Made from a curious canned 'message bean', two nail clippers and a plastic dome from the packaging of a toy car, this is the OxyBurst3000: A product from the future from which the contained plant releases a surge of genuine oxygen which is inhaled by the user.
This is the short story I wrote to accompany and set the context for this weird little thing:
There was a slight click as the two levers were squeezed and each tiny mechanism slotted into place. Like a contented cat, the can emitted a soft purr as its energy was gathered and the little plant shivered as though somewhere, someone was walking over its grave. I inhaled deeply and let the clean smooth oxygen occupy my whole body. I closed my eyes. The familiar yet forgotten gas seeped into every cell in my body and my mouth creased to form a smile: just for a moment there was green grass, miles and miles of it. It undulated with the earth beneath it, dipping its toes into the cool streams and touching the clouds on the horizon. I bowed my head and opened my eyes slowly. Maybe the grass would be there. Maybe it would be embracing my hot tired feet. Maybe. The all too familiar red dirt greeted me as my eyes opened and the unsullied oxygen left my body as quickly as it had entered.
The air here on Mars was stale, a controlled atmosphere full of synthetic oxygen and thick with melancholy. On a clear night you could see Earth. It was a pin prick of light in the black velvet curtain of space, a grain of sand in the hourglass of the universe. Sometimes at night I would come here and sit between the big red rock and Nanna’s house, hug my legs to my chest and rest my chin on my knees. I would take my fingers and form an ‘O’ from which I would frame the Earth, delicately. And as I sat, silently watching, I would always wonder ‘What did Earth do to deserve that?’
