In the year 6565

You won't need no husband, won't need no wife

You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too

From the bottom of a long glass tube

The petals did not so much open as they did cease to be closed and I rolled onto soft grass. It was bright. So bright, I had to shield my eyes. At some level, I knew this is the way it would be. I had been prepared. It was different. It was more. More light. More smells—grass, decaying flower, other scents that eluded me. Wind. Wind had always seemed two dimensional, but it wasn’t. The soft breeze wrapped its arms around me like some ephemeral embrace.

I laid on the earth for some time, taking in earthy smells, inhaling the intoxicating scents. From this vantage, I could see the remains of my pod, the grass beneath me and the lacy, fernlike leaves of the plant cast dancing shadows on me beneath the blue sky as the breeze tickled them. I wanted to see more of this world that I knew, but felt so unfamiliar.

I used the stalk of my former home to help get upright. I was not steady on my feet, which was disconcerting, because my memories told me that standing was the normal position for a human to assume. I had to let my brain reassure me that this, too, was normal. For the past thirty years my existence had been confined to the pod. Now that I was fully formed, educated, and had earned my place in society, could I be released into the adult world. Even though my muscles were toned and trained for motion, this was their first real use. It was understandable that they’d be a bit wobbly.

I am a scientific investigator. The problem that I am investigating is why the pods are releasing us before our scheduled release date. While still maturing, I’d studied the problem thoroughly and thought I understood. The earth goes through cycles, seasonal, annual, lunar, solar, long, short and more. My theory had been that the current long cycle was causing the plants to mature more quickly. So I had modified the programming to compensate, to slow things down.

And yet, here I was, out of my pod almost six years early.

Physically, an extra six years wasn’t going to put my body at risk. Socially, it meant finding a place for me in the outside world sooner. I would have to be monitored. If I still had tendencies toward risky behavior, I no longer had the simulated environment of the pod to protect me from myself. For me, personally, I did not think there was much risk. However, it had caused problems for others. Back in my office, an office that would now be real rather than simulated, I had hundreds of cases of accidental deaths in my review files.

I rubbed my skin. Less than an hour ago, it had been encased in binding fluid. The fluid of life that fed us, nurtured us, and connected us with the world at large. It was largely evaporated now. The whispering breeze whisked away its moisture in the warm air. I was no longer connected to anything. I’d remain this way for a few hours until I left the garden to begin my real life. This was a critical time of adjustment. I was being watched, but from a distance. If my behavior seemed normal, I’d be picked up around sunset, greeted with a Welcome Out party and be on my way to my new home. If I exhibited signs of problems, I’d be retrieved sooner, enveloped in an artificial pod of my own design, and allowed the rest of my time to mature. So far, there were only half a dozen souls in artificial pods, all victims of diseased host plants, not premature bloom.

Examining my host plant, I could see nothing unhealthy about it. It was sturdy vine with leaves twice as tall as my reach. There were other pods maturing on the vine; all appeared normal. The stem that had connected my pod to the vine was drying and cracking. Beneath it grew a new tendril that would in time become another branch to host more pods. It looked perfectly normal.

Later, as I watched the transport arrive, the only conclusion that I could come to regarding my premature birth was that I was ready. Society might not have been ready for me, but the old plant knew better.