A Garden on Top of the World

By Virginia Aronson

"This is the way the world is fed."

A cautionary tale with depth and humor, A Garden on Top of the World is environmental fiction that will take you to the year 2066 where Greenland is much warmer, more crowded and lacking in fresh food. Hundred-story high rises house extended families from American coastal cities relocated after the Sixth Sea Rise. Work and school are conducted from overcrowded apartments, and homeless people camp out in the streets.

16-year-old Jonnie brings together a small community on the roof of her high rise and finds a smart way to feed people. Jonnie knows little about how food grows because meals come in packages ordered online and delivered by drone. Dishes are manufactured in the home using 3D printers.

Includes resources on gardening, urban gardens, heirloom seeds and organic foods.

Jonnie's search for who she is and what she might be able to offer the world is one that will resonate with readers of all ages. The information she learns about healthy food, sustainable agriculture, and urban gardens may inspire readers to start their own gardens.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dixi Books Publishing
• Release date: Jan 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9786197458305

Book preview

[e-mail]

Introduction

This is the way the world is fed.

Just think about how our world might change in the near future. With the increase in global temperatures, polar ice caps will have experienced significant melting, causing significant rises in sea levels. Coastal cities will be threatened and, unless adequate precautions have been taken, vulnerable areas of the world may have to be evacuated. Food and land will become more scarce, feeding the world much more difficult.

Right now less than a hundred thousand people live in Greenland because most of the country is snow and ice, permafrost. But if our earth grows much warmer, less hospitable areas of the world like Greenland could become more populated as cities facing massive water intrusion relocate residents.

How many people might be homeless if the global situation becomes dire? How many will be unemployed? With advancements in automation, how many will be unable to find work?

In the coming decades, what will the world look like? Where will we live? What will we eat? Will people be different than they are today?

Medical experts have cited an increase in births of intersex babies. Human sexuality is changing, becoming more fluid and less defined. In the future, as the global population advances to 10 billion, such developments could be seen as adaptation, a desirable evolutionary change.

What about sexual (and racial and ethnic) equality? What about pollution? What kind of technological changes will there be in 30, 40, 50 years?

Now imagine that you are a young person living in the year 2066.

And now, meet Jonnie.

ONE

Once I finish my schoolwork, I have nothing to do until dinner. Everyone else at my house is working. When I remove my headgear, I can hear them. Talking, talking, talking. The sound is a deep, bone-rattling drone, interrupted by occasional bursts of laughter or yelling.

So annoying.

My family is in the call center business. This means they don’t do anything; instead, they talk for a living. Talk, talk, talk. And the work is international. This means they talk all day long and right through the night. You would think they would want some peace and quiet when they’re not working, but this is not the case. Even off-duty, my family is always talking. Always gossiping and laughing, shouting and arguing, blathering on and on.

I’m the youngest and there are a lot of them and only one of me, so I rarely get to speak. Not that I want to yack all the time. I prefer quiet. A serene, calm, peaceful quiet. So I’ve had to adapt. Most of the time I tune them out.

But sometimes I can’t block out the noise. That’s when I

sneak out. I wish I could do something, like hit the streets and explore, but this is not allowed. They think I’m still too young to be out alone where there’s poverty and crime. So instead, I go up to the roof. It’s not much and there’s nothing to do, but it is quiet up there.

I’m going to head up there right now.

First I put on my niece Kamara’s soft blubber boots and my dad’s dog-fur coat. I slide thick white Dura-Soy socks onto my hands to keep them warm. Nobody at my house owns gloves. My mother says there’s no need to go outside in the bad weather. We have everything we need right here, in our home.

I’m not so sure this is true for me. Being stuck inside, studying and hanging out all day, is so boring. Only when I’m reading or researching or doing interesting schoolwork am I content. When my mind is engaged, it goes elsewhere. Zoom!But escape is only temporarily. I always come back here, to a crowded apartment in a crowded building in a crowded city.

I want to go new places. I want to do amazing things.

Right now, however, I have to complete high school. I’m a year ahead, a junior at sixteen. I like being challenged, but digiworld education is pretty easy. However, I love environmental history class and nature science. I love looking at how the world around us used to be, the early people and their simple lives, the wild animals and their natural homes. Everything was so different back then. Nothing looks like it did in back in 2000, 2025, even as recently as 2050. There’s been so much rapid environmental change and so many social adjustments, it’s a whole new world.

I glide through the living room without disturbing anyone. They rarely notice me anyway, tucked in their tiny cubicles, encapsulated in their surround-sound head screens. I don’t walk past my parents, though. Those two have eyes in the back of their heads and they could snatch me by the hoodie and hold me here. Maybe even assign some useless chores. Or, even worse, try to make me do some call work.

No thanks.

But I’m invisible, so out the door I slip and up the stairwell I go. Up, up, up, jogging two stairs at a time, eventually slowing to a brisk step-up walk. My breath comes out in frosty spurts. The stairway is cement and holds the winter chill.

It’s a good run up the stairs to the top, so I use it as exercise. I want to be fit and strong so I can go on adventures. Explore other parts of Greenland, then explore the rest of the world. But I’m sort of huffing as I power up the flights. Sitting inside all day is not good training.

At the ninety-ninth floor, I stop for a moment to admire my lucky talisman. An abandoned spider web, which has been here as long as I’ve been coming up from the second floor. Dusty and wispy, it hangs in the corner off the rough gray wall. The web is perfect, an incredible design still intact. I wish a spider lived in it. I would love to see a real live insect, observe one in its natural habitat.

I remove the sock from my hand and reach up, gently feeling the soft silk. Impressive how a female spider can create such gossamer material inside her own body. I’m not sure what I will create inside mine because I am intersex. That means I am part male and part female. I may have eggs, I may not. Whatever is in store for me, I will never be able to weave beautiful webs, that is certain.

I drag myself up the final flight and lean against the door to the roof. The heavy steel is especially difficult to push open today, which indicates it’s extra windy outside. I shove the door with all my strength and, with an aggressive grunt, manage to open it wide enough that I can slide through. I’m small and thin, making it easy for me to fit into some of the places I wish to go. Only I want to go everywhere. Travel the world. Visit the moon. Take up residence at one of the space hotels, and jump on the shuttle to Mars.

Yet here I am, stuck in the sad city of Shamed with my loud telemarketing family.

The wind is biting, it chews at my face and neck. I pull up my hood, feeling sorry I didn’t borrow my niece Kamara’s seal headdress. That kooky thing makes me look like I have a pile of blubber on my head, but it keeps my ears warm.

I hurry across the vast expanse of the empty roof to my spot. A small bench sits between the solar heating units. The afternoon sun is still bright and, tucked here out of the wind, I am soon warm and cozy.

I drop the hood and turn my face to the sun. Winter all over the globe is mild and brief these days, but here in Greenland it used to be brutal. Back then, nobody could sit outside in March, their face to the winter sun.

Warmed enough now, I pull out my dad’s World War Three binoculars and stare at the activity on the streets below. Most working people are inside, at home, probably on their headgear. Those hanging around outside are homeless. Too many Shamed residents are unemployed, and lots of families lose their apartments and end up on the streets. My family is lucky to be employed.

Two raggedy men sit side by side on the icy sidewalk, waiting for donations. I watch an elderly man stop to give them something, but I can’t tell what it is. It’s flat, kind of square, so it looks like an old book. But books are exceedingly rare, so I doubt anyone here would donate one. After the guy shuffles off, the two beggars argue over the donation. I watch them fighting over their prize until I’m bored.

The streets are harsh today. Gusts of cold wind rip off seal hats and shake solar lamp posts. Kids dressed in layers of oversized clothing huddle in doorways. I feel sorry for them. If you have no place to live and no screens, you have nothing to do. You can’t even go to school.

I check the