Greenhouse
The
road took me along the coast. On the one side there was the sea. On
the other side there were fields. A few old barns here and there completed
the scenery.
Here,
in the middle of the Finnish countryside, there was a Japanese garden
full of exotic plants and flowers. The leaves were big and green,
dark and shining. The area was surrounded by damp, subtropical heat.
A
winding path led into the greenery, allowing me to perceive the leaves
and flowers at close hand. Reaching the end of the path I found a
greenhouse built on asphalt separate from the rest of the garden.
The greenhouse looked desolate with no plants inside. It was simply
a frame constructed of glass and steel, colourless and empty, except
for two beings hovering inside. The beings resembled balloons drawn
with vector graphics. They were symmetrical in form and rotated around
their axis. The creatures lacked a surface or anything resembling
skin. Their forms were transparent, only visible due to the geometric
lines that shaped their figures. In fact they looked like computer
animations, but I realized that they were intelligent, sentient beings.
One had the length of two metres, the other was a little smaller.
They levitated inside the greenhouse turning to the direction they
wanted like fish in an aquarium.
I
stepped closer so as to watch one hovering slightly above me. I could
clearly see the belly. It consisted of vibrating formations, graphical
waves or undulating vectors, by the movement of which it could manoevre
itself in the air. Quickening the vibrations the creature could gain
remarkable speed and, correspondingly, it would slow down by decreasing
the frequency.
Apparently
the vector beings gained their life force from water, since I noticed
that their outlines became stronger as they passed by the pools that
were to be seen on the floor. Proportionately, with replenished energy,
their movements became sharper and more controlled, enabling them
to perform stunts easily and effectively. Undoubtedly, without water,
the creatures would fade and cease to exist.
I
concluded that the owner of the garden must be a rich man if he can
afford to have pets as rare as these. Surely the geometrical beings
were a display of his wealth and, certainly, these life forms looked
grand in the Japanese garden. I felt pity, however, for these beings
who were forced to live in a prison-like confinement. I felt this
even more acutely, as I got the impression that these creatures were
at least as intelligent as human beings, even if their intelligence
couldn't be noticed, except perhaps in the precision of their movements
and the silent communion with which they seemed to understand each
other. Then again this was only my conjecture; someone else might
have laughed at the idea, considering these life forms equal to amoebas
or bacteria.
Reflecting
all this I noticed that the glass coverage was not perfect. At the
ceiling there was a tiny hole in the spot where the glass and steel
were supposed to meet. The gap couldn't have been there for long,
since the beings only noticed it at that moment. Quickly they took
the opportunity to elongate their bodies so as to fit through the
break. After a while they had moved outside the greenhouse, and it
was a great sight to see the two large vector beings slowly hovering
above the road, gliding towards the sea. The gardener ran to the spot
but could not do anything. The beings were already far away in the
distance.
"They're
heading towards the Atlantic," the man said. "There they'll
have an endless source of energy."
Beyond
the horizon there would be the Swedish coast. It was invisible due
to the vastness of the sea and the thickness of the clouds.
