What I Have

What I Have

Brian Freschi
Anna Ferrari

Sweat drips into my eyes. They burn.

I run a cloth over them that smells of the weight of the day.

I look up. The sun’s rays filter through the leaves. They bathe my face.

Somewhere on TV, I don’t know where, they were saying that in Japan they call it Komorebi.

That sense of inner peace that only nature can give you.

I breathe.

Sign: Green Hill

My name is Kaiton, Kai sometimes. I have lived in the city since I was born.

It is not a choice. I was born here because someone decided so.

Life is often sadistic, unoriginal and rarely listens to preferences.

Like my parents. Like my grandparents. My job is to tend to this garden.

I haven’t known anything else so far. I don’t know if there is anything else.

My name is Kaiton, Kai sometimes.

And this is my last day of work.

The clouds hug each other, they run together, but they all have the same color.

And when they come back tomorrow, instead of this garden, they will find a couple of vending machines.

As if we had never existed.

Contribute as long as necessary and, then, be forgotten.

I live on “Hungry Worm Street”, where we crawl to the end of everything.

One bar. A grocery store. A few offices.

Suspended existences in cubicles, just waiting to get out, hoping for a change.

Sometimes, I think the clouds have already conquered the sky and descended to the ground, painting everything gray.

The red, the yellow, the green . . . They exist in the tired dreams, at best.

When I worked at the garden I could touch something different.

I’m cold. I reflect on the bills, on my parents, on the hobbies I don’t have.

Without a job, time tangles on itself and thoughts press on my temples.

And if I can’t touch anymore, at least I can focus on images.

Like a creeper plant breaking the city with its woody arms.

Of spaces where we can actually breathe.

But even without being too drastic. . . I imagine a door.

Not the door of a house, but one that leads me elsewhere.

A place where you don’t need to knock.

Made of all the colors I had forgotten.

Where I breathe.

Suddenly, my apartment is bigger than it was.

I leave what was my life. But I know what awaits me.

And that I’m not alone.

I see them. Buildings embellished with foliage of trees, flowers, bushes.

A city that is reborn green.

This is my hope.

This is all I have now.

WHAT IS ‘NBS’ ABOUT THIS COMIC?

Green space can be a challenge in dense cities. Yet cities need more green space for a variety of reasons: cooling the temperatures, providing place for people to enjoy, and habitat for biodiversity. What are the options? How about all that space of top of buildings? Could there be green space up there? Yes, there could. Not everywhere, perhaps; there can be limitations of architecture and costs, but there could be many more green roofs than there are now. And they could really help many of our sustainability challenges in cities, such as cooling the air, absorbing rain water, and, as this comic says, providing habitat for animals, including insects.