Nexhuman by Francesco Verso

Author:Francesco Verso [Verso, Francesco]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2019-05-11T08:28:31+00:00

* * *

Around Green Towers, I don’t feel like a complete nonentity. Everyone else here shares something in common, something the nexhumans don’t share.

Between us, it is not only the clothes that are different—we with our leftover fashions—even our facial features are innumerable in variety, whereas they have refined the aesthetic repertoire, leaving us behind—an inferior and primitive level of humanity.

For most of the megalopolis, the seasons are simulated and sponsored. This year, the Spring Lot, which is already following the winter one, has been assigned to a food company and the blooms of advertising anticipating the change of season are budding in the shape of ‘Spring McBucks’ on every street corner.

Here in Green Towers, though, things are the other way around. In other neighbourhoods, nature appears only on billboards for ‘Pastoral Lots’ that can be enjoyed through the surrealism of visors. But in Green Towers, nature has reappeared with biological areas, mini botanical reserves and environmental decoration. A scattering of artificially cultivated punctuation marks, designed by computers, but still real—nothing like the ‘Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter’ lots available as a sensorial experience elsewhere.

The facades of the buildings along Piccalorda Way are explosions of chlorophyll and carotene pigments. Every building is covered in green, swathed in climbing plants and carpeted with grass and a profusion of vegetables and herbs.

In the background, low-maintenance hanging gardens flow over the tops of the Green Towers themselves. The roofs are cloaked in plants, a solution which helps reduce the flow of rain water, capturing the pollutants and protecting the apartments below, as well as acting as soundproofing and air-conditioning and filtering.

It takes two full minutes for my visor to download the building data and Kiko, impatient, pulls me aside. I’m going to have to put up with numerous detours into just as many shops, endure forced marches chasing mirages displayed in the windows, practise patience, and stay calm. Anything to make her, as far as possible, relax and lower her guard.

I let her wander through the various stores, ready to lose herself in a forest of discounts and promotions, a jungle of instantaneous wishes where she, the new savage, moves fluidly and untiringly with visor and fingertouch at the ready to capture and copy every tag. It takes an hour for Kiko to investigate every object for sale, every live demonstration of the goods on offer, and the displays of the trendiest models.

In Sasboro, her favourite perfumery, her anaemic face brightens in a way it rarely does.

‘Look! These are what I’ve been asking you for, for months.’

She is pointing at a display of lipsticks and it comes to life. The video proclaims they should smell of honeysuckle, but to me, they reek of common carbolic acid, used to detoxify the sewers. Detecting Kiko’s interest, each chromed capsule lines up and points towards her lips. I feel lost.

My trashformer instincts have let me down. These objects are all equally captivating. I don’t know how she can like one more than another.

Her maniacal attention is disturbing.

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