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A quote: “The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less.” ~~ Vaclav Havel
I’ll start with a story …
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Walking up five flights is only easy if you’ve done it a million times.
Not that we’d qualify for the upper floors. I’ve been too contrary, and I mumble much too loud, in elevators no less, and suddenly our food grant goes missing, or the water is off “Oh, I’m terribly sorry, citizen! We sent out notices last week.”
You fast learn silence = basic subsistence.
I’m taking care of mom so I can’t afford anymore petty punishments. I pretend to be good and they pretend to believe it.
I came home today, and mom is gone. They never forget.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe stock standard license
Quentin Q Quill says: The elevators went out the day they captured The One Great Hope. I’ve trudged up and down the thirty flights of stairs to our government issued apartment ever since. Relocated by The Committee from our life in rural America,we exist now in this hellhole.. Our Confederate flag, smuggled in by a relocated friend in the same building, is hidden away. As I enter the dark apartment, I hear Me-maw yell “Murica” at the top of her lungs as she kills one of the rabbits we raise for protein with one quick slice.
Marjorie Taylor Scream says: The family spent months in their cramped skyscraper apartment after the Great Relocation. “Mama,” asks Sissy Sue, “Wut da kwaken.” Mama replies, “The Kraken is going to save us and let us move to the country again.” “Yay the Kwaken” squeal, Sissy Sue. Suddenly Mama sees a long tentacle slither under the door and turn the door knob, opening the door.. To Mama’s horror, she sees the kraken grab Sissy and plop her in his mouth, chewing her with a resounding crunch. Blessedly, Mama faints and dies of shock. .
Navig8r says: Congratulations! Turn on your TV. The city council selected us to build the apartment complex with your design!
That’s not the design I gave the boss for the proposal. That’s from bring your kid to work day. I let him doodle in the CAD system in Lego mode. I thought I deleted that file.
Who cares? The job is still ours.
So, our city politicians don’t know or appreciate architecture.
They may be a little more cultured than you think. Looking at the second place entry, it appears that your kid’s counterpart with our rival firm was in Minecraft mode.
Pat says: The Aftermath of Hope
Carol walks up to a friend, “Are you standing in the no bread line or the no meat line?”
June replies, “No, today they have opened a no milk line. Has your husband found any work yet?”
Shaking her head, “No, he seems to live on the no job line, and I’m not sure that he’ll ever be the same. He never should have mentioned that our government is out of control in his high school class.”
Looking around first, June whispers, “This is what we get for letting them take all of the guns. They were never meant for hunting.”
Cameron says: The first few seconds were just of the sky. Then the buildings filled the screen as the view raced by even faster. And then static and the sound of impact.
My friend looked at me in puzzlement as I edited the footage and added Yakkity Sax to the background. “You strapped GoPros to their heads?”
I gave him a shrug “Cheaper than helicopters and some of them can get reused if the body hits just right. Besides, when the CEO heard what I was going to do, he donated the cameras. Ooh! Watch this one! He actually does a triple.”
Dupin says: The winds whistle through the buildings, any small breeze amplified through the narrow openings.
I remember when people lived here. Now there are none. There is no water here, and the buildings block the sun much of the day, so it’s not worth trying to plant food. We survivors have moved out and moved on, except to hunt the animals that have started coming back.
We salvaged the little bit that was of worth, left the rest, which was most of what modern man desired. We survive. We live. Just not here, in this vertical desert of concrete and steel.
Yesterday I found an old friend. There amidst the detritus of another abandoned apartment lay a book I hadn’t seen in decades. It was battered, with the cover faded and the pages stained, but as soon as I began to read, it was like being propelled straight back to third grade and finding it in the school library. How I’d loved that story of a family going to Mars, making discoveries, surmounting challenges, read it again and again.
I’d been so excited, so sure that would be my future, that I would grow up to live and work on the Moon or Mars. Except we lost our way somewhere in those days between the Moon landings and the Space Shuttle. Was it the discovery that Mars was a dead world, the canals nothing but an illusion of eyestrain, so there were no ancient Martian civilizations to explore? Or was it closer to home, a loss of that pioneering spirit, that willingness to risk everything to beyond the fields we knew?
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