On the bargain network, today, there was a selection of antique atmospheres advertised. I thought I’d try something different for a change, so I ordered the late twentieth-century “Five Cities” blend. It took two days to appear in the delivery slot and—pheee-yew! It was strong! To think human beings lived in that soup day in and day out! It’s a wonder that their lungs lasted long enough for them to have become our ancestors.
It must have been odd to have had no choice over what one breathed. Unimaginable. No control over water or power, either. That’s beyond what I call civilization. As I wrote to a friend the other day, it’s not really possible for us, living in an age of unlimited vital supplies, to understand the minds of those for whom the very air they breathed was decided by despotic government authorities.
I had forgotten that my friend was proud of tracing her ancestry back to the nineteenth century and so had to listen to a tiresome argument about civic arrangements in those days. “You don’t understand,” she said, “there was no question of legislating for the quality of air supply, let alone deciding that a whole nation must make do on two parts of carbon monoxide for every six of oxygen! We, in our era of continuous electronic monitoring, cannot imagine how little control those early governments actually had….”
But I don’t hold by such accommodating arguments. The simple fact is, those governments sanctioned polluting industries; QED, they controlled the air supply. The only thing that doesn’t make sense is that most government functionaries themselves breathed the same poisons. So perhaps there is some validity to the argument that polluted air causes personality changes as well as the gross physical damage we are all so concerned about. Maybe if you breathe enough toxins, you can no longer distinguish between well-being and ill health. So you make decisions which will only result in more toxins. And so on and on until you set the stage for total civic breakdown. Which is what happened.
Personally, I feel we’ve all benefited from that breakdown. I mean, consider this air I bought today. Granted, it’s only a flavour and can’t actually cause me any harm. But what does it taste like, smell like, feel like, as it rasps its way down my trachea? Madness, that’s what. I’ve always despised those scholars who delight in pointing out that the mix of chemicals in late twentieth-century air was actually intoxicating and that most humans went about in an air-induced euphoria. They would succumb, say these scholars, to depression and delirium tremens if they were to be subjected to the airs we use today. If you ask me, I’ve always believed that these scholars are not only heretics to the modern ethic, but secret self-toxinators as well.
In case you think that self-toxination is an alarmist fantasy, let me tell you it isn’t. I myself know of a society which calls itself the ToxiClub, whose members speak of themselves as “toxies.” They tried to get me to join, but I attended one session and excused myself thereafter, claiming that I was born with Congenital Weak-Lung Syndrome.
The club was the idea of X, who had inherited an old cooling tower from his farsighted grandfather who had bought up decommissioned nuclear power stations cheap, then sold them for a galactic sum when decontamination technology was in place. X assured us that the tower was not radioactive, but I wore my radiation suit anyway, passing it off as an old-fashioned fixation of mine. He had managed to seal the cooling tower so that it could be pumped full of air under pressure. Don’t ask me how he had the money or contacts to have access to such resources. There are some people who can have their own way even in our world. Anyway, whenever he can get enough of his fellow toxies together, they get into that old cooling tower, seal all the air locks, pump in the air, and zap it with chemicals. Sulphur, methane, tincture of titanium, xeon, Freon, fly ash, construction dust, soot, you name it. And then—you may find this shocking, but I assure you it’s true, it happens—all the members of the group remove their breathing tubes and share the air!
I can tell you, it was a real skin-burning experience. At the time I accepted the invitation, I had believed that we would at most take quick drags from a common cylinder of treated air. The others spent a good half hour convincing me that it was actually possible to survive with all the valves open on my face mask. “This is what it was like!” they said to me. “The twentieth century unplugged!” Air-to-air communication too, no radios, no sound processors. When I finally picked up the courage to take in my first drag, I almost passed out. That air was so foul, so grainy, sooty, and dense, that I choked and gagged, my eyes bulged, my skin poured with sweat. I had to take long deep draughts from a handheld aerosol kit for at least ten minutes before I could try again. And even then, I never got the hang of just breathing with my mouth gaping open in front of all those other people.
Intoxication? Forget it. I mean, it’s true there was a mild drowsy something I felt, right at the edge of consciousness, but I wouldn’t call it intoxication. More like bleary with a touch of pleasurable panic, like when you’re in a simulator and there’s a meteor flaming down towards your tiny vulnerable space shuttle or something. I was too damn conscious all the time: of what we were doing, the sheer mindless risk of it all, and the fact that any moment we might be found out. But the other toxies weren’t worried. It was amazing. They were talking to each other across bare air as if they’d been doing it all their lives. Then our host began to take his face mask off completely and that’s when I had to look away. Fortunately, not many others followed his example. I was relieved not to be the only one who knows that there’s a point past which risqué becomes risky.
Or just downright disgusting. Inevitably, someone or the other pulled out an ancient videocassette, upgraded to 3-D, and projected it. It was garbage. I took art appreciation courses in school, so I’ve seen these things before, but they only confirm my belief that all generations prior to the era of individual vital supplies were entirely depraved. They breathed one another’s air for goodness’ sakes! Recycling all their airborne germs, their waste products, their cast-off bronchial ceils, every kind of organic junk. Water was delivered via miles of unsterilized piping from distant sources, sometimes even just up from the polluted earth itself! And as for energy, they took whatever they could get. No wonder their gadgets were so crude and lifeless—they had only the most brutish, unrefined forms of electricity to run on.
Everyone else was bloated with sentimental reverence for that time of “freedom,” as they called it. “Free dirt!” I shouted. “That wasn’t freedom, that was depravity!” They really turned on me then and everyone was talking at once, their real voices sounding squeaky and hollow in the open air. They talked about the repression of our times, the regimentation of all our public and private activities to serve the common good. “Oh yeah?” I said. “So it was better then? When they were free to pollute our planet’s atmosphere, killing virtually all plant and animal life? That was freedom? No! It was slavery to the temple of the Self!” They argued that what we had now was worse than nothing because it was life without any of the pleasures of life. I said, “Pleasures for the few, ill health for the many!” They said that our ancestors savoured types of bliss that we had no conception of. They exposed their skin to the sun. They bathed in the rain. They had natural reproduction—no incubators, no fertility drugs. “Selfish!” I screamed. Maybe the air had gone to my head after all. I lost all inhibition. “They were spoilt! They were weak!”
Then one person said, “No, just suicidal. Our ancestors were manic-depressives. It’s been confirmed—sharing air causes depression. They destroyed the ecosystem because they despised themselves. They wanted to save the universe from their own presence within it. Self-hate was their prime directive, not self-love!” These remarks caused a profound silence to fall upon the company. Shortly after that, I left. Back in my life-support unit, I thought about that wild and wasteful era as I tended my oxygen plant, arranged my protein capsules attractively for the day, and played with my pet amoebae in their petri dish. I looked at the label on my “Five Cities” atmo-cylinder: Mexico City, New Delhi, Bombay, Bangkok, Cairo. The picture on the label was a simple hologram showing a trillion people in multi-D. And today we have less than two million! All concentrated in the few remaining areas where the atmosphere is thick enough that the stars don’t show through during daylight. But I don’t care. I have my pick of fragrant airs. I own a brood of virtual children whom I share with other members of my thought-group. Through the mirror-processor I can travel to any dimension of my choice. The only thing I miss—or think I miss, having never seen any real ones—is trees. They sound nice. Friendly. If you come across a small one being sold, no matter what the price, do inform me. I’ll keep it by my sleeping pad and stroke it gently through the night.