Carl carefully measured the depth of each seed he planted.
“Knuckle one, knuckle two, planting seeds is what you do,” he said as he poked his index finger into hundreds of holes. The perfect width and depth of the hole was precisely the distance from the tip of his finger to the middle joint. Working on his sixth generation of hybridized oranges, Carl’s goal was to make every part of it delicious. The skin would bring maximum orangey sweetness to zesting or long strips could be dropped into cocktails for the perfect citrus zing. The pith, overlooked by most horticulturists, would be a valuable and delicious source of protein and fiber, and the fruit itself would bring the perfect balance of juiciness so it could be used for used fresh-squeezed or sliced into quarters for the kiddies. Carl even considered the seeds, which worked as an all-natural chewing gum or as a biodegradable adhesive. With each generation he came a little closer, gingerly painting the stamens to bring only the finest pollen into play. It felt a little like a religion to him, dusting row after row of delicate saplings, the sun breaking through the greenhouse like shafts of light filling a cathedral. Carl, a reverent monk, joyful in his ritual, misting the plants as if swinging an incense thurible amidst the congregation.
***
In school, Carl was the guy you went to for the best weed, mushrooms, and peyote. He could grow anything in the space under his bed or up in the ceiling. He went through various phases obsessed alternately with rare tulips, tomatoes that tasted like bananas, and a lawn that by the end of the season wove itself into doormats. His talent with any kind of plant made him famous within the botany world, a notably small branch of the sciences. Except that mastering plants meant mastering the world, as virtually all life on earth is in one way or another reliant on them. Because plants are integral to survival, it was easy to monetize them; something international agricultural biotechnology companies like Monsanto figured out long ago.
Recruited out of college in his third year, Carl is, to this day, the only botany student to have an agent negotiate his contract. Carl was in high demand as climate change took hold, and the increased popularity of plant-based diets became fashionable in the developed world.
He had early successes with drought-resistant pineapple, durian that smelled and tasted like vanilla custard, and hay that could produce wagyu-style marbling in the meat of any animal. Carl gave TED Talk-style presentations to overflowing rooms at conferences around the world and took to wearing turtlenecks year-round. He married a journalist he met as she worked on a story about him for Scientific American magazine. His employer, Syngenta, bought Carl a large compound in the Florida Keys where he could experiment at will.
Thanks to several climate-controlled greenhouses the size of airplane hangars, he could create environments ranging from tropical to artic, swampy to arid, and full sun to total darkness. Carl became interested in growing things in extreme conditions, thinking if he could develop plants that grew in Sahara or Antarctica, he would open vast new territories to agriculture and feed people no matter where they lived.
The compound had hundreds of orange trees that grew wild, producing fruit that mostly rotted on the trees. Toward the end of the season, the oranges piled up, decaying in the Florida heat, filling the air with fruity sweetness. The trees never interested Carl, thinking them already too popular, and given people’s taste for overly sweet frozen and boxed juice, he thought it a bit too lowbrow.
Carl kept in touch with his supervisors via e-mail, offering updates on is various projects and his progress. They visited a few times a year to make sure Carl was on track and had everything he needed. During one visit he took them to a greenhouse shut off from all light for five years. In an antechamber they donned night-vision goggles then stepped through three more air-tight compartments to ensure no light could enter. Inside, instead of the dank, mossy smell they expected, his supervisors found the scent of sweet alfalfa. Farther along, they saw lettuce, plums, and carrots all growing in total darkness.
“I wanted to see if I could cross-pollinate mushrooms with vegetable species, so astronauts traveling long journeys wouldn’t need to use battery power to grow food. They could also be grown in abandoned mines, abandoned buildings, and even in the six months of twilight near the poles.”
“Impressive work Carl. Revolutionary. How did you do it?” one supervisor said.
“I was able to cross the farm crops with mushroom spores so that instead of sunlight, all they need is the nutrients in the soil to grow.”
“It is impressive,” said the other supervisor, “but we need you to shelve it for now. Record it all down, and we’ll lock in the patents, but what we really need is a banana that can grow in Iowa. The farmland in South America is drying up fast, and bananas are key to our growth. Plus, I know a few senators that will owe us a favor if we save all those farm jobs.”
“But this is a revolutionary way to grow food. In total darkness! It’s never been done!”
“I said it was impressive, Carl. But get to work on the banana. That’s what we’re paying for now.”
The supervisors headed for the door, and just before they left, the lesser of the two said, “But great work Carl. Really great work!”
Carl sulked in the blacked-out hanger, mindlessly examining the plums and alfalfa and thinking about astronauts enjoying fresh produce as they rocketed through the stars.
Outside he was met by an overwhelming smell of oranges. The breeze, heat, and time of day combined into a pungent miasma; the citrusy sweetness both refreshing and comforting. He walked to the nearest tree and saw a single orange still on a branch. It was immediately squishy in his hand as he picked it. Mold was growing on one side, and as he tore it open the fruit replaced by black spores that swirled up in a cloud, causing him to choke and sputter. He threw the fruit to the ground, “fucking oranges.”
That night Carl dreamed of oranges. He saw ways to improve the fruit, the skin, and even the pith! He jumped from the bed and ran to his nearest greenhouse to sketch out a plan. The next day his wife went looking for him, finding him still in his underwear at a whiteboard feverishly writing out his orange plan.
After that, Carl only worked on oranges. He knew he could make an orange with such unbridled deliciousness that everyone in the world would kill to have one. He abandoned all his other projects and was confident his supervisors would understand.
“Of course, Carl! The oranges!” the lesser supervisor said.
“Genius Carl! Never mind about the bananas! We won’t bother you ever again.”
Carl shut down his Florida Keys operation and moved to Tampa, but his wife stayed behind. “All your energy must go into the oranges, Carl. The world must have them!”
***
Years later, in his greenhouse, exhausted from his ministrations, Carl needed to rest. He laid on the ground, his pollination brush still in hand, and dreamed of waking refreshed and ready to bring his orange into the world.
***
Carl had indeed decided to pursue the perfect orange that day after his supervisors left and his wife found him in his underwear. He rarely slept or ate as he worked on oranges to the exclusion of everything else in his life. Carl’s wife became more and more worried, asking Carl to go to the doctor. “Something’s wrong, Carl. You can’t go on like this.”
“Fool! They said the same about Jonas Salk as he developed the polio vaccine!”
“Carl, this is just oranges.”
Carl started throwing any nearby fruit as his wife and screaming about her tiny mind and narrow view. She ran from the greenhouse and away from Carl.
His supervisors were unhappy to see his orange obsession. Carl was a genius so they listened to his story, but in the end, fired him with a year’s severance. Carl moved to Tampa, his precious orange grove in tow, and bought a broken-down greenhouse at a foreclosure sale.
A neighbor alerted the police when she noticed “the crazy guy next door stopped singing. He never stops singing.”
They found Carl in the greenhouse. Its rusty framework barely held the few remaining glass panels in place. A withered husk, Carl’s bones stood out under his skin. Covered in sores and his teeth gone, he still held the pollinating brush in his stiffened fingers. Stunted orange tree saplings, riddled with galls, clutched withered, pea-sized fruit close to their stems.
The autopsy showed Carl’s brain had large cavitations filled with black mold. When one of the pockets was exposed, a black cloud swirled up, and quickly disappeared into the safety fan.
“Geez. Little tendrils everywhere. He’s marbled like a block of blue cheese.”