Writings

-The Observatory- 

         

I can remember the billboards. The brilliant yellow sun in one corner and clouds like yarn floating across the icy blue sky with a bold slogan promising a better future – “Knowledge is our most important product.”

 

I saw those billboards every morning that I took the train though the city to the observatory. There was hardly any use for the observatory anymore, but sometimes I would walk up the beat-up staircase into the dome, brush the cobwebs off the telescope, listen to the screech of the gears turning, and think about what we used to believe as I gazed upwards towards the heavens and saw space again though the eyes of a man of the past.

It was always cold and dark there. Some of the white tiles on the first floor were uprooted and water leaked in from the ceiling when it rained, but it was a masterpiece of futuristic architecture, a perfect example of the twenty-first century hopes and dreams. Outside there was a beautiful garden with flowers long since decayed bordered by withered grass and murky ponds. There were metal benches too, I would sit there sometimes and imagine what it was the scientists thought as they discovered a new planet or distant star as it exploded into oblivion. It was sad to think of all the people who had spent their lives working on something that turned out to be wrong. 

Then, when the tower in the center of the city struck twelve, I would run down the cracked pavement to the train station surrounded tortured trees whose lifeless roots were like dried up tentacles. There I would wait, looking across the tracks into the tangled woods that grew darker the longer I held my stare. 

On the train, the lights would flicker and the walls would shake. Sitting in the plastic blue benches of the empty car. I would look at the names scratched into the benches and the torn posters that were advertising old movies. Soon the train would stop and I would walk out onto new city platform and watch the empty shuttle train  shoot back into the distance away from the city’s gates and into the acid fog. 

Gradually, as the train traveled deeper from the city’s center, I would see more people boarding. New trains with new seats rushed by as busy storefront signs sparked to life. Next to a palm tree growing in the concrete across the street from me, there were more billboards with the same slogan. Cars roamed about clean and elegant, I saw smiling faces walking past, and buildings soaring high into the perfect clouds. More pleasantly  flashing signs gave us instructions and plotted out routes to office buildings and skyscrapers. 

–New City-

 

I arrived at my door when the tower bellowed five. I slid a card to unlock the door and nodded to the landlord. She smiled at me with her newspapers folded in her wrinkled hands.

“Hi, Mr. Weschler, How was your trip to the,”she stopped then continued in a hushed tone, “ The observatory?” She smiled dramatically, and waited for me to respond.

“It was fine, same as ever, It is nice to get some air but you don’t need to whisper it’s not that much of a secret.” I told her in the same tone she used before and smiled.

“Yes, yes very well then, have a good day Mr. Weschler, good luck with that collection of yours” She laughed and continued on her way to the counter whispering to herself.

I went up the stairwell to my room through the polymer door. My room was nothing grand, a blue bed in the corner, and two metal doors to the balcony. A dining table with one chair that sits next to the window and a telescope that sits outside. 

I walked past my collection of; figurines, stamps, coins, relics of all sorts. I tossed my coat over my shoulders and stepped out onto the balcony. The skies matched the billboards put up across the city. I though the observatory as the skies turned darker. It was amazing how they did it, made the sky look so blue. When just outside the city’s gates towering pillars of ash and clouds of smoke grayed the charcoal sky.  

When morning came my entire room was illuminated with light and my alarm hummed aggressively. My eyes squinted as sunlight poured in though the windows. I heard the voices of the city’s sole reporter echoing from the radio. I slid shoes on my feet and walked across my apartment. Then I grabbed my coat off the table and headed for the door. 

The trees rooted in the pavement swayed lightly and the leaves held tightly to the branches as I stepped out into the streets.The New City was always bright, The clouds in the sky were always kept at a minimum, and the sun seemed to hold at high noon for longer than any other hour. My entire block was covered in greenery with redwoods and ferns growing orderly in the side walk. I wondered what it used to be like without the roads when the ground was dirt and the buildings hadn’t been built. I was funny to think people lived like they did. 

-Zoe-

On the shuttle I sat amongst a crowd of people who I never spoke to, until one day a woman across from me introduced herself.

“Hi, I’m Zoe I just got reassigned to this part of the city and I was just wondering where you got a coat like that, its very nice, and it has been getting colder in the city.” she sighed then kept speaking, “Of course it’s not really that cold its more of a luke warm, Its rather perfect, but still I think a coat like that would be,” she stopped looking for a suitable word, “nice to have on a day like this.” I began to answer when she cut in again, “you don’t have to tell me I can figure out on my own.” She stopped, then looked out the window again as the city shot by.

“It’s from a store front near Redwood Street, its called something like Winter-”

“Warehouse!”She looked at me with confidence.

“Yes that’s right, but how did you know?” 

“We just passed it.” She smiled and pointed to the back of the train where the Winter Warehouse disappeared in the distance. The rest of the way to work I gazed out the windows to the city all pristine and bright, the woman spun her thumbs and toyed with a rubber band, and the others on the train secured themselves to anything with in range as the train stopped. I stood up to leave the carriage when she spoke again.

“It was nice meeting you, Mr…uh…?” 

“Weschler, but you can call me Patrick, bye.”

I hopped off the shuttle and waved goodbye to the woman on the train. The building where I worked was elegant and refined, cutting-edge. It towered just below the city’s building height limit, its walls were constructed of blue glass which reflected the sky’s color like mirrors. It was part of the Utopia Project, where the city was expanding their reach, making everything new and bright. 

On the fifth floor up, down the hall and to the left, past the fountain and through a door, my office lays unseen by most and ignored by the rest.  The office, was, less than desirable it was dark and lonely, things went there to be forgotten. I, after all, was an example of such a thing, I sat in my chair and sorted through the archives. People didn’t like to think about the past, it was my job to remember so they didn’t have to – and just in case we ever needed to.

 

-Rain Cycle-

I lifted a photo of an old scientist, Albert Einstein, towards the light, he appeared puzzled with his chin resting on one hand as he starred into the camera. I wondered what he was thinking, was he contemplating nuclear physics or solving some prolonged equation or, maybe he was thinking if his hand was in the right place, maybe it should be on the other cheek or if his hair was messy enough even if his smile was to wide or not wide enough. It made me think of the woman on the train as I looked through other photos and books, all with something distinct about them.

The rain cycle began on my way to the train. There was not a cloud in the sky and the sun was a radiant yellow but the rain poured down and the drains in the road and sidewalks began to open as it grew stronger. Plants started to turn greener and more leaves appeared. 

I pulled my coat tight and walked into the shuttle as flowers bloomed outside. The doors slid closed behind me, and I was startled by the woman I met earlier just outside the doors. I heard her say a muffled “Patrick” as she knocked on the window, she motioned for me to open the doors. I peeled them open and she jumped in just as they slammed shut. 

Thank you,” she bowed “ you’d think they would tell us when they were gonna go all Noah’s flood on the city.” In her arms was a shopping bag with the initials WW on them. “Oh, I got that coat of yours It was a rather odd place that Winter Warehouse but they do have some amazing coats.” She removed the coat from the shopping bag and as she threw it on I realized the miracle it must have taken to pack it in there in the first place. She picked up the picture of Einstein off the floor, and showed it to me. “Who’s this?”

“That’s Albert Einstein.” I took the picture and looked at it again.

“Oh was he your grandfather or something, what’s that thing?” She pointed to a book in the background of the picture. 

“No, he’s a scientist, from a long time ago.” I looked up at her and she looked back waiting. “oh, yes the book, well thats what it is, its full of pages of paper that tell a story of some sort.” She smiled satisfied with the answer and looked at the photo again. “He looks troubled, as if something is bothering him and deep in his mind he knows there is nothing he can do about it.” I turned my attention to the outside of the shuttle where a train station appeared as we slowed to a stop.

“Where is this? “She looked at the old train station and swung up from the bench. “I missed my stop. Is this yours?”  I looked back at her already knowing her response as I silently agreed. “So what is this place?” she said as she hopped off the train after me, she spun in circles and looked at everything. “Is it a secret spy lair or a government hideout? Am I in danger or have I been chosen to be a secret agent?” She paused and looked at me. “Do you live here?” She laughed wide-eyed.

“It’s just a place I like to go, every once in a while, for some reason I can’t explain. Maybe for a little reality.” I shrugged, “This is where I wait for a train, an old one, to take me out of the city.” The rain still came down as we saw the train approaching through the gates. The whistle shrieked and echoed. I boarded the train with her and it began to move back out of the city.

“Wow! This is so ancient, it’s mystical and intriguing…and exciting.” She moved about the empty car examining everything. “Is that the observatory?” She pointed out the window as the observatory appeared. “look the rain just stopped.”

 

“Yes, it is and yes.” I moved towards the door as the train stopped. The doors slid open to the cracked concrete and dead trees. I stepped out of the train and we walked up the broken pavement towards the observatory, past the decaying garden, the rusted benches and onto broken tiles on the first floor. 

“Seriously, It is really dark in here, and smelly.” She reached for the lights, brushing cob webs out of the way, and the observatory lit up. “I heard about this place it’s from the twenty-first century!  An antique…” She looked around and then picked up a book from a counter, swept the dust from the cover and slowly opened the cover. 

To Be Continued….