When I was given my slot, I was told, I would be gone soon. This was 6 consignments before. My slot was numbered 10 and I knew, every consignment had 500 new items. The last consignment that filled the stock room came a week ago.

‘Stock Number 5032 and group ID 5032, requesting the buyer to come to the counter for payment…’ A computer-generated female voice announced through speakers.

An elderly looking man stood up from the customers' lounge and walked towards the counter. People with enough wealth, held a reasonable social rank and had acquaintance with people in power could only be as less spoiled as him by looks. Minutes later I saw him going through the payment process by swiping the card he held in his right hand.

I knew the guy labelled item 5032. He could be item 5032 to the store but to me, he was Adrien. At the store, his legs were trunks and trunks were legs, his hands were branches and branches were hands, his head was a round beautiful flower and that flower had two brown eyes. I have seen his brown eyes before but in the store in the backdrop of those beautiful petals, they looked like humming bees.

Back in the camp, Adrien was 10 months old. His father was Bob and his mother was Lucy. Adrien had an elder brother Browny, who was 10 years old. All of us stayed in the same camp. We all suffered from the same hunger, sleepless nights, zero privacy, and insect bites.

I was the only child to my parents and I had lost both of them in a civil war that broke out when I was 5 years old. I grew up in an orphanage. Post the last war that ruined the entire planet, the able ones flew to other planets while others were retained in the camps.

There was a shortage of food, medical, and water supplies in the camp. People were in dire need of supplies and were willing to do anything to get a gallon of pure drinking water or just wheat bread. Some people saw it as an opportunity. They somehow managed to bring supplies by risking their lives. They were seen as heroes. People gradually became dependent on those who brought supplies which were usually food, water, drugs, and medicines well past their expiry date. This eventually led to the rise of numerous small gangs who fought against each other for establishing control over the camp. People belonging to one gang were restricted from interacting with people of other gangs.

At the camp, Browny and Adrien were the only ones I was acquainted with as we all came under one gang. We used to play together. I never thought about the hidden mistake I committed by doing so. They were, technically, by blood of the same family. Even though I was considered one among them, technically, by blood I was an orphan. This was one significant difference but it didn’t strike me then.

Sector 12 was nearby to the camp where we stayed. It had ruins of the war ranging from tanks to fighter jets, shells to unexploded bombs. The tanks and jets were not functional but some of them were structurally intact up to 70%. So we used to frequent them. I used to be the pilot when Browny was co-pilot and Adrien was our passenger. In those ruins, we saw ourselves as captains and the last survivors fighting to regain control of our imaginary galaxy. It was fun. No doubt about it.

Camp life, on the other hand, was hard. It was not getting enough supplies. Much of the earth’s atmosphere was polluted by war and overconsumption of natural resources. At one point, nature had turned its back at all of us. Initially, rationing was introduced and as days passed, even that turned insufficient.

“This one is a piece we are holding for a long time now,” the salesman Andrew’s words brought me back to the reality.

“So long! What is wrong with this one?” the customer asked.

“Honestly speaking, this piece is absolutely awesome. But there is no group ID for this,” Andrew said.

I looked up at the customer. He was all thoughtful as he took time and glanced all over me. “That’s a problem. No one these days has the luxury of space for just a single item,” he said before moving on to the next piece.

My survival was dependent on a buyer expressing interest in me. If none picked me, I was to be scrapped or broken into pieces and buried or burnt.

“Will I be gone soon?”

Paul’s question interrupted me. He was item number 5036.

“I was told, you have been here since the first consignment,” he said. “So, I guess you have a fair idea, who would take how long,” he added further.

I saw him in his eyes. He was erected on a pot. In the camp, Paul was a five-foot man with manly looks and straight long hair. He belonged to the same gang as I was. But, in the store, his legs were trunk and his trunk were legs, his hands were branches and his branches were hands. His straight long hair was nothing more than mere husk surrounding the stony layer of a coconut.

“Do you know your group ID?” I asked him.

“Yes. 5036”

Paul was one of the few handsome inmates in the camp. All I knew was, he survived with his father and mother in the camp. So I was sure he was not an orphan like me. I looked around him. I didn’t see item number 5037 and 5038. With the group ID attached to his item number, I assumed Paul’s parents were not brought to the store.
“If you are with a group ID, you would be gone soon. Don’t worry,” I assured. Paul didn’t say anything. There was a momentary pause.

“You should have married someone in the camp,” he said.

I didn’t say anything. As long as I was in the camp, it never struck me. Actually, he was correct. Had I married someone in the camp and raised a kid, by now, I could have got a group ID.

When nature gave up on all of us, it didn’t come as a complete surprise. But when it happened, war and pollution worsened the situation. There was no food, no fresh pure water to drink and no fresh oxygen to inhale. The soil was poisoned due to pesticides, intensive farming, chemical agents, microplastics, ammunitions, electronic wastes and so on. People in the camp were starving to death. If not dead, they succumbed to diseases and sickness easily.

That was when IK seeds were given to everyone in the camp. Everyone chose to take it even though there was no pressure to taking it. Not all were given the same type of seed. Seeds were chosen based on so many other factors. People who were in a family were given first preference. Rumours said that decorative ornamental seeds were picked in high priority. So, by the time it was my turn, all the ‘good’ seeds were gone. I was given one from the leftovers. Shortly after me, the seeds ran out in stock. This caused several to die in the camp.

The idea behind the seeds was to directly extract food from the light source, sun. With the advent of IK seeds, we were told that scarcity of quality food and drinking water would no longer be a problem in the camp. The IK seeds fused animal cells with plant cells. It gave us all, chloroplast, with which we no longer had to worry about food for survival. In fact, the seeds amplified the overall immunity of the hybrids multifold. This took off the need for medicines and thereby lessened the dependency on the gang leaders in the camp. Though the gang leaders didn’t welcome the seeds in the beginning, succumbing to the shortage of supplies, they finally yielded themselves to the seeds.

But the seeds gave us all trunks, branches, and leaves and turned us all into plants and trees. Children were turned into plants while grown-up adults were turned into trees. Once turned into a plant or a tree, we were called ‘hybrids’. Once taken an IK seed, plant life sprouted from the skin, flowers literally bloomed from the self-inflicted scars. It was an amusing sight to see a decorative plant exhibiting the abilities of a human being or a human being exhibiting the abilities of a plant. In their garden every day, who would not want to see flowers sprouting out from the tip of a girl's finger, real grapes in place of human eyes and strawberry plants sprouting from the juicy lips of women? Real human fingers became aerial prop roots which later matured into the thick, woody trunk and became indistinguishable from the primary trunk like how it did in a banyan tree.

Then the thing about a group came into the picture.

Depending upon the genetic orientation, people who belonged to the same family, tend to develop similar beauty features post-IK seeds intake. This favoured them at the store. Customers who wanted to decorate their homes with plants preferred hybrids of similar genetic orientation and this favoured hybrids from the same family. They were identified as ‘groups’ and were given a group ID. Because I was an orphan, I didn’t have a group ID.

‘Stock Number 5036 and group ID 5036, requesting the buyer to come to the counter for payment…’

Followed by the announcement on the speakers, Paul was moved from his slot. Paul wished me good luck before leaving. Honestly, that only irritated me. I have had several such wishes and yet, none truly worked.

The problem with this at my end was short term connections. Every consignment deployed new hybrids at the store but I didn’t get to stay longer with those new hybrids. Short term connections never led to any kind of emotional bonding with the other hybrid. The other problem was a preconceived idea. At one point, my overstay in the store by itself became a valid reason for customers to not go for me. After the first consignment, new hybrids somehow began to think, I was never going to leave the store.

At the store, I even cultivated a habit to measure the depth of preconceived ideas the other hybrids had about me. It was, counting the number of words a hybrid shared with me. As long as Paul was around, he had shared 38 words with me but he had shared 532 words with the hybrid to his left. Whenever I recalled my short conversations with other hybrids, I realised that the number of words they shared with me was always far lesser when compared to the words they shared with other hybrids. I could be wrong on this calculation part. Not just the counting but the idea itself could be wrong. But I was sure, I was not treated by other hybrids in a healthy manner.

As time passed, the other hybrids became threats to me rather than opportunities. Whenever I was extended an offer to join them in a conversational dance, I was sure my voice would be muffled and choked and I might be asked to repeat every sentence of mine. On the other hand, silence gave me comfort, free of judgment and a temporary escape. But I ended up blaming myself for not being a participant in the happenings around, for keeping myself away from getting involved with mates. Though I realised, the fear was irrational, I rationalised it by starting to believe I no longer cared for others but deep inside, I knew, I did.

At one point, I didn't want other hybrids to claw at the edges of my existence, to fracture my silence and to recognise me. This whole thing felt shameful and alarming and over time, these feelings radiated outward making me seek more isolation. It left me estranged. To break it, I was to defeat whatever made me build these in the first place but the challenge was, I was clueless what were they.

I dreamed of self-containment and invisibility. I wanted to be anonymous. I wanted to be a ghost gliding through the crowds stealthily with no body and no shadow so that I left no footprints. That way, I thought, I could conceal myself while extracting the best that a social gathering had to offer.

As long as nature supported humans, it was a common understanding that innocent loners were seven times more likely than the others to be wrongly convicted in a crime. I sincerely hoped that with the nature taking back the support it once rendered unconditionally, with mankind struggling to survive and almost driven to extinction, all these discriminations would become utterly meaningless. But inside the store, I saw the same discrimination emerging in a different colour and shade.

“This one is a piece we are holding for a long time now.” I recognized that phrase as I have heard it so many times before and quickly realised that Andrew had almost memorised it. He brought a customer with him.

“Daniel, this one is, I think, what you are looking for,” Andrew said as Daniel carefully ran his eyes all over me.

I knew what awaited me.

“I will take it,” Daniel said.

I was surprised and shocked. Andrew’s face glittered like a thousand-watt bulb. I was sure, he was going to receive a double allowance.

‘Stock Number 10 and group ID 0, requesting the buyer to come to the counter for payment….’

I heard the announcement shortly after. It was a phrase I longed to hear from the day I came to the store in the first consignment. I looked all around in pride. Finally, someone got the needed guts and inspiration to think out of the box and gone past the monotonous average perceptions shared by most others in the store. I felt deeply honoured. I was unable to express my gratitude. Other hybrids stared at me in surprise. It looked as if, none of the hybrids expected it. Amidst the surprised and shocked gestures of so many hybrids, I was taken to the delivery port, wrapped around in a velvet cloth and was put into a wooden box.
I wanted to give all I could to Daniel.

After what appeared to be a long three-hour journey, I was finally unloaded at the recess of a reasonably big home in New Delhi, India. The backyard was not that big but I figured, it had enough space to hold me. I was erected at a corner of the backyard. I pressed my foot firmly on the ground and spread my limbs.
I liked the home’s backyard. It was clean and tidy. In the wide 745 square feet backyard, there was only one hybrid. I realised I had never seen him in the camp. But he looked like he could be a war veteran. I could make that out because he was erected on one trunk instead of two. I presumed, before turning into a hybrid, he must have survived with one leg. I saw a lantern in the backyard. From its yellow flame, I inferred that the atmosphere was not that contaminated at Daniel’s home. To me, it was a surprise. I was under the impression that such less contaminated places no longer existed on the planet.

Even though I was among five hundred other hybrids and a bunch of men managing the store, I never felt valued. But here in the backyard of Daniel’s home, even though I was left alone with the company of just another sleeping hybrid, I felt contained, valued and visible. I thought I could be on my own without fear of being misjudged or misconceived or misunderstood at Daniel’s backyard.

Moments later, Daniel brought a wooden box using a portable hand truck. The box was tied to the truck using nylon ropes. Daniel undid the nylon ropes, separated the truck and kept it in the storeroom. I wondered if he would initiate a conversation with me or should I start up a conversation with him. After confronting myself for a few seconds, I chose to not disturb him and wait on him.

Daniel went inside his home through the back door. I wondered what could be inside the wooden box. The wooden box didn’t carry the sign of the store. That eliminated the possibility of a hybrid from the list of what could be expected from the box. I thought of several things but none of my guesses were conclusive considering the dimension of the box. Therefore, I thought to wait for Daniel to unveil it.

Daniel came back to the backyard with a toolbox. He took out a screwdriver and a hammer. He used both to unscrew the wooden box and opened it. It opened up to a wooden table. The four-legged wooden table sounded like an item of antique furniture. It had cabinets and drawers on either side. It had geometric embossed decoupage panels in metallic Facet finish and seven drawers on the working side with embedded vertical metal hardware. One side of the furniture was completely broken. He took a measuring tape and measured the side of the furniture that was damaged and noted the measurements in a piece of paper.

He then took an axe from the toolbox and walked towards me. It reminded me of the seed I was asked to take at the camp, consuming which I became a hybrid. At first, I was not sure what kind of seed was given to me. It was actually the antique furniture that helped me to recollect, it was an oak tree seed. By the time, it was all making sense to me, Daniel thrust his sharp axe on my shoulder. My right hand fell on the floor.

He took it to the wood cutting machine. I understood why he purchased me at the store. He needed oak wood to fix his antique table and among the five hundred hybrids, I was the only hybrid that was half human–half oak tree.