The TANK

//Science Fiction exercise

Marie knocked on the door of her neighbor, Leila. Crazy woman, she was, thought Marie—but wonderful. In her mid-80s, yet still full speed ahead. Leila knew a lot about this house, the neighborhood, the city, and even parts of the world. She had seen it all and had survived the crisis at the end of the 2020s. Marie, in her early twenties, loved visiting her to have tea, listen, and learn how to garden and cook from this wise survivor. She considered herself lucky. Many people had to apply to the state’s educational department to learn about growing and cooking food and about their own health. It was super expensive and extremely hard to get into. She received knowledge for free. In exchange, she watched Leila’s dog, Edgar—a black doodle, already in his late nineties in dog years.

Marie’s water filtration system had malfunctioned for the third time. There was a serious issue with her recycling tank. Somehow the water wasn’t clear and had a greenish color, and she was too scared to take even the tiniest sip. She had tried everything according to the online manual, waited days for an answer from the building company’s tech support team, and attempted to fix it with the assistance of the janitor robot, which simply rattled off the same nonsense script from the manual.

Leila opened the door. “Ah, Marie, so lovely to see you. Why don’t you come in? I just made some nettle tea. Why don’t you join me for a glass?”

“Oh, thank you. I’d love to. My filtration system broke for the third time. I’m using Peter’s bathroom next door, but I’m getting so annoyed—and a bit concerned, as I’m running low on money. I mean, you can imagine having to buy bottled water from a store,” she explained.

“Honestly, my sweet girl, I’m still in shock at how it has all come to this point. Oh my. I guess I’m lucky to be alive and still have this apartment. They could easily have kicked me out during the recycling revolution. But let’s talk about you. What’s going on with your tank?”

They sat down in Leila’s wondrous apartment. It wasn’t really an apartment but rather a jungle. There were trees she had propagated and even managed to get occasional fruit from—avocados, lemons, limes, and oranges. There were linden trees and chestnuts, reaching as high as the ceiling, standing next to each other in large pots. Every imaginable space held planter boxes with vegetables and herbs, and in every corner of the ceiling an ultraviolet light fixture was installed, with water tubes running through the entire apartment. They sat in the middle of this green chaos on a small couch with a tiny coffee table—an old wooden wine crate.

Leila had managed to keep most of her books. They were in her bedroom, on shelves from floor to ceiling, filling all four walls. Then there was a smaller room with nothing in it at all. This was her meditation room. Leila had once shared with Marie that without it, she would be dead, as the sadness would have eaten her alive. Meditation gave her a way to let memories pass without pain.

While drinking freshly harvested—and secretly foraged—nettle tea, Marie explained in detail the problem with her tank: the feces-decomposing box made strange noises, and the water came out with a greenish tint. Leila scribbled notes on a piece of paper and drew diagrams to help her figure it out. She said there was a problem with the algae—it had received too much food or the wrong kind. It was sick and couldn’t do its job properly, so the balance was off.

“What have you been eating, may I ask?” she asked Marie with an earnest look.“Aah… I’m kind of embarrassed. My friend Oni got hold of some Red Bull gummies, and we had a girls’ night and ate two bags each. Ever since then, the filtration system has been rebellious.”

“Ah, don’t be embarrassed. That’s all right. There are so many restrictions these days, and you are so young. It’s only natural that you want to go wild sometimes. We’ll fix it, okay? I promise I’ll come down later and take a look. I think it’s best if you clear everything and do a complete restart. I know it’s tedious, but that’s your best bet. I’ll give you some of my algae—they’re healthy. Tech support won’t reply. Forget it. It’s a madhouse out there anyway. You have no idea how many people ask me for help. Those greedy corporations buy up good ideas from start-ups, act like saints, then turn them into shitty products and leave everyone alone with them—while making millions. Don’t get me started… How do you like the tea?”

“Love it, thank you!” Marie loved the nettle tea. It wasn’t just that it was cleansing for the system; it also had a slightly arousing effect. Coffee was no longer available, except for a cheap chemically produced substitute that tasted awful and caused diarrhea.

“You know, I went out last night and foraged it with Charlie in the D16 zone. But please don’t tell anyone. I’m getting too old for this—and Edgar too. Of course he had to come along, being the good watchdog he is. The excitement! First, we drove for an hour. It was nerve-racking because we had to trick the car service. The car kept asking why we wanted to go there, and we repeatedly clicked ‘other reason’ and then ‘next.’ I mean, how silly is that? They make a big deal about preserving your privacy, but nothing is private anymore. The more you refuse to answer their stupid software, the more they’re on your case. Anyway, we managed to get there and climbed over the fence into the fields. Charlie is so cool. She had figured out that this must be a wild field while researching a project for her boss. In that way, she is fearless. We managed to pick two big bags of nettles in the dark. There wasn’t much else, which I found depressing. The system hasn’t fully recuperated yet. But I guess the nettles are clean.”

Marie’s parents had died in the crisis. Their bodies, like those of millions of others in their fifties, sixties, and seventies, had been full of diseases and toxins, and there was no longer any medical help available. The healthcare system had entirely collapsed in most of Western civilization. The few hospitals with doctors educated in holistic medical science granted access only to the super-rich. But that hadn’t been the only problem. People were simply unable to help themselves or each other, as they had lost all intuitive knowledge about health, food, and their own bodies.

The healthcare system had begun to crumble during the COVID pandemic. Then it worsened. Millions developed poisonous lifestyles, feeding their depression with industrial food, not moving, not talking to others, and constantly being on their devices, getting brainwashed day by day. Then came the tipping point. Millions were dying slowly of cancer, diabetes, heart attacks, infections—you name it. In cities like Berlin, after only three years, there were tens of thousands of empty apartments. Or apartments with dead bodies in them. It was a catastrophe.

In the beginning, the crisis brought everyone together. Suddenly people realized that the terrible disease outbreaks had stemmed from industrial food, toxins in the air and water, and the lifestyle depression acquired during the COVID pandemic. The conclusion was that agriculture had to be decentralized. The massive farming complexes that once supplied entire states and countries collapsed because people stopped buying their products. Everyone wanted healthy food—but there wasn’t enough for so many people. The government started producing green food bars, like in a sci-fi movie from eighty years ago. But that failed too. People had become so mistrustful that they would rather starve than eat mass-produced factory food.

As a solution, structures were created in which farmers and residents produced food only for very small, self-governed local communities—neighborhoods and even individual apartment buildings. There was no other way; the land had been depleted. Meat was declared the root of all evil. The government pumped money into start-ups that invented independent life-recycling systems for these communes, enabling people to recycle wastewater, harvest energy from small solar panels, and grow their own food in indoor garden systems. Neighbors began trading seeds, and the older survivors taught gardening and cooking. In wealthier areas, aquaponic fish tanks appeared in backyards, and some houses even had meat printers. It was a promising start.

But when the system crashed, everyone had to help deal with the dead, and humankind was traumatized, depressed. Brainwashing, conspiracy theories, and addiction to devices only intensified. Meanwhile, the super-rich bought up all organic food and bribed farmers for priority access. Prices for good food and clean water soared beyond reach.
Numerous industrious tech companies installed all kinds of systems, but the knowledge behind them was withheld from consumers—purposefully, of course. Greed had not disappeared despite the millions of deaths. After a few years, countless poorly installed systems were in place, managed by young hipsters, as Leila called them.

And here was Marie—poor, but lucky. She had grown up almost as an orphan; her parents had died when she was ten. She had been old enough to grasp basic survival skills and was fortunate to have kind people in the building who looked after her, like Leila.

After the nettle tea, Leila invited her to stay for dinner. They made nettle oatcakes with a fresh green leaf salad and avocados harvested from Leila’s garden. A real treat. Leila told her she had met someone wealthy through her daughter Charlie—someone who owned land. She had been invited to teach gardening, foraging, and cooking there to very young people like Marie. She invited Marie to come along as her assistant, and Marie felt it was the luckiest day of her life.
“I’ll watch Edgar anytime you want! Thank you!”

Marie skipped down the stairs to her apartment and began the tedious process of dismantling her tank. She had the instructions. It was all a matter of setting her mind to it, focusing, and following through. Leila would come down later to check on her and help her plant healthy algae.

Life wasn’t that bad after all.