Home of the Cacti
Memories of a time that does not yet exist — Part One
I do not remember how I arrived in the desert. One moment there was nothing, and the next, I was standing on a plain of cold sand. It was night. The moon, disproportionately bright, silhouetted distant mountains and made the white crust covering the ground glint. There was no sound of an engine, no hum of a highway, not even an insect. Only the wind, driving grains of sand against my shoes.
In the distance, I made out an irregular structure. It was as tall as several stacked buildings, yet possessed no straight lines. Its silhouette narrowed and widened again, as if someone had tried to build something out of wet clay. Small points of light emanated from within. I walked toward them because the cold was beginning to numb my hands and because I had nowhere else to go.
As I drew closer, I discovered that the structure was green. Not the clean green of leaves after the rain, but a dark green, covered in scars, folds, and spines as long as my arm. The points of light were openings in its surface. Human shadows moved behind some of them.
Then, the building shifted.
It was a slow, almost imperceptible movement. The base contracted, and something resembling a massive roller emerged from beneath a root. The structure advanced a few meters and stopped again. I thought fatigue was playing tricks on me. A second, smaller bulge slid out behind the first, leaving two parallel furrows in the sand.
"Don't just stand there!" someone shouted from an opening. "The temperature is about to drop!"
A woman signaled to me with a lamp casting a yellowish light. I approached cautiously. A section of the wall opened inward, like the petals of an overly thick flower. As I stepped through, I felt a warm, humid breeze smelling of earth and sap. The door closed behind me without a sound; the edges simply fused together.
The woman’s name was Mara. She offered me water in a cup made of hardened bark and asked which settlement I came from. I didn't know how to answer. She observed my clothes, my bewilderment, and my trembling hands, then decided that explanations could wait until dawn.
"You're inside a cactus," she told me, in the same matter-of-fact tone one might use to point out that a house has a roof.
I laughed. She didn't.
Translucent veins ran along the interior walls. Wooden platforms, small rooms, and rope bridges had been built between them. The floor gave slightly under my footsteps. In some places, I could feel a slow, deep pulse, as if the entire place were asleep. Dozens of people shared the shelter: children playing near water reservoirs, elders mending woven fabrics, and men and women inspecting conduits through which a clear liquid flowed.
Mara explained that the sun had changed. She didn't know whether it was due to a natural process, an ancient catastrophe, or a combination of both. The generations that had witnessed it were gone; all that remained were conflicting accounts and records no one could consult. The radiation reaching the surface was dangerous, and the daytime heat was lethal to anyone venturing outside unprotected. At midday, even the stones seemed to crack.
The cacti had survived when almost everything else had vanished. For generations, the desert inhabitants had selectively cultivated the specimens that retained the most water and best withstood the light. Over time—and using methods Mara could barely describe—those organisms had transformed into massive shelters. Their water-rich tissues dampened some of the radiation; damaged outer layers would slough off and regrow. Their cavities housed entire families.
But the most extraordinary thing was that they could move.
They had no manufactured wheels. What I had seen from a distance were circular pads of hardened tissue that rotated through slow contractions. At night, they traversed the desert in search of ancient aquifers. They would sink exploratory roots into the sand, detect moisture, and absorb water with a patience no machine could have tolerated. When they found a sufficient reserve, they would pause for days.
"And who steers them?" I asked.
Mara rested her palm against the wall. The surface contracted gently beneath her fingers.
"They listen to us, sometimes. But they don't belong to us."
I spent several days there. Or so I think. I helped move containers, learned to sleep to the sound of water circulating behind my head, and met a boy named Ivo who could tell by the vibrations when our shelter was thirsty. One night, he led me to a high opening. From there, I saw other green silhouettes moving in the moonlight. They looked like a caravan of silent giants, each with small, glowing windows and a community breathing inside.
On the third dawn I remember, an alarm sounded from a great horn. All the openings closed. The lower platforms flooded with a thin film of water, and the ribs of the walls grew dark. Mara made me stay in a central chamber, surrounded by thick layers of plant tissue. Outside, the first light of day fell upon the desert like a sentence. Through a small viewing port, I saw a stone emitting steam and a shadow shrinking until it vanished.
That was when I understood that the cactus was not merely a house. It was a creature that spent its own water to keep us alive.
At nightfall, we went out to repair an open wound on one of its flanks. A sandstorm had torn away part of the protective rind. The inhabitants applied a paste of minerals and fibers over the exposed tissue. Ivo stayed by my side as we worked.
"Can it die?" I asked him.
"Of course," he replied, surprised that I didn't know. "That’s why we take care of it."
That answer stayed with me over the following days. In my world, cities devoured the landscape to keep growing. Here, a city had thirst, scars, and perhaps a form of memory. Its inhabitants survived thanks to it, yet it, too, depended on their hands.
On the last night, a different vibration woke me. The cactus had come to a halt over an underground reservoir. Everyone fell silent. Through the walls, I heard a sound like distant rain: thousands of roots making their way toward the water. Mara smiled and said we would have enough to continue northward.
I wanted to ask her what lay to the north. I also wanted to know what year it was and why no one seemed surprised that I had appeared out of nowhere. I opened my mouth, but a white light cut across the room.
I woke up in my bed.
The clock read seven-twelve. Outside, the garbage truck was passing by. My legs ached, my throat was dry, and I felt a disproportionate sadness at having left behind people whom—according to the calendar—I had never met. I got up and looked for paper before their faces could fade away.
I still remember Mara’s hand against the green wall. I remember the pulse that answered hers. And every time I water the small plant on my windowsill, I wonder if, one day, its descendants will carry entire cities upon their roots.
Continued in "Near the Year 3000: What Happened to Society?"