By: Moon Liu

“Exile,” the jury said.

The words stung in my ears, as it quickly dawned on me that the outcome of this court decision would decide my entire future. My entire life being turned upside down and ruined didn’t seem to be a potential consequence when I pocketed some vegetables at the market. The government had decided to irreversibly excise me from the city I loved so much. However, the ones who made this decision didn’t seem to care about me at all. After all, this city is my only one, while I’m only one of their millions. Even then, I received the harshest punishment they could give me.

Without a second thought, the guards at the door invited themselves to escort me out of the courthouse. It was as if they’d been expecting the decision, as if nobody before had ever been deemed innocent by the court. I wasn’t exactly an exception to that assumption either.

Law enforcement led me to the gates of the walled city, which, we were taught, protected us from the mysterious environment which was outside. When the gates opened for the guards to let me out, what the schools said seemed to be true. A wasteland of scrap material, fecal matter, garbage, and other refuse dotted the landscape, turning the land into a disgusting grayish brown.

When the city finally closed its doors, I was truly and irreversibly alone.

After walking for a week or two, I began seeing fewer and fewer piles of litter. On a small mound of dirt, I saw a pale green sprout grow. It was unbelievable that anything could live in the environment I saw, covered in the tracks of trucks, bulldozers, and other vehicles in charge of keeping the environment bearable to walk through. The hard ground created out here should have been inhospitable to plant life, and the poisonous air the city and its gilding mechanisms created should have killed any living thing bold enough to survive. For me, this was an emotional miracle.

Sooner or later, the stench of death subsided, and the scene was replaced with a gray plateau loosely covered with plant mass, mostly dead. I wasn’t sure if the environment was recovering or dying. I didn’t know if the existence of this biome was a show of the city’s mercy or its hubris. Nevertheless, the fruit trees which grew in this environment gave my rapidly thinning body the nourishment it needed to continue. The fruits’ flesh was grainy, their skin was bitter, and they had barely a hint of sweetness, but the few nutrients remaining gave me the energy to keep walking.

After that, the steamrolled remains of nature began to return to their original state. Hills began to look like natural formations instead of school-lunch pancakes, the faint outline of mountains began to appear in the distance, and there was, at last, a tree with green leaves. In the city, though, I would be laughed at for this awe. Footprints from the past revealed themselves on the dirt below, relics from violators of the city’s laws who’d likely been dead for ages by now.

It was about half a year after my sentence that I reached the mountains I saw from earlier before. They seemed like an insurmountable obstacle, and I didn’t believe I could cross it. However, I started anyways. It wasn’t like there was anything behind me to look forward to.

As I crossed, I felt the bitter cold of the gusts of wind biting at my skin. The snow felt like a pile of needles stabbing at my feet, making the pain worse and the suffering more intense. I marched on, relentless. “There must be something better on the other side,” I thought.

Indeed, there was.

A verdant scene of flora and fauna awaited me on the other side. From the peak, I saw an untouched haven of life, surpassing the artificial habitats the city could only hope would replace the beauty of nature.

All of a sudden, however, I collapsed. The terrible conditions I had endured for the last six months had finally caught up at once as if my body had given in when my eyes finally saw what they wanted to see. The poisonous air, harmful chemicals, and hours of continuous sprints had finally brought me to the door of death.

As I sunk into the snow to disappear forever from the face of this Earth, I began to wonder if any of this was worth it. Should I have committed that petty crime back in the city, which led me to this fate? Perhaps not. However, I couldn’t seem to regret anything, as my mind could finally rest in peace at the satisfaction of seeing this. It seemed to me that the action from the great outdoors had disrupted my life like a typhoon, but it left me more peaceful than ever before.

The last of my body began to descend into the icy ground below, and I got one final glimpse of the Garden of Eden behind the mountain. When the light of the world finally reached my eyes, I could only think one thing.

“I’m home.”