One Hundred

Chapter One

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 Part 1 Old World

Chapter 1

 If you travel 400 miles west of the New City, far beyond the sprawls of the suburbs, the reclusive settlements on the peripheries and past the many factories that feed this brave new world, you will come to a vast stretch of fertile, green land. This is The Old World and there you will come across our dairy, Fig Tree Pocket. It is a beautiful area, with plush pastures, ancient undisturbed trees, hills of clover and still, fragrant air. The Old World is separated from the New City by The Wall, which is a thousand mile long holographic projection. The wall beckons like a light display, taking the semblance of luminescent bricks, a wrought iron gate or even stacks of golden honeycomb depending on the mood of The Minders. The wall has one purpose: to divide. Touch the wall for longer than ten seconds without authority and a hasty death will ensue. Or so they say.

Despite the beauty of my surroundings, I know that no-one from the New City will ever come here to admire the view. The deliverymen are our constant, visitors. They drive top of the line, hybrid tankers, powered by electricity and solar energy. I am told that they are the employees of a large dairy factory just outside The Wall. They don’t live in the New City, but they have sworn allegiance to it. Their high-speed vehicles gently hum them back to the factory within the hour. Every so often, we get glimpses of New City innovations and wonder what it must mean to live on the other side of The Wall. Last week, the deliverymen were on our property, having a morning break when they brought out their tucker boxes and from there produced the strangest fruit that I have ever seen. The shape was something between an apple and a pear but the colour was a magnificent plum and a thin downy fur covered the body of the fruit. Of course, on the farm, the only fruit we see are the small, miserable apples that Farmer Jo trades us for a few pints of milk.

The men all wear the same immaculate navy blue boiler suit. Their names are embroidered on their right hand pocket. Aegon, Darek and Vertex. These are New City names, for these human men, who have abandoned their Old World lives. They come every day at 7:30 am to collect the milk vats. Here on the farm, life begins at 5:00 am every morning. The cows are ‘Snowy Whites’, a special breed that produces twice the capacity of milk of a normal cow. They are white as cream with deep brown eyes and a pink nose. Yet, despite their good looks and superior genetic lineage, they do not milk themselves. With twice the milk capacity of a normal cow, they need to be milked twice as often as a regular cow, which adds up to a lot of milking. So, every morning, my alarm clock shatters my sleep at 5:00 am and it’s off to the milking I go. My eighteen-year-old brother, Tom is despondently chipper and decidedly a morning person. 

  “Top of the morning to you”

 I have no idea where he’s learnt that expression. “Get lost Tom”

“Aren’t you just excited to be alive?”

“Go eat a cow” I say as we head towards the cowshed.

“You know I would, if they weren’t our main source of income”

Despite our early morning starts, Tom loves the cows and he loves the farm. He hops on his dirt bike and revs the engine with mock enthusiasm. Then, he’s off to round up the cows, whose udders are full. Tall, muscular and with endearing freckles, my brother is built for this job. Even if he had been given a choice, he wouldn’t be doing anything else with his life. Same can’t be said for me, I’m afraid. Ours is a life of outdoor captivity. We only have the semblance of freedom.