Neon Streetlights and Concrete Mazes

Things are different now, you see, things are much more real. We have concrete now, and we have seas of steel. We come equipped with clandestine waves of new sound, labyrinthine factories operating like clockwork, voluntary euthanasia, electronic enslavement, and there is not but one reason to enact a doctrine of civilized progress; where one plummets freely, the others rise above, and that is the way of things, the natural way of selective evolution; tomorrow is predestined, and evolution will carry us to a phase of penultimate understanding, whereupon your observance will be the only course of action, insomuch a temporary bystander of events will be your title; observe as the great train of History crosses the threshold of enlightenment, though whether or not it is a threshold of exit or entrance has yet to be determined!  

Neon streetlights highlighted the moisture-slicked pavement, and I was on the sidewalk (the small pedestrian road beside the bigger road, designed for vehicles and not people). It shone dully in the rain, and as I watched it, the cacophonous rolling of thunder in the darkening clouds above melded with a constant, low-pitched bustle of multi-engined transports resembling steam-powered trolleys. The machines sprayed out gouts of exhaust in my general direction, obscuring my view of the night sky above. Remaining segments of visible sky left where altogether blocked by the fifteen foot terracrete barriers on either side of the multi-laned transit-way  The ability to observe natural phenomenon was at a premium.

 Luckily, I was on a bench now, and all I really had to do was sit there and observe the things around me, the movements, the shapes, and the encircling buzz of activity occurring around every street corner and within every vehicle capable of housing living occupants.

So deep and labyrinthine were the complexities of such machinations of modernity..

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While seemingly lost in the concrete maze, I put my head down to think.

“Hi, I'm Leon T,” said a man, so I looked up. He was clad in a full length, white trench-coat which was so long and tattered that is scraped along the cold, wet concrete behind his feet. The coat had accumulated various dark stains, mostly light brown in colour, though other smudges and blemishes, altogether darker than the aforementioned brown stains, could be observed upon other areas of his person.

           “Who’s Leon?” I tried to say, but my words barely croaked out of my dry throat. Despite this, he still heard me, which lead me to immediately assume that he wasn’t a meatbag like me, but an android of some kind. They were common.

“Well, Hello there! I’m Leon, and have I got a deal for you!” It explained. Its voice seemed altogether convincing, so I nodded my head, a routine custom indicating that the droid may continue in speech. 

“Oh, you needn’t do that, sir, I am not a droid, but a human being, like yourself,” it said, seeming to respond to my thoughts.

“Oh, well that’s a surprise,” I replied. For no real reason. “This bench upon which I now sit isn’t all that much, but I built it about six years ago, when I was working for this publicly owned manufacturing business, and it took me several days to design the blueprints necessary for its construction.” Leon gazed on, appearing remotely attentive. I continued. “Its ergonomics are pretty good, but unfortunately, the company had to cease production of this particular bench, because newer, cheaper models were coming in from overseas, and this one was just too big, too cumbersome, and too expensive to keep producing, so they then had to let me go, I guess, but who am I to complain? I don’t make the rules anyhow.”
                “Yes, I do like a good bench,” responded Leon, in a disjointed way, “but I also like a good bed, and good furniture overall, and I like cheap furniture, the cheaper the better, cheap cheap cheap, I love to save money!” Leon laughed.
                “But, sir Leon,” I replied, in a slightly concerned voice, “how is it that your whole existence could revolve around the acquisition of material profit? Do you care not for other such things in this world, such as emerald forests and turquoise skies? What of wild animals seeking their own existence, free of human influence, and what of the dream? What of the promise of survival, and the effervescent glimmer of tomorrow's rising sun, where there is with it brought an assuredness not unlike that which gives us a reason to live?”
                “I think you're over-thinking it!” Leon bellowed, laughing quite loudly and happily afterward. His laugh kind of unnerved me for some reason. It grated my brain sideways, and spiked my imagination. Mental spears of frustration penetrated a neural matrix that had at one time processed feelings more uplifting in nature. But who was I to judge?

To derive any particular truth in this land resulted in conflicts bereft of logic, for clear elucidation of such nonsense was unobtainable. Reflections of this nature were only beneficial to intelligences of the artificial variety, the occupants of most commercial advertisement developing industries, or popular music repositories. My thoughts were disturbed in a moment's notice.

“I don’t make all the rules,” he spoke sharply, “but some of my friends do. We’re a network of industrialized workers - and our work is never complete, and will not be complete until all are subjected to the requisition of luxurious furniture, and various other items of import."

“I like furniture too,” I replied once more. “I’ve got a fair amount of it in my apartment type home downtown somewhere, because I need it to live happily. Without the proper number of chairs to sit on, or a comfortable bed to sleep on, or proper tables to place various items of interest on, I might as well be living on the street, and while I’m no scientist of any special variety, since the only thing I've managed to attain in life is needlessly detailed blueprints of introspective thought, I can tell that human beings were not meant to exist in the wild. We were mostly predestined to be the way we are today, and well yeah of course not everything’s perfect, of course not, it’s too much to demand perfection of everything and we shouldn’t expect that since we should mostly just be happy with what we have and thank the Personlord that we’re not all on the streets or starving somewhere in some random bush under some random beating sun where the main objective of most people’s lives is to survive and breed. I am glad where I am and I love this bench and this city with its concrete seas and steel waves.”
                “Well now, it’s only the truth, isn’t it?” the droid replied with a hint of self-importance. I realized I was talking to a druid, despite the fact that it claimed not to be, which was actually against the old Law, but the old Law didn’t apply anymore. The new system was much better and more efficient than the old system anyway, and it saved everyone money in the long run. But anyways I could tell he was a droid by the small silver bar code lining on the left side of his nose. “So anyway, I have this splendid furniture of the most splendorous variety here on my deck. Would you perhaps be interested in viewing some of my many objects of finery which I am selling on this beautiful pre-dawn morning, where the sun usually rises in an even orange band of splendidly bright light right behind me but won’t this morning due to this wretched overcast?
                “I don’t need any new furniture.” I said.
                “What? But of course you do. Everyone does. Everyone needs more of everything, that’s how it works. If it didn’t work like that then things would be how they are, and if things weren’t how they are then they most certainly wouldn’t be going where they’re headed now, which is towards something much more beautiful and magnificent than ever before imagined!” The droid pointed out across the darkened horizon, which was now lined with several thick layers of dense particle refuse ejected from the manufactorium district. It was ok though, as long as everyone wore filtration masks.  

Since the skies were a bit too gray and a bit too dark for comfort, a network of dull streetlights, which were connected to high volume power sectors close to the commercial sector, had been activated, basking the city in unnatural yellow light. The people liked it though, because life was not as convenient without it.
                “Sure, I do need more furniture.” I replied. “Can’t get enough in fact.”
“Glad to hear it!” the droid beamed, and several minutes later I was buying a bunch of junk that I didn’t really need. Also, I didn’t have a lot of money to spare after being terminated from my bench designing position, but I could always use more furniture, because furniture purchases made me feel like a more complete person, which in turn boosted my overall mood, and made me feel more connected with the world around me. When I was finished, the droid nodded and backed away. He then stopped smiling and returned to his designated patrol path, his over-sized white trench coat trailing tragically behind him as he went. It was an odd sight, and just before he was too far from view, I looked out over the horizon, and I could see the orange bands of brilliant sunlight shining across the small gap between the highway barriers. If it had been quiet, I might have better appreciated such a sight, and if the ejected refuse wasn’t swirling around at rooftop level in a dim brownish haze, I might have felt a little less nauseous. Things would get better though, as they always did, because instead of focusing in on their own individual pursuits, day after day as life passed them by, people cared about these things. Most people wanted to get involved with everything occurring around them and most people wanted to possess a clearer understanding of human history in order to explain why things were the way they were today, so I needn’t worry. Tomorrow was going to be a brighter day with less conflict, more people and buildings and cars and things to make the world a better place, because the more the better, and there could never really be enough, just as Leon promised.

I decided that I would remain on the bench and hope for a glimpse of the bright orange band of sunrise which normally developed across the skyscraper-lined horizon to my immediate left field of vision. I’d seen it once or twice while intoxicated, and such states had led me into some very strange areas (in some cases to the point that I’d completely lost a coherent grasp of time and space), and during such times my thoughts drifted away from my skull as though a conveyer belt had been installed between my ears, transporting one idea after another throughout the manufacturing process, shuffling them along until being deposited into oblivion, never to be seen again.