Plant a Human

by ANTHEA YIP

“Plant a Human!” blares before my eyes in red and peach color. Saturated, fake-shiny, moist skin, and a fully functioning nose. What lies! You can’t go around the park and see any human in this condition anymore. They’re all either really old, with skin folding into flaps and broken noses, or reduced to stumps: feet and calves, the rest chopped off. That’s the real state of things. 

I bend down, engulf the first rock on the road in my pink rubber hands, and throw it against the advertisement. It glitches, and the colors seem to fade, only a bit. My stomach rumbles and complains incessantly like a child. I haven’t eaten a thing for a week. Neither has anyone else on the street next to me. We’re all half bent over our silicon glossy peach bellies, our muzzles up in the air in resignation. All this pollution drives me crazy. We cough and wheeze our way through the day, crawling for precious carbon dioxide to keep our bodies working like hungry hyenas. Our eyes barely see past the fog of oxygen. 

I spend half a day wandering, like all the others, submerged in gray fog, hands in pockets, bumping our huge amorphous bodies into each other. All we can do is wander. Wander in hope of food and carbon dioxide, and curse this planet for its failure on us. 

It wasn’t like the good old days, when our planet flourished, rich with crops and humans living healthily in their fields and forests. 

The first human spaceship crashed on our planet a thousand years ago. The humans were aiming at a better place to settle—one which other beings did not inhabit already—after the probable destruction of their home planet. And so, they adapted the only way they could. The heavy nitrogen atmosphere caused their lower body muscles to freeze up, making them immobile yet still alive due to a small percentage of oxygen in our air. When they were discovered by the first Edixiods, they were mercilessly tortured and killed. Blood flooded the streets. We are very territorial, probably the most territorial race in this solar system. It soon became a tradition to dry out human limbs and arms, roll them in paper, and smoke them. Smoking a human seemed to have a hugely ecstatic effect on the nervous system. 

This went on for centuries, as humans were bulldozed and chopped up and sold for enjoyment. It was only a decade ago that things changed: we all knew our planet was far from perfect, and there would be a time it would crumble over our pressure. Its natural carbon dioxide atmospheric layer was bound to deteriorate at the fastest speed compared to any other planet. Air was thinning out very rapidly. We had predicted that our species would be doomed in another hundred years. We were wrong; now, our doom seemed to be coming in a mere ten years. 

In the midst of panic, with all Edixiods wheezing for life, trying anything and everything to find a solution for salvation, we discovered that humans could be our saviors. Desperate scientists had taken in a sample of our human invaders for study, hoping to find a solution, anything. And what they found became the discovery of the decade. Humans breathed out carbon dioxide, faintly and very subtly, but they did nonetheless! No one had ever bothered to investigate the “enemy.”  

With this discovery, human agriculture started up. Big companies grabbed for the best genetically adapted humans, and the carbon dioxide market boomed. This lasted for around five years. Yet, the number of humans remained scarce—they were already near total extinction due to the constant extermination and persecution from the past. 

As our population increased, so did the greed and the corruption. On that aspect of emotions and irrationality, we seem incredibly human. The need for having a personal human so that we could stay alive caused a crisis. There were too many Edixiods for the dying planet to feed, and the humans were dying from exhaustion. Soon enough, another strategy had to be put in place. Humans were to become public property, planted in “breathing areas,” accessible to all Edixiods at a certain price. There were no longer enough humans for all.

Thus, the park is where I will most likely find my carbon dioxide meal of the week. It’s a popular tourist attraction for Edixiods. Huge banners scream with fake accents: “Live, Human, and Growing!” “The Amazon Human Forest: Restored.” There are two fully grown adult humans, with working noses and all, in the park. And that’s about it. That’s the “Grand Forest.” They breathe in our oxygen, and carbon dioxide comes out of their lips: as precious to us as diamonds. 

There’s always a queue in this park. To stand in front of a human, the waiting time is always around three hours. The stench of desperation fills the whole field like dirty dishes. And for the lazy ones who don't want to wait, the park sells overpriced bottles of carbon dioxide to inhale on the go. 

Over-indulgent, excitable chatter sprouts here and there as I weave my way through the crowd, clumps of oxygen getting stuck at my nostrils, causing me to wheeze further. The Edixiods congest around the humans, which at this point just seem like fossilized pillars of lifeless matter. I’m swayed and pushed around to the beat of the rushing footsteps and waves of the queue as it lurches forward, slowly yet violently. I cough again, almost troubling to find clean carbon dioxide between the crowds. 

“Buy a ticket!” rings every minute as a seemingly homeless Edixiod comes around in a box, collecting money, licking his lips, and giving out tickets. His eyes automatically scan the crowd with no mercy, as if his sole identity and purpose was to find those trying to get in without paying their fee. At some point, I realize the change in oxygen has probably gotten to my head because, without any reason at all, I join the queue of Edixiods for the “Meet and Greet Humans.” The queuing Edixiods are all either desperate for some kind of enlightenment given by humans, are simply there for a gasp of clean air, or—just because they had never seen a live human—are planted before them, their nails still intact, eyes still open.

Our longing for what we’ve destroyed is disgusting. 

I look down at the five-year-old Edixiod next to me. Maybe for a second too long, because his mother glances at me and explains:

“He wanted to see a human for his birthday.”

By the time I get to stand in front of a live human, my limbs feel broken. Was this even worth it? But my mind’s too sluggish to even answer its own ponderings.

“So here we are, you and I,” I whisper, almost shamefully. I straighten my back, cough, and place my gaze on her two feet. Her body is sturdy, and hair sprouts thickly from atop it. My eyes crawl up her aged skin, shriveled and scaling. I reach her face, with some difficulty, and notice how it has been carved and worn down over time. Eye-bags weigh down on her slitted pupils, and her eyelashes are an ashy color. Then, as if by some ancient rusty mechanism, she moves her left arm and takes my wrist with her frigid fingers. Without saying a word, under her grasp, I understand she is telling me to leave. 

I do as she instructs me. I let the little Edixiod behind me go ahead and enjoy, savor her moment with a human. 

“I want her to touch me too!” the little creature screams. I pretend not to hear and walk away. My feet are on autopilot, and I let them lead me to wherever they choose while my brain scrambles to make sense of the encounter. After half an hour of walking within the park, it is next to a huge fossilized human remain that I find them. A group of adolescent Edixiods in a circle, all wearing baggy clothes. They offer me a rolled-up piece of paper, stuffed with some unknown material. They take a glance at me, as they sit cross-legged, leaning against the human legs, and one of them juts his arm towards me, offering me that rolled paper. Dried pieces of human limbs spill out of the blunt.

“It’s made out of the best quality of human. 100 percent biological.”

I take it and sit down next to them. I inhale twice. I hold it in for a few seconds longer.

My eyes snap shut like blinds, and my heart thumps, reverberating through the floors of my reality, shaking me off balance. By this time, I know I’m lying down. My body has been sucked of energy completely and shot me into an unknown space. 

I feel the breathing bodies next to me, and I feel them shaking too, but with a knowing calmness. I close my eyes and the dream starts.

From above I see thousands of human heads, their bodies beneath: breathing, alive, full of adrenaline. I realize I am nothing, yet I have become everything. So I watch it all. 

The humans shoot their eyes and arms up to the air. Their pupils dance wildly, full of glory. Moving like waves, they inhale and exhale, their bellies hungrily expanding and contracting. 

Breathless, I watch the force of nature, the exchange between soil and human roots. 

Then I remember to breathe and I feel like I had never nourished my body with so much carbon dioxide before. The particles flow into me, with such elegance and ease. No cough. No wheeze. I stop breathing again when I find myself watching something I never knew humans could do. 

In unison, they open their mouths, exposing rows of white gleaming fossil teeth and slimy red snake tongues. They start making sounds: beautiful, repetitive tunes, complicated yet elegant like a labyrinth. The pitches rise and crawl down low, raising the hairs on my back. Like a soft blanket, their voices permeate the whole atmosphere, and everything tastes sweeter. The humans stand up straighter, spines extending, kissing the clouds, showering under raindrops and burying feet further into soil. Their breath quickens, producing more and more carbon dioxide. I can sense it. 

Then I scream as I’m grasped away from this reality. A hand snatches me and brings me forward in time to the same location. 

Huge obsidian machines apathetically crunch over, grind and slice humans without stopping. That’s when I hear the first human scream. Their blood is as red as I’ve ever seen, redder than rose petals or blood oranges. It’s the pain that tints it with this intensity. Humans fall over, screeching, tears flooding the soil into rivers. They grasp for those around them, they call out for their mothers. And yet the machines march on. I see the bare ground now. Stripped naked of its hosts. And suddenly, I’m back to coughing, wheezing. 

I wake up the next day, still with the group of Edixiods, in the park. The morning star hasn’t risen over the horizon yet. For a moment, I just sit up and breathe in the pure carbon dioxide, untainted yet by the desperation of throngs of Edixiods inhaling. Opening my eyes, soft mist kisses my face and settles just above the grass. The humans stand tall, alone finally, in their sleep. They seem to spread their arms and legs farther apart, taking up more space in their little bubble of intimacy. 

Silence engulfs the place like a motherly blanket, bringing subtle serenity in the desolated park. I hear myself breathe, and I hear the humans breathe. Savoring this moment, I prop myself up, knowing what to do already. I sprint quietly, to not bother all the beings in their light sleep. I pass the “Meet and Greet” sign, remember exactly the path to that human I met yesterday. And when I reach her, my heart starts to beat, whispering its little explosions in my eardrums.

She snaps her eyes open. I scan her skin cells; the color between beige and peach is inimitable. My silicon arms start to shake as I move my pupils up her body, exploring. Finally, and daringly, I look up into her eyes. Dark hair falls by her face, snaking around her temples, forehead, and down her shoulders and arms, whispering by her back like a guardian. 

But her gray eyes look like concrete: something in them feels almost dead, like a switch turned off. At the same time, like a dagger, something else in those pupils manages to cut through my flesh and reach into my heart. I stand there, tied to her, immobilized. I don’t dare touch her. We both tremble in trepidation. She’s alive. For the first time, I see life in her. 

This time, when she extends her arm, she does so smoothly, not like an oiled machine, but like a living, breathing, sentient creature. I see her muscles contract under her smooth skin. She holds my hands.

I showed you all that you needed to see, her hands seem to say. Languidly, as if with dread, she lets her arms climb down to her opening, and as she forces a hand in she sheds a tear. I watch her choke and gasp, her fingers starting to drip with a vehement red liquid. It’s the holy sap that has been spoken of in textbooks: blood. She then forcefully extracts her hand, and extends it towards me. In the palms of her hands she holds an embryo. She places it in my hand, and a second later, she screws her eyes shut, bending over. 

Her scream lacerates the whole park. Now on her knees, she rests her whole body on the floor, shaking. She looks at me one last time, and I know what she wants me to do. Her grip on her breast loosens, her face relaxes, and I know she has passed.

I can’t take it. I’m up and running. My throat’s clogged and I forget to breathe. Tears start rolling down my cheeks and I feel them slide down my skin and into my mouth, diffusing as salt down into my lungs. I grip the embryo harder. It’s still soft and beating.

My head’s spinning when I find a spot at the back of the park. My hands are tired. Soil crumbles through my fingers as I dig and dig.