Chapter 2-
I usually dreamt about the sea. The way my Nani described it, it was large and rolling, a never ending and vast stretch of water that surround our entire planet. At the time, I couldn’t imagine such a large body of water existing in our world. To someone who has never seen the ocean, the idea of these organic molecules on an immeasurable scale of quantity, layers upon layers of the stuff, running so deep that it required the use of kilometers to understand its depth, was difficult to actually imagine. We have bodies of water, small but substantial enough that they meet our requirements for life. We are creatures who cannot survive without water. And the knowledge that at one time there was enough water to fill an entire planet was absolutely mind boggling. This body of water called the sea, I wanted to see it, smell it, and feel it as it swept about my body as I played in the surf.
My Nani had a beautiful way with words and she was able to describe what this wonderful substance was like to actually experience. Through her words I could imagine myself as a mythical sea siren, spending all day glorying in the salty and tangy essence of an old world, sea and sand, and pretty shells I could pick and collect. My Nani said that was what people did when they went to the beach, the land that is attached and connected to the sea. The land actually runs underneath the sea, but we cannot see it. Only with special equipment and even then there were still places too far out of reach for our investigation.
I wanted to collect pretty shells, perhaps make something from them. In the old days people would use the gifts of the sea to make jewelry or eat the plant and creatures that lived under its depths. They did not have horticultural farms, aquiculture and mariculture developments, at least they did not depend on these techniques to sustain most of their needs. It seemed a barbaric time, one that we should be glad we have escaped. But there is always that romantic perspective of the past that challenges us to wonder if their existence would have been preferable to our own. Were these ancients as clever as we are; more than we gave them credit? Their simple existence laid the foundation for what we have in our existence today.
Yes, it is likely that they could have only speculated at what the future world reap, far flung fantasies of advances in technology that in their time would be called science fiction. Such limited standards.
In my world we could have almost anything we wanted at our disposal. Nothing was beyond the reach of our visionaries, if we could dream it, we could make it real.
When I was young I didn’t know that there was a dissention between my world and the world beyond. For me, no such place existed. I could not see beyond the walls of my city. Therefore if I could not see it, it was not real, it did not exist.
I didn’t know that there was a difference between the makings of things. That there were two classes of creation. A world created by man and one created by something else. That something else I do not know, nor could I put a name on this faceless figure of creation. I understand the first. As we attain knowledge, the more we can create and shape the world around us. Learning is a valued commodity in my world, specifically in the areas that help to promote progress in developing a more sentient environment like we once had. We valued life, not just for ourselves, but the land around us. We, with our vast knowledge could create life. But it took a great deal of energy, both mental and physical. And that brings me to this second creator.
Outside those city walls, lies a land not created by my people; one that for some reason existed without our help or interference. It was there long before we could even fathom the possibility to create. And it could make things beyond our grasp, at the time. But we persevered, we accumulated more and more knowledge, studying the results of this maker until we could duplicate what it was able to make so easily. That was something else I didn’t understand. This other creator of life made such things without the tools and accumulated knowledge of man. It simply made, without thought or reason. And it was even speculated by some, those whose voices were quickly suppressed by the masses, that even we were once a creation of this other maker. I didn’t consign myself with these free thinkers, at least not at first. My world was man-made, myself included. We were not the property of this old creator, it and the world it had created no longer existed. Or so I was led to believe.
Which brings me back to my dreams of the sea; a creation not made by my people. We could create a semblance of a sea-like structure, but it was somehow not the same. The waves were generated through machine, the molecules constructed through our advancements in bio-engineering. It was beautiful, it was flawless, and it was ours. It should have been enough, but it wasn’t.
I dreamed of this imaginary sea, like my Nani dreamed about her grass. They were simple concepts of creating, yet somehow beyond our grasp of understanding. What was it about that other creator that it could make a world that we could only partially duplicate? As much as I would like to disbelieve this theory, maybe there were some things that were just beyond our range of knowing. But such a thought was unappreciated by notable figures in my world. They would never accept that some things were beyond their means to attain or control.
Why would I dream of my Nani’s fantasy stories? Of a world that existed without my people? Was it possible that this world still existed beyond our city borders? And if it did, could and should we go out and explore it? Would it not be for the benefit of all of us to go out into this unknown world and find out? If we should say that we live off of the accumulation of knowledge and learning, then we should not be afraid of what lies beyond our limited range of knowing.
No one ventured beyond our city. And no one ever came through the heavy cement and steel doors.
Why have doors, if not to use them?
Many years had passed since the first citizens of my city closed themselves within our walls. Even then, they must have hoped that one day they would leave this man-made world and venture out into that old world. They would not have placed doors to the outside if they wanted our people to stay inside forever.
11 years later…present day, inside the dome.