This is a draft of something I've worked on on-and-off again for a while, I would appreciate it if you read and gave me feedback, if you liked it, what I did well, what sucks, what I need to fix, and if you want more here. The overall story is a sort of dystopian crime drama and, oddly, a romance tale. and sorry, I can't seem to make an indention work here so paragraphs will have to do. Enough rambling, here you go:
The slow rhythmic pattern of rain sounded upon the roof, silver streaks in the night past the thick steel bars and old warped glass of his single window. Four dull greenish-grey walls sat unadorned to form his dwelling. Civilian Housing Unit 489370002438-B72. Simple wooden furniture and a hard uncomfortable bed with a mattress that was practically rotting. He had lived fully half of his adult life here, divided between this and his appointed work station. A dull hatred for this room, like a lump in his throat that would never go away, had slowly built up inside of him across as far a time as he could remember. He thought back now that, truly, he had always hated it, from the first moment he had seen it. Now that he had the occasion to really analyze it, he thought that that hatred had been the only real emotion he had felt in possibly his whole life.
There was nothing particular about this residence, in fact quite the opposite--it was the perfect example of the typical unit a single person of his position would be assigned to by The State. Perhaps that was why he hated it so. It was, he thought, a coffin. A coffin exactly alike a million billion others, through his walls, and out that window, infinite rows of identical coffins. The world was a gigantic cemetery of cold gray tombstones, waiting to be filled.
That metaphor was particularly apt, for he knew he was to die here. He had known it from the first moment he had crossed the threshold and the door been sealed behind him by the automatic system. Every day, every moment, every glance at another person, every second, had just been a countdown to his last, to this night. They would be here soon, and then he would be gone. He wouldn’t just have died, they were not that merciful. He would be erased, forgotten by anyone who had ever even seen him, eliminated from existence itself, such was the degree of power they wielded over reality.
And then, tomorrow, the sun would rise anew and another person, a woman or a man--it mattered not, freshly groomed into an adult and in need of a housing unit, would be assigned 489370002438-B72, and they would make the journey across the city, its identical buildings of glass and steel slowly descending in size until they reached this District, imputed their code into the panel, and stepped through the doorway to the same four walls; simple wooden furniture, and uncomfortable, deteriorating bed. It would be their coffin, their tomb, without a trace of anything at all that a man had spent nights filled with cold rain looking out at the city, he would leave no mark, no indication that he had existed, no warning for the death warrant that lied invariably upon the head of any who attempted to perform the act of living in the gravedigger’s world. In time, he was sure, they too would disappear into the night and from memory just as easily. It happened all the time.
Beyond his window, across the street, for less than a second a small flash of orange light burst into the otherwise impenetrable darkness, then faded, leaving behind a single mote of orange glow in the black. A cigarette. Its faint glow just enough to discern its wielder, a tall person in a long dark coat, a hat on the head. The face mostly still obscured in shadow, but a single feature stood out, long locks of deep crimson hair draped over the shoulders of the coat. It was a woman.
This was the sign he had been waiting for. Only They smoked.
less than a minute later, as if knowing she was being observed from inside, the light grew briefly to its highest intensity, and then disappeared, quashed beneath a boot. Seconds passed, slowly, and horribly. The longest and most horrible length of time in all his life.
The mechanical sound of the electronic lock disengaging and the door opening. The silver barrel of a gun in a gloved hand. Two bangs, deeply suppressed to barely audible levels, a spatter of red across the greenish gray. The mechanical sound of the door sealing the room shut again.
It was that simple. It happened all the time.
Heavy footfalls splashing through deep puddles on concrete in the dark. A wooden door gently opening in the softly lit foyer past the armored exterior door. A drenched coat rested on a rack to dry. Across the spacious loft, which was more than three times the size of the lifeless gray cube from earlier in the night, thick cloud-like tufts of hot steam rose and drifted out of the white marble washroom.
The woman emerged from the steam. She remained naked, strands of deep red hair curling just past her breast and far down her back, not yet completely dry. Shelves filled with books, alcohol, and many numerous other materials, which would warrant an instant death sentence if discovered in the possession of one not of her level of qualification, lined several of the walls. Those appointed for her line of duty were afforded vast luxury. She scanned a row until she came across what she wanted and pulled it from the shelf, a cardboard sliver and inside of it a black vinyl circle. She carried it across the room and placed it in the center upon the square machine, made of golden mechanical parts and fine wooden panels.
It began to fill the apartment with a slow, winding tune, full of deep tones from instruments long forgotten, unplayed in time immemorial.
She sat in her favorite chair, reclined in its velvet-like upholstery and looked out at the city and the rain through the large segmented window, waiting for the dawn to break. A glass half full of a golden-brown liquid at her side and smoke rising in twirls from her cigarette.
