17.19. In the Orchard of Official Emotions
Location: Bureau of Cultural Processing, Orchard Division, South Nara
Description:
Just beyond the civic district sits an orchard where trees are cultivated not for fruit, but for emotional clarity. Each tree corresponds to an officially approved sentiment: reverence, grief, national affection, procedural calm. Juna recognizes the weeping apricot grove from an old propaganda painting. Judai touches one branch and feels a wave of state-sanctioned nostalgia for an empire that never crowned its last emperor. The orchard was developed as part of a campaign to standardize mood during imperial holidays. Now overgrown, it still emits waves of regulated sentiment. Birds avoid it. Visitors leave reciting phrases they’ve never learned. Each tree blooms once—on the anniversary of its associated decree. And the leaves drop in reversed order.
Keywords:
emotional orchard system, official mood cultivation, civic grief orchard, state nostalgia grove, regulated memory blooms
Very Short Story:
They walked in silence, until the air thickened with emotion neither could name. Juna plucked a petal from a low-hanging blossom and wept. “That’s the assigned response,” Judai said. They read a plaque: *Grief Model 3B: Decree Anniversary – August 13*. Further down, a cherry tree hummed faintly. Touching it filled them with procedural clarity—as if attending a meeting long completed. “It’s unnatural,” Juna said. “But also… familiar.” As they exited, a child stood at the gate, reciting words from a forgotten anthem. They hadn’t taught her. The orchard had. “This place doesn’t grow fruit,” Judai whispered. “It grows reactions.”
