As far as I was aware, the day before this there were no new buildings or structures in my neighbourhood, yet today as I walk home from work something new had appeared on my route. This new building was squarish in nature, with black and grey concrete and granite walls and large floor to ceiling windows that reflected blackness from the outside. Depressing and intriguing. An escalator stuck out on one side; it seemed to be the entrance and exit and therefore there were no doors on street level. I could picture it in a densely populated city in the commercial district. I noticed amongst the throng of corporates suddenly walking to and fro down this street with generic briefcases in their hands a businesswoman leave the building and descend the escalator. She sat on the rubber banister and slid down with one heel in the air and her head tilted back, ignoring all social norms expected and frictional forces exerted. I smiled.
The following day my trip home commenced in the park before the now day-old building. I had moments earlier been given the notion that I had to start work today by six in the morning even though it was already evening and I was going home and not to work. The park is mostly uniformly-green grass with foreign trees dotting the perimeter, and a small to medium sized ditch. In the ditch I saw five or six small children of mixed gender playing a game that involved throwing and imagining, or maybe just throwing. Their clothes were ragged and dull; I assumed they were homeless. I rushed past the building this time because I had now decided that it was in actual fact six in the evening I was supposed to be back by, and it was home I had to be. I did not know why.
I returned with five minutes to spare, only to find my home was opposite this building, and was connected to it on an upper level by a structural bridge. This was odd yet normal. On the hour I realised why I had to hurry home. It was because I was not going to be let back outside – no one was. Everyone had to stay inside indefinitely. This was the purpose of the new building – to accommodate everyone. For outside had suddenly become very dark, even though due to daylight savings, six o’clock is normally still very light. But outside was now night and stormy and it was going to stay like this. And then the rain started. It was loud. I was glad I was inside. Thinking of how fortunate I was I immediate thought of how unfortunate those street urchins were. They weren’t warned of the imminent darkness like I luckily was. Resolving to check on them I found the nearest monitor that was linked to the surveillance camera outside and directed the camera towards the children. Through grey-scale infra-red vision I could make them out. They were still playing their game like an animation on loop, despite the rain now torrenting down on them in parallel lines at an exact forty-five degree angle. I shifted the camera upwards and leftwards onto a swarm of giant bees. It seemed all sorts of creatures come out when the world is thrown into impeding darkness. Looking at the bees somehow provoked them and they flew downwards and rightwards into the children and started attacking them. Feeling guilty for this I averted my attention elsewhere and walked away.
One day out of curiosity I once inspected the building adjacent. It was not so squarish on the inside, but this may be due to the many interconnected small rooms and whimsical winding staircases. The interior walls were fitted with treated oak panels, wallpaper and nostalgic furniture. Later that week the darkness subsided but we still remained inside as it was only temporary. In my kitchen on the ground floor the walls were made of floor to ceiling plate glass. A very long creature resembling a Chinese dragon was looking in. It told me that dirty dishes were piling up and I should make more of an effort to help my parents. I took that advice on board but can’t remember if I acted on it.
In the future the living arrangements of the population had become organised and well maintained, unlike the emergency situation that commenced at six o’clock that whole time ago. But it was now about a hundred years after that and I had to go to the toilet. I made my way to the one capsule available, at least if there were others then they were the basis of about three urban legends. The light above the door indicated a toilet was vacant, so I entered the capsule and the door closed in front of me before I was vacuum-sucked through a long tube designed to transport people and dropped onto a toilet. To my annoyance this particular one was in public. A modified seat on the end of a row of seats, part of a block of rows, part of a stadium of blocks, at the back. The seats were blue imitation leather. A game of something was on, I couldn’t make out what as I was at the back and trying to go to the toilet, and the crowd was in the way. At that point a old school acquaintance bumped into me. It was not the best of times.
Roughly two hundred years into the future, the darkness was subsided. My kitchen with plate glass walls had been replaced by a lobby complex complete with revolving glass doors. Through the doors an alternate civilisation was developing. It was populated by the outcasts and people originally left outside during the darkness. I felt happy for the street urchins. They had constructed quaint red-brick multi-story buildings with shingles and pot plants and cobblestone streets. Outside was well habitable. None of us have ventured outside. I assume the revolving door is locked.
