Sharing Air

Imagine a world where you are tied to an oxygen tank at every moment and sealed in a body suit from head to toe. Fresh air is a rarity, so people pay small sums for bottled air of an earlier vintage, which they can sniff with their headgear off for a quick thrill. Elders tell the young about their ancestors, who lived and breathed a natural mix of gases, and they describe it as the habit of savages. Life in this world has its own social pressures. Everyone seems to be heading to "sharing air" parties, and the ToxiClub society is said to have more members than ever. Whether you could stomach an evening there is a question the story leaves to the reader. Manjula Padmanabhan builds this future in order to look hard at an ironic, unsettling situation, and the world she sketches feels uncomfortably plausible. It is speculative fiction that finds its sharpest points by taking present habits to an extreme.