“World Where Green Grass Grows” a short story by Emma Grace Lanrete
In the land where green grass grows lived a girl. She lived in grass and wore grass clothes and ate grass and was sick of grass. Others did not seem to mind their grass world, but she knew there must be a better place to live. So every day she walked a different direction until dark to try to find a place where grass did not grow. From the elders she had heard of places with rocks or cement or asphalt. She just wanted to walk in a place that did not feel squishy, but gave her a firm foothold. She would not give up.
On one of her daily trips the girl found among the grass a compass-like object that sparkled in the sun. It did not have the normal N-S-E-W for north, south, east and west on it. Instead there were the letters V-E-I-L. Maybe this special compass would help her find the direction she needed to go. Since “E” was the only compass letter she was familiar with, she decided to head towards where the arrow pointed to “E” first.
It would take longer than one day to get there she was sure, so she packed a bag of grass, for that was all she had. She could eat it as a salad when hungry, sleep on in as a pillow when tired and weave it into a blanket when cold. After many days she came to the land of “E” or Elderly.
She was excited to find it had more things besides grass. They grew other edible food in the ground. She pulled out a long orange root with a familiar green colored top from dirt and ate the crunchy delicious new food. Yes, this was much better than grass and there was even dirt to walk on. Maybe she would stay here. The houses were not all made of grass, but had mud walls. She started to notice most things were brown. There was not much green at all.
The people there were dull colored as well. They were all very very old. No one died here they just got older and older, saggier and saggier, droopier and droopier, grayer and grayer. Many were blind and most could not hear well, if at all. The grass had all died, but the people didn’t. It was a farm for the elderly to rest comfortably until they withered away.
The crunchy orange root had been tasty, but she did not want to waste away in the dirt one day, no, she would keep moving on and check out the other letters. Onto “I” that must be a better place to live. The grass was not as deep in her bag, so she filled it with the orange roots to eat and dirt to spread for a bed and started off again.
It was even further to the land of “I” which when she arrived found stood for A-I or Artificial Intelligence. This land had nothing green. The world was all shiny metal and chrome. A.I. robots ruled and people there were very rare. They did have some flesh and blood people to perform duties for when the power grid was down to get them functioning again. Nothing grew, but packets of freeze dried food were available to sustain life for the very few humanoids.
The girl did have firm footholds to walk on, but the food tasted like cardboard and the people like her were slaves. She did not want to stay here at all. There was nowhere comfortable to rest her head when she tried to sleep. Her grass was packed down by now and had dwindled along the way. She stuffed some artificial food in her bag and headed towards the letter “L”.
In LaDeDa Land she found a magical fairytale world with fairies, trolls and many mystical creatures. There was green grass, but flowers grew amidst it. Everything was alive and even the caterpillars and butterflies could talk. Maybe this was where the girl would stay. It looked it had everything a girl like her could ever want. She was thirsty so knelt down to drink the dew off of a flower petal. The grass under the tall trees was damp and squishy, but there were stone paths through the forest as well.
Suddenly she doubled over with a stomach ache so sharp she could barely breath. A squirrel in the tree asked her if she had eaten anything. She shared that she had only had a few drops of water off the flower. The bushy tailed animal replied that she was lucky, everything in their land was poisonous to non-magical beings. If she had eaten a mushroom she would be dead.
The girl shuttered and knew she must not stop here, she could not live in a land where she would have nothing to eat. So she pressed on and continued her journey towards the last letter on the compass circle, letter “V’.
When she arrived at “V” she was so tired, she thought she would stay here for sure. It looked like a lovely land and had to be better than her last three stops. She was out of grass and had not been able to pack anything from the last land, so her bag was nearly empty. She saw many children her age here. They all seemed busy doing their jobs. In fact all the children were doing everything that adults normally did in her world, but she saw no adults here. Where could they be?
She stopped a boy near her age and asked where all the adults were in their land. He told her he was nearly the oldest in this world. When they turned sixteen their eggs were harvested to grow children in the laboratory for the next generation of InVitro Land and they were sent off on a trek over the mountain never to return. (Maybe they went to the land of the Elderly she wondered.) This kept everyone young, vital and strong with little disease. No one was lazy because they knew they had but a few years to enjoy life. He was nearly sixteen himself so really did not have time to stop and talk, but he wished her well. How old are you he asked?
She suddenly realized the letters on the compass also spelled L-I-V-E, live. She just wanted to go back and live where the green grass grew. Why had she not appreciated it. Wherever your home is seemed like the best place you can be. But it was too late. She was already sixteen. They harvested her eggs and sent her off on the long walk over the grassless dirt hill called death never to return.
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