Real Air

Sometimes I wonder what real air feels like. The tantalizing freshness, a cool breeze of fresh, real air. Is it always cold? What temperature is air set at? On sunny days, would you feel a warm, soft breeze? Drips of sunshine resting on bare bodies, mellow air drifting across the land. Dark, cast clouds, torrential rain, would that drag in cold air? Goosebumps, shivering skin wrapped in coats, to protect from biting air. I like to imagine that air is normally just warm, not cold, not unfeeling, but a warm glow. This feeling it would bring, relaxed and perfect. Is air colorless? In summer is it yellow? Hued by the bright, ever-shining sun. Winter, perhaps a pale blue, air moving, shifting through different sapphire hues. A gray, when the weather is neither hot nor cold, a perfect day. Air. Fresh. Clean. Would my lungs accept it, embrace this oxygen? I wonder how inhaling it would feel. An utter sense of perfection, to feel my lungs expand, taking its fill of air. Does it have a taste? I always presumed it would be tangy, sweet and subtle. It would be barely noticeable, yet the taste was always there. I could breathe all I wanted, for there was no short supply. This air sounded heavenly. I think about it a lot.

We learnt, simply put, air comes from plants. Mostly trees. Another thing I wonder about a lot, unsurprisingly. When you grow up, hearing about all these wonderful things, but never seeing them, it makes a child curious. Are leaves soft? Rough? All different shades of green, are they even green? My teacher said that in something called autumn, the leaves changed coolers. I have no idea how she knows that, she surely wasn’t around back then. Yet, imagining colorful leaves, falling to the ground, blessing it with a mural sounds marvelous. I’m sure they were bright colors of pinks, oranges, reds, purples, and even maybe whites. Were fallen leaves still soft? Wait, were they ever soft? Perhaps spikey, prickly to protect its precious colors from predators. Surely, many wanted the tree’s leaves, and wanted to poach them. Maybe the trees were extremely tall, taller than even my home. That way nobody could steal from it, it was always safe. The teacher also let it slip, that fruit grew on trees. Fruit. I’ve never had fruit. To make myself feel better, I envision that it is bitter, brazen and raw. It would dry out your mouth, making you thirsty. Perhaps trees grew them to warn people to stay away. Yet I deep down expect fruit to taste marvelous. A sweet, juicy, decadent treat. A delicacy for all who dare climb the tall trees. If only trees were still here.

Curious, what the world once was. Nobody spoke much of it, almost like it had never even existed. An unspoken taboo. No laws existed prohibiting speaking of the before, yet everyone refused to speak of it. Unless it was a quick mention, a slight of the tongue. Sometimes even a mistake. The closest I'll ever get to knowing more, would be my teacher, but she was so stubborn. She had access to countless books describing the before. She was even allowed to read them to us, as long as we didn't touch them. It was always a privilege few had to read these books. Fear flooded our people, made them hide the past. No one seemed to like the past, yet they had respect for the books, deeming most people dangerous to them. Who knew what would happen to the few books we had, if anyone could read them. My teacher loved these books. For a while anyway. When she first got access to them, she told countless stories. About the stars, the sky, clouds, trees. Although none really made sense, it was like hearing from a prophet. Yet, she stopped. One day we went back to math, repair, and our occasional language lessons. Speak of the past disappeared, almost like how the real past ceased. No one dared bring it up. The only time someone did ask, begging to hear about the past once more, the teacher freaked out. I'll never forget that day. It was the only time I've ever truly felt fear. A shiver up my spine, a haunting feeling deep inside my gut. Her eyes widened, like a beast she grabbed the student who asked the question. Shook them, screaming. Their face wet from her spit, her nails dug deep into their arms. To this day, marks still lie on their arms. She shouted incomprehensible words, about the past, that we shouldn't dig where we didn't belong. The panic button was pressed, somebody managed to snap out of their frightful daze. I stood, unable to understand how my inquisitive, peaceful teacher became this wild animal. The rest of that day is a blur. Guards came, dragged her into solitary, gave her a calming shot. We learnt that day that the past must have hurt. Yet it didn't stop me from staying curious.

Once every year, at night, my great-great-grandmother is woken. She is allotted one hour, before she must be taken back down. It takes 45 minutes for her to normalize her surroundings, and by then she only wants to talk to great-grandmother (who is miraculously still standing). Maybe for a minute, she would answer my questions. Last year I asked her about air. Perhaps I didn't grasp air enough, she got confused, and had no answers. Probing on, asking what it tastes like, led to yet again no answers. Surely the air doesn’t taste like nothing. I won’t believe it. The one thing I was most certain of, was the wonderful taste real air must have. The year before that was a disaster. I asked about her home, and she freaked out. Clawing at me, thrashing around, shouting incoherent words. She stood, which she never much did, and banged on the window. It's the number one rule to not touch the windows, fearing I pulled her back. She went so quiet I feared I had killed her. The biggest crime was killing a frozen. Thankfully she was still alive, and was sent right back to sleep. Somehow that experience made me more curious. Where I got this trait from, I'll never know. My parents glide through life, not paying attention to anything much. My brother was like that too, yet I ended up with so many questions. At least she will be waking up again soon, well precisely at 1800. This year, I will ask what her sleep is like. For I at least want to know what my future holds when I am old. Funny, for once I am curious about the future, not the past.