1 Allergic Reaction

That place was unnatural.

Laying on the fresh humid grass I could feel it tickling the back of my neck. With my eyes closed I tried to absorb the bright east sun into my cells, it was so strong the inside of my eyelids were shining. None of it was natural. No VR session would ever get close to those sensations. If I held my breath I was sure I could feel my facial cells agitating under the sun's touch. My body had never felt that, at least not completely, having myself all covered by the sunlight was definitely the first time, since the building towers obstructed most of it and open areas were just as rare.

Too many strange things were happening inside me. For some reason I began to feel hot, my face was burning and my armpits were sweating like I had been running this whole time instead of laying down. I must confess I panicked a bit and started taking my jacket off along with my under shirt and my sneakers just to relieve some of the heat. Maybe I was having an allergic reaction to the grass since it was my first contact with it in 24 years and I had been rubbing it all over my face from the moment I got off the bus. Everything was new to me.

That whole place was foreign and to pretty much everyone in Tier-1. Not just the grass but the open corn fields that looked much taller than me and I was 1,7 so that was one hell of a cornstalk. Also there were live trees further down the hill which was a better spot to get away from the grass and the sun.

As I stood up to pick up my bag with the camera, the bottom of my feet touched the potential allergic factor. It tickled my exposed translucid skin making me laugh at how fucking crazy that place was. No wonder it was so out of reach and expensive, I had to work like a factory bot for a month to gather the money for the boat and bus drive but looking at that much open space with no walls to cut the picture and squeeze it was definitely worth every coin I spent. The satisfaction of picking up my camera and not having enough room in the frame to capture all of that openness was more exciting than I predicted.

Giggles aside, I had to take as many pictures as possible to pay off the trip and food for the next week. I Picked up my clothes, put them back on, same with the torn down sneakers and stood up for one more look around but before I firmed my feet I lost my balance for a second. Quickly I stepped back avoiding the fall last minute, once again my body showed how unprepared I was for the country life. I felt dizzy and even hotter than before, heating up like a battery getting charged with full power. So it hit me. It was not an allergic reaction, it was the bloody sun! It was warming me up all that time. How insane was that. I could finally understand why the top apartments cost fortunes, it wasn't just for the status but mostly for the sun.

With my latest discovery about the obvious effects of sitting under direct sunlight I removed my layers again to avoid future dizziness before starting the journey downhill. Aiming for the trees, I planned some angles that would highlight mother nature's best features. I had to take good pictures in order to make up for the investment. This part of the city's territory wasn't accessible to the majority of population, only residents, workers and the specialized personnel were allowed to visit the plantations. If you wanted to access the area there was a protocol to follow and also had to file for permission, all very bureaucratic because it involved a background check. I couldn't risk it, since my criminal record wasn't exactly clean I had a new one made up just for the occasion.

Primarily I wanted to do open shots covering long distances of pure wild nature but I didn't count with the gigantic metal constructions, that in my very superficial opinion, looked like reservoirs, probably for the beans planted in the area. Those monstrous cans of metal were everywhere on the horizon ruining my big wild shots. Not to mention the trucks and harvesters that were mechanical versions of insects spread all over the fields. One type looked like a beatle, the front had a mouth larger than the rest of the body which was high and curved with a booth right above the front mouth. Some other machine was like a spider, small centered body with the booth on the front and ten long structures like arms spreading over lines and lines of cornstalks.

Those constructions were ruining my shots, pushing me to change my approach and look for details. Thinking it through I had never watched a tree's leaf from up close. Damn, I had never held a leaf in my hand, at least not a real one. Seeing the anatomy of that thing was crazy. They were organisms, living ones. As I focused the camera, it revealed it's tiny thin veins that spread all over it like a spinal cord perfectly designed. After taking as many shots of that leaf as I could, which took longer than I expected because my camera's lenses were not meant for that, I felt a soft touch on my shoulder. I turned my head as a reflex thinking some bug had fallen on me and immediately my response system made me jump when I realized something much bigger was behind me.

Following the initial scare, when my eyes finally focused again there was a long shotgun pointed at me. Frozen, I fell on my ass holding my camera in front of my chest with all my strength and no air in my lungs.

- I'm a photographer.- that came out louder than I wanted - I'm authorized to be here, please don't shoot!