“萬事皆有可雕琢之處”｜2060未來城市敘事馬拉松

聯合國開發計劃署（UNDP）和未來事務管理局共同發起的“2060 未來城市敘事馬拉松”第十章解鎖！本活動共邀請十余位國內、外知名科幻作家，圍繞“2060年超大型城市”創作短篇。回顧往期。

加拿大科幻作家江艾的《鄉土樹的無彩眼鏡》講述了生態村集會中，破碎眼鏡意外聯結起兩位青年的溫暖故事，以農業藝術裝置、無障礙城市設計與包容共享的社區生態為載體，既詮釋了可持續發展目標（SDGs）9：產業、創新和基礎設施；又通過平等參與、無障礙關懷與多元包容的社群關系，彰顯可持續發展目標（SDGs）10：減少不平等的核心追求。

本系列作品正在未來局微信、微博賬號同步連載，更多科幻作者對可持續未來的想象，敬請期待！

Un-Tinted Glasses of A Village-Grown Tree

By Ai Jiang

The 20th annual gathering of S-City’s ecovillages takes place at the Capitol Dome as it always does, and of course, with an event of this size, there is always something that goes awry across the week that it spans.

This year, an hour before Rimeng is set to go on stage for Ecovillage X’s presentations that focus on outlining their dome’s environmental changes and agricultural endeavours (their dome mimics rural Xiamen with some of its urban aspects), scientific findings and innovations, artistic creations and performances, among others, she loses her glasses somewhere in the wheat fields stretching in the distance in soft waves of gold, a mirage, though not of a desert but of a vibrant oasis—a part of this year’s agricultural art installation. Or so she thought.

Regardless, now through her eyes, the world is a blur.

Komay looks at the back of his sculpture, tilting his head from side to side. It’s perfect. A perfectly shaped tree that was made of every other plant outside of an actual tree, but there’s something missing.

He wants to fix it, even though he doesn’t know what needs to be fixed. But there’s little time now because it’s about to become a part of the installation for all the villagers to see year-round. As he wheels himself behind the art transporter assisting him, he takes a long, deep breath.

He’ll have to let go.

There is always something that can be fixed. An artist’s work is unending, forever flawed, and he will simply (not very simply in reality) need to learn to embrace imperfection, just like his father, his grandmother, who always seem to have a fierce rawness to their art, something both emotional and unruly, whereas his perfectionist instincts have always resulted in his pieces garnering attention from the critics for being “too-pristine.”

As Komay and the art transporter near a fork in the path, Komay hears the crunch of his wheels running over something he failed to notice over the chaos of his internal turmoil.

He stops, wheels backwards, and notices a pair of glasses with its lens now shattered. The art transporter halts, walks over to pick up the broken glasses. “Wait a moment. I’ll toss these out.”

Komay raises his hand, somehow feeling transfixed by the glasses. “I’ll keep them.”

Rimeng clutches onto the rails and make her way back to the stage having failed to locate her glasses and running out of time to attempt her search further. She walks, slow, down the path leading towards the presentation stage at the center of the Capitol Dome.

The blinking light guides that line the paths don’t help in her case without her glasses because of her poor astigmatism, which throws off her distance judgement, but they are wonderful for her friend Marwell because of the way they change colours during drills, emergencies, and to warn of incoming traffic which are hard to notice due to their hearing impairment.

Rimeng passes a motion sensor audio guide motion voicing directions to the stage as well as the pathways that would lead back towards the various domes—the closest to this intersection being Ecovillages H, I, and J.

Komay rests next to a small, quiet box space backstage where someone has tinted its usually transparent glass walls to a deep gray for privacy for their prayers. Cradled in Komay’s lap is the broken pair of glasses. On standby near the curtains is his art transporter and his sculpture. Komay wheels himself to his art, looks out from the curtains at the side of the stage. Catching his eyes are two people, dynamic where the rest of the audience remain more static; one is gesturing profusely, and the other muttering frantically, squinting as though they’d been angered or smelled something spoilt.

Then, one hands to other a pair of glasses.

Komay looks down at the identical pair in his lap, then smiles.

Marwell hands Rimeng the backup pair of glasses Rimeng had passed them in case of emergencies, and for good reason, it seems. But this backup pair is something Rimeng always forgets because she’s never needed it thus far.

Almost all 150 of Ecovillage X’s villagers were present on stage, except for a handful—one about to give birth, another down with a poor cold, and a third who overslept their alarm but given their chronic migraines, their family decided it would be best to let them rest after gently checking on their health stats before making their way over to the Capitol Dome. They would do their presentation virtually later in the week.

Marwell rushes back on the stage, eyes fixated on the captions being generated by the presenter as their hands fly across the space in front of them for the sign language interpretation broadcasted on another screen.

Unfortunately, Rimeng missed her portion of her Ecovillage’s presentation on the importance of “small talk” and mundane interactions. She flags down the organizer to see if she can present at the end.

“There is a brief intermission that we’re ahead of schedule for before the presentation of the next art installation addition,” the organizer whispers.

Rimeng shakes the organizers hand, thanks her, while pushing up her glasses.

After Rimeng’s presentation, the members of Ecovillage X file from the stage. Rimeng catches a familiar glint as the art installation piece rolls past her, followed by its artist on a beautifully painted wheelchair.

Rimeng returns to the audience and stares up in awe at the sculpture now on stage.

It is a large sculpture of a sprawling tree comprising of interwoven plants carefully directed in their growth to resemble a hefty trunk and wide-reaching branches. At the center, as though the tree had a face, sits Rimeng’s glasses, cracked but not yet shattered, a million spidering lines crawl across each lens.

The artist Komay smiles as he presents the newest addition to the Capitol Dome’s collections and archives—Tinted Glasses of A Village-Grown Tree.

*注：

1、本系列內容均為科幻創作，所有情節、設定均為虛構想象，僅為對 2060 年可持續城市的創意暢想，不代表現實發展趨勢及聯合國相關立場；

2、本次發布的科幻作品版權均歸屬原作者所有，未經作者書面授權，任何單位或個人不得擅自進行改編、復制、傳播、剽竊等侵權行為，否則將依法追究相關法律責任。

責任編輯：趙越

排版編輯：孫曉羽

審 校：曾心謠