Shoal Creek remembers.
Its memory is limestone-deep,
older than the city,
older than the word city.
But now, the city breathes different air.
Vines drape balconies.
Cypress knees rise through pavement cracks.
Bats roost in the eaves of old condos now thick with ivy.
And on the vertical skins of high-rises,
ecosystems hum with chlorophyll and chirp.
It was Riley’s world now.
Guano harvester.
Climber of walls.
Tender of the wild that once fled from buildings — now returned to them.
Each night, she ascended Austin’s reborn towers,
Echo at her shoulder —
a bat she once rescued, now her companion and guide.
He chirped not just to her,
but to something else.
Because Riley had begun to notice it:
certain nights, the air would ripple.
Echo would hover, still mid-flight,
and the garden-laced city would feel translucent —
as if another world pressed its face against ours
for just a breath.
The Bandwidth.
She learned the name from a whisper
beneath The Independent,
Austin’s tallest tower and latest harvest site.
A voice — not spoken, but felt —
inside the green-lit atrium where ferns grew out of escalator wells.
"Human civilization exists on a narrow band of perception,"
it said,
"but we are not alone here."
It wasn’t aliens.
Not in the way sci-fi imagined.
It was parallel presence —
sentient species sharing the same space,
but rarely the same frequency.
Sometimes, a garden brought you closer.
Sometimes, a bat’s chirp unlocked a window.
Echo was a key.
As Riley scaled the Jenga Tower’s outer mesh,
Echo let out a note
that refracted through glass
and struck a seam in the air.
And for a moment,
Riley saw them:
figures of mist and mycelium,
tending gardens that overlapped with hers,
harvesting not guano, but memory
from spores drifting through moonlight.
One of them turned.
Not surprised —
as if they'd been waiting.
“Shoal is a threshold,” it said.
Riley blinked.
The city snapped back into focus.
Echo zipped past her, unfazed.
The moment had passed —
but it had marked her.
She collected her samples,
fed the garden-compost array,
and sent readings back to ReLeaf HQ.
But her mind wandered to Orange,
the man who stayed when history forgot.
Perhaps he too had heard the bandwidth hum.
The limestone remembers.
The bats know the harmonics.
And now Riley, too, tunes in.
Not every night.
Just sometimes.
When the sunset hits just right,
and the green buildings sing.
Notes from the Bandwidth
- Shoal Creek is a frequency node — one of many.
- Echo is not just a bat, but a signal amplifier.
- Guano is not just fertilizer, but memory condensate.
- ReLeaf cooperatives unknowingly steward the tuning forks of planetary consciousness.
- Civilization is not a timeline.
It is a bandwidth.
And when it synchronizes with others — even for a heartbeat —
new worlds bloom.
🚮 W.A.S.T.E.: Words Assisting Sustainable Transformation & Ecology
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Central | The city’s neural hub where signals converge and disperse, a shifting nexus of memory and command that feels less like a place and more like a living pulse guiding Austin’s every turn. |
| Echo | |
| Future Austin | Future Austin invites you to explore a luminous vision of the city’s tomorrow—where imagination and reality intertwine to create a thriving, sustainable urban landscape. Here, grassroots ingenuity and cutting-edge technology power communities, transforming Austin into a place of boundless possibility. Through insightful articles and evocative Organic Fiction, you’ll glimpse futures shaped by innovators like ReLeaf, whose bold strategies—such as Vertical Garden Fairs in schools—seed green revolutions in unexpected places. From unconventional movements like Trash Magic reimagining music distribution, to fictional worlds alive with unseen energy and harmony, this collection offers both practical inspiration and immersive storytelling. Whether you’re drawn to actionable sustainability or simply wish to lose yourself in tales of a resilient, radiant future, Future Austin points toward the city we could create—and the one we must. |
| Guano | |
| Organic Media and Fiction | The rapid pace of urbanization and its environmental impact has inspired various speculative genres in literature and media. Organic Media and Fiction, a recent addition, offers a refreshing counter-narrative to dystopian futures, focusing on optimistic, sustainable societies powered by renewable energies. ReLeaf, an Organic Media and Fiction-inspired platform, epitomizes this genre by blending reality with narratives that envision a world where humans coexist harmoniously with nature and technology. ReLeaf's ethos is rooted in the belief that a hopeful future of sustainable living is not just an ideal but a reality. It combines engaging storytelling, visual arts, and direct action to showcase the possibilities of an Organic Media and Fiction future. By merging immersive narratives with tangible solutions, ReLeaf serves as both a creative outlet and a catalyst for change. The narratives in ReLeaf are set in cities that integrate renewable energy and green technology into their architecture, infrastructure, and daily life. From urban gardens atop skyscrapers to solar-powered public transport, these stories offer a glimpse of future urban landscapes grounded in existing technologies and practices. They provide an encouraging perspective on how our cities could evolve by amplifying sustainable practices we are already exploring. ReLeaf's stories feature diverse, inclusive, and community-oriented societies, emphasizing social justice, community empowerment, and equitable resource distribution. These narratives reflect societal structures that could foster a balanced coexistence, highlighting the importance of these values in creating a sustainable future. Beyond storytelling, ReLeaf engages in direct action, promoting real-world initiatives that echo Organic Media and Fiction principles. By supporting community-led renewable energy projects and sustainable urban farming, ReLeaf bridges the gap between the Organic Media and Fiction vision and our present reality, making the dream of a sustainable future feel achievable. ReLeaf broadens the understanding of the Organic Media and Fiction genre by presenting a balanced blend of reality and narrative. It underscores that Organic Media and Fiction is not just a literary genre or aesthetic movement, but a lens through which we can view and shape our future. The Organic Media and Fiction vision put forth by ReLeaf invites us to imagine, innovate, and create a future where sustainability is the norm. By intertwining fiction with reality, it presents Organic Media and Fiction as a plausible future, offering a hopeful counterpoint to narratives of environmental doom. ReLeaf helps us believe in—and strive for—a future where humans live in harmony with nature and technology. |
| ReLeaf | Welcome to the ReLeaf Cooperative, where we dive deep into an innovative and revolutionary model of sustainability and community building. ReLeaf is a pioneer in developing scalable engagement strategies that foster community participation and work towards addressing pressing social issues such as homelessness. In this category, you'll find articles and Organic Media detailing ReLeaf's groundbreaking initiatives and visions. From creating sustainable gardens in Austin elementary schools to providing transparency in a world often shrouded in deception, ReLeaf serves as a beacon of hope and innovation. ReLeaf's approach of intertwining real and fictional elements in their work—such as characters, materials, techniques, and labor—sets a new standard for cooperatives worldwide. Its business model, which compensates for labor and knowledge contributions, creates a lasting benefit and helps people who have historically been marginalized. By meeting people with compassion, as resources in need of support instead of liabilities, ReLeaf has shown that everyone has the potential to contribute to society meaningfully. Explore this section to discover how ReLeaf is redefining the way we approach social issues and sustainability, with stories of inspiration, innovation, and hope. |
| Riley | |
| Shoal Creek |
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| The Independent |