smell of mud and plants, adding to the illusion of the outdoors of the past, he would be fully immersed in the outdoors of history.

Ines kept to the edges of the room, inspecting each plant to ensure it was in good health. She would stroke the leaves and they would greet her with a thin silky feel, and if the soil was a dry, coarse, coffee brown then she knew it needed watering. A mirky silver bucket in one of the corners of the room was speckled with mud and filled with potatoes and carrots; Ines picked the bucket up and took it to the kitchen. She returned to her boys and held Matias’ left hand, pulling him up before holding onto his other hand, their fingers intertwining. “Mati, can you wash and prepare the vegetables for me?” Handing the headset to her, he said: “Give us ten minutes and we’ll go up together”, and then he reached for her forehead with his lips. Turning his attention to Naz, with both hands he picked him up and rested him on his left arm so they were eye-to-eye: “Mummy is going to give you the headset and we’ll be right here to watch you play, and then we’ll make dinner together. Are you happy with that?”

Nazareno’s face beamed with delight and his father placed him in the centre of the platform. His mother unstrapped the velcro and placed it around his eyes, his freckled nose and cheeks were squeezed slightly by the headset. He could smell humid leaves and aloe vera, the unique aroma of soil, moist and dry. Earthy potatoes and carrots joined in with the audience of sensations in his nose and then the headset switched on. As far as he could see were grass and trees, and on these trees came fruits such as apples and strawberries: shining rubies in the sunlight amongst the lime green leaves. Royal purples stood out as he spotted blueberries and figs and blackberries. Walking towards the closest tree he grabbed at it to attempt to climb it. “I can see fruits and trees and everything is glowing in the Sun, I’m going to climb a tree mummy! Daddy, I’ll be taller than all of the trees in this forest!” His parents held each other close and a wave of euphoria rushed inside them; they were able to live a life with access to the outdoors and terrain foreign forests, mountains, and sands – to watch their son enjoy his first moment in the ‘outside world’ was a great feat. Like waves of the ocean, multiple tides crash against rocks and whilst some large ones were euphoric, other waves carried sorrow and distress and regret.

Tears of joy fell from Naz’s eyes and he removed the headset, climbed down from the platform, and embraced his parents. “Best present EVER!” he expressed, “Can we start making dinner? We’re having fish and chips, aren’t we?” And with that his dad gently squeezed his cheeks and they all returned upstairs., the boy’s father carrying the vegetable bucket. Matias emptied the bucket into a bowl in the sink and opened the tap. “Your job is the most important, Naz. You need to keep your eyes peeled and inspect every little inch of the potatoes and carrots. If it wasn’t for you, we would be eating mud and fish and chips, and we that would be disgusting, wouldn’t it?” His eyes widened as he reached the word ‘peeled’ and he stuck his tongue out to blow a raspberry after the word ‘mud’. Naz, although amused, listened intently and stepped up onto a white square stool to reach the sink ready to inspect each item. Ines took four pieces of cod from the freezer and placed them in frying pans, two in one pan and three in another, ready and waiting for when the chips would almost be done.

The oceans used to be full of fish, but that also changed. The waters became more acidic and extinction first met sea snails and clams. As time progressed, the loss of species spread as an inevitable fate for trout, salamanders, and frogs alike. The fish ready to cook in those pans was not the kind that swam in waters; biotechnology had simply advanced enough such that synthetic-grown fish was possible, the very same case for meat. All families had to do was order and cook it, the laboratories would do the rest of the work.

As she went over to the sink to help Naz wash his hands before handling the bowl’s itinerary, a distant sound appeared to get closer. The sound of applause in a faraway place. The sensation of a pan of oil coming to fry. The realisation that it had begun to rain was sudden for the family; each of them paused, momentarily, as regret smacked them across the face. Matias placed the knife down on the wooden chopping board and leaned on the table via his left elbow and forearm. He blinked several times a second, as if he was resisting the slow but inevitable tear-inducing pain inflicted by onions upon peeling and cutting. No onions were on the board and his sorrow was coming from the recent past. Ines’ hands were rubbing the soap into Naz’s and she pressed his hands together and rested her right check atop his head at the attempt to seek comfort from him. A stray tear fell from her left eye and fell across her face forming a line under her nose which began to run as she inhaled frequently trying to battle or hold her emotion, for her son did not feel sorrow and did not cry; he did not cry because he didn’t know the truth.

The clouds were an army in the afternoon sky, enshrouding the city in a trench-like darkness as if it was late-evening. The rain fell and hit the cracked concrete pavements. It ate at the eroded tar roads, crumbled bricks further, and spoiled long-abandoned cars. No one was seen outside in the Compromised Layer for if you were then your skin would peel and burn in the frequent and sudden rain; the acid rain.

For seven million years humanity has walked this earth and advanced slowly but surely in tools and technology. Some of these developments were harmless like the invention of the wheel or the stethoscope or sliced bread. Despite this, many inventions and creations were silent killers, like carbon monoxide. A defeat wrapped up like a victory; patient, enticing, and sly. Steam trains, matches, artificial volcanoes, and a plethora of many other human inventions all poisoned the air which in turn poisoned the rainwater. This phenomenon started off as small as a snowball, but as time progressed that snowball has grown into a huge wrecking ball.

The metro system’s tunnels are being used as a camp for refugees as governments plan for their people to evacuate the Compromised Layer and set new lives up in the Under-Earth. As expected, the rich and wealthy are fast-tracked to seek refuge in the tunnels as the powers that be promise the rest of civilisation that they’re planning to extend the tunnels to cover the country. Many remain sceptical as they believe that they are being fed false hope, that no one is coming for them. It is believed by these sceptics that those with enough power will be rescued but everyone else is fated for death by rain – like the homeless who were the first to suffer; like those who sought to end their lives by leaving their homes; and like those children who knew no better, children that ran out to the Compromised Layer because they didn’t understand the fatal gravity of the situation – girls like Amara, Naz’s sister. Nazareno believes she was short-listed as an early member of the silos for his parents couldn’t bear to tell him the truth.

Matias walked over to his wife and son and whispered as he held back his tears and the tide of his emotions: “Shall we go down to the basement?” And with that, the family of three went back down to the greenhouse room to temporarily escape the true reality of their lives and their world; together, but not complete.