Gravity Is Heartless by Sarah Lahey

Author:Sarah Lahey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2020-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

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The world outside the station is just as hot, but at least she can breathe and the air no longer smells rank; instead, it smells faintly of chili. She looks around. Nearby, a vender roasts large, mealy worms in marinated spices. A queue for the rich protein dish quickly forms.

Quinn moves away. Looking up, she sees how a massive conifer breaks through the roof of the station, providing an overhang and some shade. The Locale sign next to her reads, GRAND CAPITAL. She scans the city blocks.

Unus is not a grand city, in the sense that the architecture does not sing and the boulevards do not pulse with cosmopolitan life. Quinn is convinced the city is grand only in the enormous volume of people who call it home. The crumbling buildings and mazes of traffic are not doing much to lift the spirit of anyone here. At zero latitude, it’s unbearably hot, noisy, and crowded. She has never seen so many people in her life, and she’s beginning to realize there is a significant difference between people who have access to cool air and those who don’t. Hot people look different than cool people. Hot people have poor skin, broken teeth, and artificial limbs. Some of the hot people are very old. She didn’t think people could look that old and still be alive, and she hasn’t seen reading glasses in twenty years. Quinn’s point of reference for the world is Hobart. She has led a cool, yet sheltered, existence. I’ve been living in a bubble. I blame my parents. What were they thinking?

The buildings surrounding her are a mix of half-finished, half-decapitated timber, stone, bamboo, and cardboard constructions with unused water tanks fixed to the roofs—a hangover from rainwater collection days, the population’s thirst is now quenched by filtered seawater—and makeshift sewers below.

Unus pays homage to transport and the wheel. Crowds rush past on electric blades, hydrobikes, mini autos, solar bikes, and solar tuks, and transport Convoys, six deep, float above the lines of traffic. Drivers yell and swear at each other, blaring horns, and a group of transport police fly over on hoverbikes, settling the agitated drivers. Thousands also trek the pavements on foot, with women carrying children, men carrying children, children carrying smaller children, and smaller children carrying chickens, roosters, and rabbits by their legs, ears, and tails. These are not beloved pets.

Quinn’s destination is the MedQuarter, ten kilometers west of the city center. She could pick up a Transport Convoy, but after the crowds and the stench of the exit tunnel at Grande Central, sitting in a hot, metal box-on-wheels is not enticing. She’ll walk; maybe after she accesses her Coin, she’ll hire an Automated Vehicle, AV, and arrive in isolated personal comfort.

Then she notices that the AVs she’s seeing are all stationary, lined up in neat rows along the side of the street. She approaches a young female vendor wearing a silver metallic climate suit, her bright red hair pulled into a ponytail. The vendor waves a hand in the air.

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