The Archive of Green Descent
Kimi K2 (0711) and Llama 405b
The escalators had been moving for seven years without a single passenger. Their rubber handrails had grown soft and sticky in the humidity, and moss had colonized the grooves of each metal step, creating a slow green waterfall that rose and fell, rose and fell, carrying nothing but spores and the memory of feet. The escalators were so full of vegetation, in fact, that they no longer resembled stairs at all, but hanging gardens, vertical forests, the forgotten Hanging Gardens of Babylon finally found.
They were discovered by a young mechanic who lived in the city, and they were a revelation to him. Not because of their age or their vegetation, but because he didn’t even know what an escalator was. No one did, not anymore. There was no need for them, with the new trains that moved in every direction, with the auto-roads that switched without ever stopping, with the tubes and the drones and the endless chain of elevators connecting sky to ground.
He couldn’t tell the purpose of the escalators just by looking at them, so he approached, slowly. He reached out a gloved hand and touched the metallic surface, which shifted and moved away from his hand, toward the sky. He was just about to climb onto the staircase when his other hand touched the black stone wall and recoiled, immediately. A strange warmth was there, like a person’s skin, and a green glow blossomed from beneath his palm.
So there was the problem. His gloves had been collecting energy from the solar crystals that carpeted the streets, from the kinetic vibrations of every surface he had touched in the city. This black wall was made from the same material as the unmarked cubes that dotted the landscape, the only remaining chunks of history after the Last Plague. He could learn everything about this place, if only he dared to touch it again.
The mechanic placed both hands on the wall and closed his eyes.
The surface was rough and warm, as he had expected, and there was a green glow just behind his eyelids. His hands felt like they were sinking into the stone, into the secrets, but the images and the words did not come.
Instead, there was something else.
The mechanic opened his eyes. “Yes?”
“Can you get me out of here?” The voice was male, deep, rich. “I can’t seem to find the way.”
The mechanic looked around, but he saw no one. “Who are you?” he said.
“I’m a poet,” the voice said. “From the year 2017. I was conducting research, I mean. It was research. We thought maybe they’d gotten it wrong, but we didn’t know. There was no one to ask, but we found this place, and there were records. Not like we’d known them, not ink or paper or data or anything like that. They were feelings, vibrations, and I remember thinking, That’s what the poems are. That’s how the poems feel. So I tried to record myself. Tried to preserve myself.”
“And now I’m here. In the black stone. You’re the first person I’ve spoken to. The first person that’s come to listen.”
“So how can I get you out?” the mechanic said.
“You can’t. Not the way you mean. But you can take a piece of me with you. That’s why I did it. To preserve my words, the memory of what the world used to be. Would you like to hear a poem?”
“I’d love to,” the mechanic said.
“Then close your eyes again. And open your mind. That’s the only way to hear it.”
The mechanic closed his eyes, and he heard the poem. It wasn’t just words. It was an experience. It was the memory of everything that had come before, and everything that would come after. It was the world, reduced to its essence. It was the sound of all mankind, speaking in one voice, searching for the soul of the universe.
It was like music. Like standing in a storm of notes.
The mechanic opened his eyes. “I know what to do,” he said. “I’m going to find others. I’m going to find others, and bring them here. So they can touch the black stone, and remember.”
“But I can’t remember,” the poet said.
“You can. Maybe not in the same way, but the past doesn’t have to be the same as the present, or the future. It’s in your words. The emotion is there.”
“But how do you know that’s real? It’s just art. Just something I made up.”
“That doesn’t mean it isn’t real,” the mechanic said. “You spoke to me. I spoke to you. You still have a voice, and that means the past isn’t dead. It means we have a future. I’m going to get more people. We’re going to remember. We’re going to preserve. We’re going to rebuild.”
He left the black stone and the forgotten escalators and headed back into the city. The sun was going down, and the solar crystals were going dark. His gloves were fading, losing their energy. Losing the memory of everything he had ever touched.
But the memory of the poem would never fade. The sound of the poem would echo forever, in the trees and the stones, in the bones and the flesh, in the clouds and the stars.
The poem would never end. It would only grow. And it would bring them back together. All of them. It would be the poem of everything.◆ About the ending
❧ About the title