The Wonder That Was Ours

Not all humans possess the same abilities and inclinations, of course. Some can barely lurch. For every deposed prime minister sailing off in a private jet, billions of humans huddle in the crowded steerage of listing ships. Those with nothing to barter for wings live in the shadows of dead factories, nest in condemned houses, and rummage in dumpsters. They dream of leaving. Who can blame them?

More and more, the wealthier and winged members of the human race have been migrating upward rather than outward, building towers of steel and glass to remove themselves from the smell of sewers and the sounds of traffic. They sense what the poor have long known: the world is getting crowded. Professor Cleave still insists that rampant irresponsibility will come home to roost, that “those elevated by greed or accident of birth won’t be able to ignore” (or fumigate, we’d add) “the dispossessed forever.”