Night Shift in the Vertical Farm

At two a.m., the basil towers breathe blue, aisles of stacked weather, rain piped through plastic veins. Fans comb the dark with a low, unending ocean, and every leaf turns one silver ear toward light.

I walk between climates, clipping mint like green sparks, my gloves smelling of pennies and crushed thunder. Outside, the city sleeps under sodium frost; inside, strawberries ripen in January.

Roots dangle in clear troughs, pale as handwriting, drinking equations from a humming spine. The sensors blink, small constellations deciding when morning should begin for each row.

By dawn the truck backs in, white door yawning, and crates slide out like pages from a warm book. On the roof, first sun catches the condensate, a thousand brief planets, then nothing but day.