2026-02-22 | Meltin' Pot Memories
a 20XX Story
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Wrote this a long time ago. Found it again and thought to post it. Did some touch ups to read nicer.
Strange, it hasn’t stopped raining for the past four days. That usually don’t happen no more. Probably an omen for something, I don't know if it's a good one.
Used to be able to see the stars when I first moved to this city, but that was a long time ago. Now they're all blocked out by oppressive towers and polluted skies.
I have walked this route every day for the last twenty years. It’s always been the same, but the things I see on the way have been changing day by day over those very long twenty years. When I first got this job, I used to see a street performer on the corner of 7th and 42nd. I heard he was killed in a drive-by, the same story as many unfortunate souls in this damned city.
I remember when that building used to be a school. There was kids who would bunker down on the top floor and pretend to be soldiers looking out the window on the top floor. It was nice. They didn’t know any better.
There used to be a bakery on that corner too, one I always bought pastries from. The lady behind the counter was always nice to me. Her smile was comforting. I offered her to stay at my apartment when her mom died and they had to close up shop. I don’t know what happened to her, but she never did stay at my apartment.
This city is foul. It chews you out and spits you out like the filth you are. It’s a miracle if you make it out the other side. Very few I know have ever left the city, I may even be the only one. It's nice, sometimes. I used to travel to my parents' place upstate once every month, but I don’t want to anymore. It's hard being in that place.
Everyone dies, one day, it's just a matter of when. I hope to die soon, it’s long overdue at this point, but God still wants me here.
This job is cruel. They force you to do things you never wanted to ever think of doing. The promise of justice is nothing but babel. The police have been crooked for longer than I have been alive. Was too late for me to see that.
The first day on the job, fresh out of the academy, I was ecstatic to finally do something that mattered. Then the senior officers started talking, saying how I wasn’t going to get anywhere being a goody two shoes, that if I wanted to make a real difference I would have go under the table. I was young, and naive, but twenty years in the force has changed my perspective. They deserve punishment, or death even. But I can't do any difference with just my voice. So I am stuck, and I have nowhere to go.
That holo ad has been there for a long time. The company has probably shelled out a good portion of their budget for that ad spot. The image of this woman is hypnotizing. She stands in the same place at all day every day, lighting up the street below her with her unnaturally flourecent skin. She is like me, stuck, perpetually repeating the same animations. She is stuck, like me.
The city is strange. It is seen by many as blessed, and equally seen as cursed. The future thought up by the authors and historians of the 20th century is as far gone as one could imagine. The utopian towers and robotic servants are not here to hold us up to the sky and beyond. They keep us in, hold us from reaching the stars. The people are held in line to keep the machine moving, and I'm here to keep them in line. I want to break out of this cursed system and crawl my way out of this wretched pit. My dreams of taking down evil is gone, and I just want to leave.