100TWC - Day 37: Mist

Opaqued into whiteness by condensation, the ranks of greenhouse roofs stretched for miles across the unrelieved flatness of the old alluvial plane, like teeth in the widened maw of a colossal beast. Occasionally a pane would open or close fractionally at the impulse of some hidden temperature or humidity sensor, but that apart nothing disturbed the stillness of the scene.

No birds flapped. No rodents dug. No beetles scurried. There were no trees or bushes to react to any breath of wind. The only sound was the creaking of horticultural glass as it stretched and groaned under the midday sun, fiercely bright in the cloudless sky.

Beneath the glass, all was not still. Not always. The interior of the glasshouse, partitioned into areas the size of midwestern cornfields from a distant age, occasionally resounded to mechanical activity. In some partitions, automated diggers churned the soil, adding white powder to the deep brown dirt and leaving the surface finely milled. The diggers were followed closely by wheeled hoppers, clicking quietly as they dispensed seeds one at a time into the depressions left by the diggers. As first the diggers and then the hoppers garaged themselves inside the partitions, a gentle rain fell from sprinklers set on the glazing bars high above.

The scene in other partitions -- those behind the one in which the automated agricultural machinery had been busy -- was not so idyllically sylvan. It more closely resembled the aftermath of apocalypse. The ground, devoid of any distinguishing marks, steamed evilly. Faint patches of grey slime puddled into slight pockets in the soil, or ran in small odorous rivulets to join others on their way to the pools. The air in these partitions reeked. The glass had lost its whitened condensate in favour of grey, casting a depressing pall over the space.

But beyond the machines, and beyond the destruction, colour and ripeness could be found. Acre upon acre of burgeoning vegetables, filling the air with the scents of mellow maturity. In the nearest of these, any opened lights were slowly closing. All of them. Once the last few had clicked shut an enormous motor kicked into life and the myriad clear irrigation pipes were filled with a pale blue liquid from a single vast tank, stamped in letters a metre tall with a capitalised word in a similar pale blue: MIST.

And the mist fell. Finer than the germinating rain in the planted sections, the tiny droplets of iridescence were hardly large enough to fall, yet fall they did. Slowly. And at the first touch of shining blue on their ripe perfection, the vegetables began to dissolve. Tomatoes bubbled and popped. Courgettes dripped. Peas and beans slipped from their stems. Within the space of a few minutes the entire section was reduced to a flood of reeking grey slime. From a central partition, huge mobile tanks emerged, sucking up the juice. They too were marked MIST but now, below the blue heading in smaller, black letters, another legend could be seen: Macerating Interspersal Spray Technology.