This is a story I have toiled over: since it was first drafted in January 2013, it’s gone through two major revisions–splitting into columns, doubling in length–and about a thousand minor ones. I hear the editors had a tricky time getting the text online in the desired format. So “Plantation | Springtime” has always been a challenging text, it’s always required a little extra work. The result might be a slightly challenging read. But I hope you’ll give it the extra minutes, and I hope it’s worth the effort for you. It’s always felt like the best kind of challenge to me.
A thousand thanks to Terraform and its editors for taking up my little gauntlet, and to the artist, Koren Shadmi, who created such a cool illustration for it. And thanks to everybody who’s reading.
Lia Swope Mitchell 
I just loved this story. Disturbing and interesting all at once. I’d love to know how you came up with the idea for the story.
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Hi Meghan, I’m glad you liked this! How I came up with it… the idea of automated prisoner-laborers came up first in another, longer project (that I haven’t finished), probably because I’d been reading about Taylorism and factory labor at the time. “Plantation | Springtime” itself started as an experiment, I wanted to try writing from a character’s perspective without that character ever saying “I”, to create sort of an empty narratorial position. That seemed to fit well with the perspective of the automated prisoner, who works without being self-aware. But it’s a frustrating perspective, very limited and overpowered by the “overview” voice, so I decided I wanted him to become self-aware as he malfunctions and remembers his past.
Thanks so much for your question!
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