A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot, #1)

by Becky Chambers

Sometimes, a person reaches a point in their life when it becomes absolutely essential to get the fuck out of the city.

There was music, yes, and birds with melodic opinions, yes, but also the electric whoosh of monorails, the swoop swoop of balcony wind turbines, the endless din of people talking, talking, talking.

endless stacks of humanity, packed in so close that the vines that covered their engineered casein frames could lock tendrils with one another. The intense feeling of containment within the City became intolerable.

Find the strength to do both.

They fell asleep in starlight, breathing in the muddled snap of a hundred spices, listening to the gurgle of water pumps feeding happy roots in little pots.

hymenopteran labyrinths, rodential panic rooms, life-giving airways sculpted by the traffic of worms, hopeful spiders’ hunting cabins, crash pads for nomadic beetles, trees shyly locking toes with one another.