trying to find a place to lie down. It runs off in all directions, thoughts flying in and out like bats while I chase after them. I keep losing them, thinking, “What was the thing I was just thinking of,” trying to trace it, trying to remember. I become exhausted, unable to think at all. I start to panic!

“Shhh,” say the voices. “Lie down. You are soft, in bed. You are comfortable. Your hands are folded on your chest. You do not hurt. What would you like to hear, or read, or watch?”

One of Bill’s documentaries, I think. And suddenly, it is there before me. Bill’s documentary on the Last Radish.

Fidipur’s farms.

Glass houses as far as I can see. The camera plunges down through the glass, and shows shallow tanks, full of green slime, constantly agitated by mechanical fingers and bubbles from perforated hoses. The camera dwells upon these things, tenderly, sensuously. Between the tanks walk robed acolytes, examining the soup, bending to a thermometer with a motion like a genuflection, adjusting a valve with the tips of sanctified, gloved fingers. There is soft, holy music in the background, a choir singing.

Bill’s voice: not his regular voice, but his awed voice. “This is one of Fidipur’s farms. Here, isolated from any organism which might conceivably interfere with a maximized harvest, the soup is grown from which our food is made. It is here, in this particular section, that green one and two are manufactured.”

The voice guides the camera as it follows the green soup. It spills down transparent pipes to the great cookers and emerges as a flaccid mush onto a conveyor belt. Knives divide and texture it. The belt moves into drying ovens, emerges once more, goes through a machine which injects other substances.

“Here essential vitamins and minerals are added,” Bill says. “Before the mixture goes on into the molding section and the ovens.” He does not mention flavor.

The camera follows the belt as it dumps its half-dried goo into a hopper, from which plops of green-gray gum are extruded into depressions in a great steel band. Heated plates come down at the end of stems. There is a sizzle of steam, then the tops rise and the band curves over to dump its cargo of baked biscuits onto another conveyor beneath.

“Food for the billions,” Bill says in a proud tone. “But in the past there have still been those who believe they are too special to eat what the billions eat. Until now there have been the elite, who ate old-style, natural growth foods, because of the status it conferred.” Montage shots of fat people at tables, toasting each other, eating with knives and forks. Close-up shot of a jaw, chewing. “In the past,” Bill says, “some people have robbed Fidipur, but the robbery is at an end. The new managers, elected by you, Fidipur’s billions, are harvesting the last of the old-style foods. Tomorrow, one of Fidipur’s farms will rise where they have grown.”

Camera flies over the glass houses, flits across the multiple towers of a hive, darts downward into an open space where narrow rows of greenery show against brown earth. The camera turns to the side of the field where Martin, the director, stands beside a stout, wrinkle-faced man dressed as everyone dresses in the twenty-first.

Martin says, “It did not seem right that the managerial class be allowed to consume this last vegetable, and there are not enough such vegetables for all of Fidipur’s billions to share. So a worldwide lottery was held to find one of Fidipur’s billions to have this privilege.” Martin turns, beams at the man next to him. “This is Mr. Walford Tupp. What words do you have for us on this occasion, Mr. Tupp?”

The man gapes, smiles, giggles. “Well, gee, I don’t know. I mean, it’s such a privlige to be here on this momous casion, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it certainly is a privilege on such a momentous occasion, Mr. Tupp. Are you ready to harvest the last radish?”

“Well, I don’t know. I mean, sure. I mean, that’s what I come for, isn’t it? Right?”

“Remember, Mr. Tupp. Slowly. We want to be able to catch every nuance of this historic event.” Martin smiles his professional smile and pats Mr. Tupp on the shoulder.

Camera on the Tupp feet, walking over brown earth. He is pigeon-toed. The soles of his shoes are worn more on one side than the other. The earth gives under each footfall, little cracks run away around the edges of his soles, leaving prints behind. There is an ant on the ground. He steps on it. Behind him, the ant struggles out of the compressed soil. Now the camera runs ahead of him, finds the radish, brings it up until it fills the screen.…

Green leaves, as large as sails. Slightly crinkled, textured, glossy hillocks separated by darker-veined valleys, the veins running like brooks to join larger veins, these wandering toward the center to join the strong central rib of the leaf. It is like a rib in the vault of a cathedral, curving gently, its size diminishing toward the leaf-tip, growing larger as it plunges down toward the stem, the whole rounded on one side, cupped on the other, the proportions perfectly designed. Light fractures off the leaf. Light falls through the leaf. The rib is darker, becoming wine colored at its base.

And this is only one leaf. The camera pulls back to let me see two, then three, then four. Each a triumph of architecture. Each a wonder, a marvel. The camera pulls back, back, and suddenly the fingers come down. Grasp the leaves. Crunch them together. The microphone picks up that crunch as cells explode, as their tender juices run out onto those fingers. The fingers pull.

Soil shatters. Crumbs of moist soil rain down the sides of a growing cone. There is a volcano of disturbed soil. Out of its top emerges a flame-red, spherical shape, slowly rising, like a great balloon, like the sun, a gleaming

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