By late summer the vines had swallowed Congress. Figs, muscadines, thick leaves pressing into glass. The buildings still caught the sunset, but only in seams between branches. Kids tossed fruit in slow arcs over the bike lanes. Nobody worried about dinner anymore. Hunger had gone mythic, something grandparents talked about to make children finish their bread.
On the balcony above the book-and-wine shop we held story club. From there you could see the roofs sway like a parade. I opened the Lexicon on my laptop. A grid of green tiles bloomed, each one a word someone had planted.
“Show me again,” Iris said. She was new. Hair tied back with a ribbon cut from a shirt. She traced the rim of her glass like she wanted the city to hum.
“It starts with a suggestion,” I told her. “A seed. You give it a name, a one-line gloss. It drops into Germination.”
I clicked on Cicada Mercy. The panel opened.
The soft pause we give for the loudness of others.
“People donate,” I said. “Not to me. To the term. The balance is a promise. If a story tags it, the promise begins to pay.”
“How?” Iris asked.
“Three streams. Membership dues, anthology sales, the city’s dividend. Writers split the base. Tagged terms earn separately. Coiners get credit, backers take micro shares. Anyone can reinvest.”
Below us students carried pears to a free table. A boy missed the catch. His friend grabbed it behind his back. They both laughed.
“So if I coin a term and someone uses it, I make money,” Iris said.
“Yes. Or you leave it in the system and let it grow.”
“What are the big ones this month?”
I scrolled. Tiles flickered. Windfall Bridges. Bruised Sunlight. Library of Breath.
“These will make the cut,” I said. “Writers chase balances the way cooks chase ripe fruit.”
She laughed. “So money changes the taste.”
“It changes attention,” I said. “Attention is a spice. You still have to cook.”
By nightfall people had gathered with notebooks, fruit, bottles. Mendy brought loquats. Sterling dropped his stack of crimson tabs. The prompt was one word from Germination and one from the Orchard. We had twenty minutes.
I chose Windfall Bridges and a shy tile called Paper Lantern Weather. I wrote about a woman under the Congress Bridge carrying a lantern made of grocery paper and inked wishes. She waited for a footpath that only opened when enough people needed it. A man told her it was superstition. She said the city held itself together only when stories did. He asked who paid for that. She tapped her lantern. Everyone with a little light.
We read aloud. Sterling wrote about loyalty. Mendy wrote about a child who never knew hunger. Iris stayed quiet, watching our faces.
On the way home along Shoal Creek I uploaded my draft, tagged the terms. The Lexicon chimed.
Two nights later the issue went live. Twelve stories under one cover. Each one trailing an arbor of linked terms. Readers picked them up on trains, in orchards, at lunch. The Orchard filled like rain.
The next morning Iris appeared on chat. I coined a term, she wrote.
Tendril Arithmetic.
How vines measure the distance between strangers.
I sent it five dollars. By noon the balance had passed ninety. Someone left a note in the ledger: Thank you for this.
A week later Iris turned in her draft. A school built along a skywalk. Children learned counting from the clasp of a grapevine curling the rail. Subtraction meant walking a stairwell thick with mint and listening for what was gone. It was small, luminous. We accepted it.
Dividend Day came with a market under the overpass. The air was sweet with pears and rain. A band played in the shade. We projected the Orchard as the quarter closed. When the clock hit zero, the system split. Writers got their base. Coiners and backers took shares. You could watch generosity ripple.
Iris stood near the loquat crate, phone glowing. “It made more than I thought,” she said.
“You can withdraw,” I told her. “Or reinvest.”
She smiled. “Half for Tendril Arithmetic. Half for something almost empty.”
We scrolled until we found it. Doorstep Pollen. The trace of the places that want you. She tapped the money through.
At twilight we held a small ceremony. We read the names from the ledger. We thanked the city for accepting our odd bargain. The arts office said our stories helped public health. People slept better when they read them. They fought less. They carried less fear. So the city kept sending us a seed fund.
That night I reread Iris’s piece. The children counting loops of vine, learning distances that held instead of pushing away. Write what you feel when the vine finds you and does not let go, the teacher had told them.
Later Iris leaned against the vines, voice low. “I did not expect it to feel like this,” she said.
“Like what?”
“Like investing in my neighbors.”
I thought of the grid of tiles, balances rising and falling. A bridge that only appears when you need it. A lantern you carry when the forecast is split.
“That was the plan,” I said.
She slipped a loquat into her pocket. “What’s next month?”
“Common Wealth,” I said, typing it into the Lexicon. A blank tile blinked into place, waiting. A breeze came warm with figs. Somewhere a kid shouted. A pear arced over the bike lane. A hand reached out and caught it before it touched the ground.
🚮 W.A.S.T.E.: Words Assisting Sustainable Transformation & Ecology
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Bat Weather | |
| Bruised Sunlight | |
| Cicada Mercy | |
| Common Wealth | |
| Doorstep Pollen | |
| 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. |
| Historic Hunger | In this section, we explore a future where hunger is not just addressed but completely eradicated. By considering innovative solutions like those pioneered by ReLeaf, we can see how these initiatives are transforming not only our cities but the very structure of our societies. Hunger, a challenge that has existed since the beginning of human history, is being tackled directly by ReLeaf in Austin, Texas. Their revolutionary vertical gardens are more than symbols of urban revitalization—they offer a glimpse of a future where nutritious, locally-grown food is available to everyone. Through a series of thoughtful articles, we examine how ReLeaf's work is laying the foundation for a world free of hunger. The potential impact goes beyond food; it suggests a profound social transformation where the basic human need for nourishment is universally met. Imagine what a society without hunger could look like. How would our interactions change if the fear and uncertainty of securing the next meal disappeared? Could this foster greater empathy, kindness, and community spirit? ReLeaf’s initiatives give us a glimpse of this possible future. Their work shows that the answers to long-standing issues like hunger are within our reach, inspiring us to envision a world where human dignity and mutual respect become the standard. Join us as we explore this hopeful vision of a future free from hunger. |
| Lexicon Orchard | |
| Library of Breath | |
| 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. |
| Paper Lantern Weather | The drifting atmosphere when light itself seems to hang in fragile vessels, swaying between celebration and remembrance, guiding travelers through thresholds of change. |
| Tendril Arithmetic | |
| Vertical Garden | Dive into our Vertical Garden section where creativity meets sustainability. This is a celebration of the innovative approach of integrating plants into urban environments in a vertical format, a testament to human resourcefulness in the face of limited space. Here, you'll discover a vast array of ideas on how to transform would-be waste materials into sustainable, beautiful, and thriving gardens. From DIY guides on upcycling aluminum cans into modular planters, to detailed articles and SolarPunk fiction exploring the transformative power of these gardens in various settings like Austin's schools and cityscape, the Vertical Garden category provides a deep dive into a green future. Through the articles and stories in this section, we share and explore concepts, techniques, and innovations that align with a sustainable, circular economy, which views waste as an asset rather than a problem. Whether you are looking to start your own vertical garden project or just enjoy immersing yourself in hopeful visions of a green urban future, you're in the right place. Join us as we explore and reimagine our relationship with nature and urban space, one vertical garden at a time. |
| Vintage | A modest bookstore on Rosewood whose shelves sometimes rearrange into corridors, known as a threshold site where maps reveal hidden paths and readers become co-authors of the city. |
| Windfall Bridges |