Enlightenment
By Maria Dautant and Luis Carrasquillo-Alicea
As the clock struck midnight, Lucia turned and saw the news anchor reporting the latest updates on the workers strike. She had fallen asleep in the living room, next to Nonna. The news anchor informed how the workers were demanding to know the truth, and how the authorities were assuring them all was under control. But Lucia knew it was a lie. She had overheard her father, Mayor Buio, discuss with his councilmen in several occasions how the Hydrodome was failing. She wondered what that would mean for her and all the other residents of Nova Isola. They had lived inside the dome for the last 400 years.
Nonna woke up soon after her, and realizing the time, turned to her granddaughter and wished her a happy birthday, and urged her to go to bed. Lucia was reluctant, but agreed to do so if Nonna told her a story. As Nonna walked Lucia to her bejeweled bedroom in the Palazzo di Zaffiro, she recited her story the same way her grandmother, former leader of the Dry Lander Resistance Coalition, had once told her:
“As water rose and our peril approached,
warnings from wise men arrived to our door.
In greed and in arrogance, our architects laughed,
until waters in the horizon approached our dry land.
To save all the marvels they had once created,
the great Hydrodome around us they erected.
And from that light-ridden dawn to the dusk of today,
inside the Hydrodome safe we will stay”
A drowsy Lucia asked her grandmother as she laid on her fluffy bed:
“Nonna, do you really believe there was a world before the Big Flood? Before the Hydrodome surrounded us and the cities in Terra?”
“I do, carina mia. While we are forbidden to speak it, and so many have forgotten, never forget where we came from. We are not meant to live like fish under the water.”
Before falling asleep, Lucia hugged Nonna, and caught her peculiar scent. It was sweet, but powerful, unlike anything else she had experienced before; it was a scent that inspired safety. As Lucia fell asleep, Nonna walked to her room at the other end of the hallway, and realized her 75th birthday was soon to come. In Nova Isola tradition, a person’s 75th birthday was the date of their Elevation, a rite of passage to the Higher Dome, a resting place for all productive society members. While she had had a productive and comfortable life, she wasn’t ready to go. She couldn’t leave knowing Lucia may not make it to her own Elevation. She finalized the last details of her plan, and she went to bed.
Early the next morning, Mayor and Madame Buio greeted their daughter warmly and congratulated her on her birthday, but eventually left her to attend official business. Lucia, heartbroken, turned to her grandmother for solace, and once again caught Nonna’s powerful scent. To cheer her up, Nonna proposed a secret adventure. After getting dressed, Nonna and Lucia walked a few blocks from the Palazzo to a dilapidated store. Nonna took Lucia down some steps in the back, which revealed a locked door. When Nonna opened the door, Lucia was taken aback. Inside the back room, bushes of many sizes, colors, and scents grew in harmonious peace. As Nonna gave Lucia a tour and introduced to the few caretakers that helped her, they approached a small green plant with a scent that Lucia knew very well: it was Nonna’s fragrance. She mentioned that it was a peppermint plant, and that she carried a few leaves of the bush everywhere she went.
Nonna then told Lucia something she wasn’t expecting: she was giving the garden to her. She wished Lucia would take care of this little piece of paradise in her absence after her Elevation took place, as the garden had brought peace and joy to her and her family for many years. She asked Lucia to keep the garden’s existence to herself, as it was against city bylaws. Lucia promised to keep the garden a secret and returned to the Palazzo, as if nothing special had happened. Later that night, as Nonna narrated the same story, Lucia noticed something different about her grandmother, something she could not quite point out. She went to bed afterwards, but the thought of the magnificent garden she had visited today kept her from falling asleep.
Past midnight, Lucia heard a noise coming from the living room. It was Nonna, walking out the door suspiciously. With the garden adventure still fresh in her mind, Lucia followed Nonna, thinking she may be going in another secret adventure. She walked carefully down the street, making sure Nonna could not spot her. Nonna’s evening walk took her to the main sewage discharge area, where she boarded an old submarine transport carrying other elders. Lucia was adamant to board the submarine, but she knew she had to wait until the last minute so Nonna would have no choice but to take her. And so, Lucia waited for the door to start closing and right before it shut down, she squeezed inside.
All the elders were surprised with Lucia’s arrival, but none of them were as shocked as Nonna.
“Lucia, you cannot be here. Stop the submarine!” Nonna asked nervously as the submarine started moving.
But their escape was tightly timed to take advantage of the sewage discharge, which occurred every night at 2:00am for only five minutes. The plan could not be postponed. Seeing Nonna’s concern, Lucia got worried. As Nonna hugged Lucia to calm her down, Nonna realized, the trip she had planned for so long, was now turning into an escape. Ten elders leaving the dome would not be a concern to anyone, but ten elders and the Mayor's daughter escaping the dome was cause for major trouble.
It didn’t take much time for radio communication from several patrols to invade their submarine. They were in pursuit and closing in on them. But almost immediately, another communication appeared. A different signal, coming from above.
“Unidentified submarine, this is Coastal Base A-30, identify yourself”, the radio said repeatedly.
The elders were ecstatic. Lucia did not understand.
“This is a decommissioned submarine from Hydrodome N-I, carrying eleven asylum seekers.”
Nonna explained to Lucia she had suspicions the surface still existed, as her story said. She never planned to leave Lucia to die underwater. She hoped to find settlers in the surface and come back to the Hydrodome with news of hope and a new life above water.
The submarine emerged on a wooden platform, where officials were waiting for them. The sky was still dark, but an explosion of orange and red was visible in the horizon. It was dawn. The cliffs near the water sparkled with lights coming from within. It took Lucia a few seconds to realize the settlers’ houses were carved in the stone, perfectly blended within the rocky landscape. During the day, it was probably difficult to distinguish, but at night it was clear the area was inhabited.
A few moments later, the patrols emerged behind the submarine. The officers exited one by one, surprised with the rising sun. Mayor Buio was the last one to exit. Lucia ran to embrace him as soon as she saw him. After retrieving his daughter, the Mayor greeted the officers from the surface with warm comradery. Nonna quickly understood they knew each other. Why had there been no effort to evacuate the dome if those in the surface knew about the situation?
“The Dry Landers do not want all of our inhabitants on dry land. There are too many of us. Not only that, but to abandon the dome is to abandon our past”, the Mayor said to Nonna.
“Our futures can only be brighter if we learn from our mistakes and leave our past behind”, Nonna responded.
As she saw her granddaughter and her son descend and disappear into the waters, returning to the only life she had ever known, Nonna wondered if coexistence would ever occur between the Dome folk and the Dry Landers. Moreover, she wondered if the day would come when the pride of past architectural glory would vanish to allow space for a richer, more humane life in the surface. As she gazed into the sunrise, she sighed and told the other elders:
“We’ve got some work to do…”
