288. Inside the frame

Inside the frame a futuristic city was bursting with activity.

Children were playing hide and seek in vast green oases between glass skyscrapers while their parents chatted to friends and neighbours, clad in fluorescent avant-garde clothing. On the rolling meadows dogs ran with sticks, while cats tried to catch a fish jumping from one of the many tiny streams meandering through the city.

 

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275. Water had run out days ago

Water had run out days ago, but against all odds the three of them were still trudging through the Sahara. They had set out from Zinder, packed like sardines in dinky lorries that broke down once the desert sands had wrecked the engines.

The trip will last a week, the man had promised. Then you will see the Mediterranean. And across the sea, on a bright day, the promised land.

Adamou had sold his goats to pay for the journey. Others had sold their lands, their houses. They were superfluous anyway once they would set foot on European soil. Once they got a good job, a good home, a good life.

Tabarkalla stumbled. He was the weakest of the lot when they had set out. That he had survived this long was a minor miracle in itself. Adamou and Ghaffar did not kneel down or aid him. They hàd done when the first of them had fallen. They had helped them to their feet, carried them, buried them. But compassion was but a distant memory. Each minute in the scorching sun, each lost drop of sweat could kill now.

Adamou and Ghaffar would not give up. They owed it to their families, whose corpses were in all likelihood now covered by the ever-shifting Sahara dunes or eaten by scavengers.

“There is an end to this desert,” Ghaffar assured Adamou in a dry, hoarse voice.

Ghaffar had just a week ago been a complete stranger to Adamou.

By now he was willing to tell lies with his final, precious breaths to make sure his one remaining companion did not die a man that had forsaken hope.

 

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248. Life through a lens

Life through a lens always looks razor sharp. That’s why teens take selfies and watch concerts through their cell phones. It’s why I now ask my daughter to pose for me before she heads off to university.

 

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243. A winnable war

A winnable war had arisen from the ashes of inevitable defeat.

In each of the forty-three years after the skirmish had started, the North had been on the losing side. What was once a vast and far-reaching country, spanning time zones and continents, ten years ago had been forced to fold back onto its capitol. In the following decade the city would be under constant Southern siege. Few people believed the stalemate could be resolved.

But now, there was hope.

Like every other day, Southern bombs had laid waste to huge chunks of the capitol. Bombs that not once since the war had started had failed to explode. But after the dust had settled the inhabitants came across a shell stuck in the ground. Unexploded. Harmless. Impotent.

News soon spread across the city and lured thousands to the spot. Among them the five-year-old who fearlessly climbed the bomb, posed for pictures and would become the poster girl for the new wave of optimism.

Southern technology had always been far superior to Northern machinery. But the dud in the ground fed hope that the South was running out of reliable cogs and bolts. Insurgents who’d had trouble recruiting new blood, now were inundated with youngsters joining up to fight. And songs about a change in fortunes could be heard in the dark of night.

They reached the ears of the Southern forces surrounding the city as well. But the songs did not strike fear in their hearts. Everything was going according to plan.

A plan so simple it was sheer genius.

The South had knowingly smuggled the dud among the bombs. Had intentionally given the North hope of a winnable war.

For forty-three years, the South had tried to break their walls.

Now they’d break their spirits.

The walls would follow.

 

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199. Once the sands

Once the sands had tickled these walls continually but that sensation too had long deserted the house.

First the humans had left, frantically stripping the building down to its bare essentials and taking with them the sounds that had filled the hallways with joyous life.

Then the clouds arrived, depriving the windows of the warm reflection of sunlight and casting gloomy eternal shadows on the crumbling walls.

The creeping sand had momentarily given new life to the house in the form of ever-changing dunes, guided by the unpredictable winds from the East. But they too disappeared in time, leaving behind a sandy tomb.

All that was left now was the taste of nuclear rain. It had eaten away most of the paint and would soon be feasting on the bricks, mortar and wood, until there was nothing left to devour.

Yet the front door still stood proudly askew, as though the house still fully expected a rosy future to come knocking.

As if impending death was but a pessimist mindset.

 

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170. Your vote will make a difference

Your vote will make a difference touted the huge Ministry of Information billboards that lit up the metropolis. Fester Jiggins did not believe the claim. Like 43 percent of the population he hadn’t bothered to vote last time as, to his mind, all politicians were bottom-feeding no-good schemers.

Yet for some reason this year’s propaganda to get the vote out resonated with him. Perhaps it was the hipster way the slogans swirled around the voting booth in the funny yet sweet infomercials. Perhaps it were the more gorgeous than ever holograms of barely-clad ladies that walked up to you on Second Street to convince you to exercise your democratic right. Or the free coupons for Sushi World you’d get in exchange for your proof of voting.

But Fester mostly was swept away by the positivism that had engulfed the country since the Ministry of Information had kicked the voting campaign into high gear. Whether gulping down beer in a seedy café or traversing a zebra crossing in the financial heart, all people were talking about was how – despite some obvious flaws – amazing this country was. And could be if every citizen just went out and elected the most competent candidate they could.

In the end  hope for a bright future swept the country to the tune of a 95 percent turn-out on election day. Fester too had walked the 500 yards to his polling station before devoured some tasty chirashi at Sushi World. His candidate in the end was not victorious, but that was irrelevant. The system worked. That was the important thing.

“Even better than we thought it would”, the Minister of Information told the president – now in his sixth term – up North, as both of them glibly oversaw the burning stack of never to be counted ballots.

 

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158. The needle finds the right groove immediately

The needle finds the right groove immediately as the LP produces a sprightly Beach Boys track. The song isn’t enough to erase the images of fiery cities and mushroom clouds from Neil’s mind, but momentarily it eases the pain.

 

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118. She hesitated to go up to him

She hesitated to go up to him. He had been smitten with her a couple of years back. Seriously smitten. He had sent her love letters, confessed his admiration for her for everyone to hear, wooed her like nobody had wooed her before or since. But she had shunned him. She might even have promised to go out with him once but she never came through. They were colleagues then and she drew a strict line between work and her private life. And Henrik had paid the price.

In the years since she had sometimes wondered if she had made a mistake. He was smart, he was funny, he was most of the things she looked for in a man. And as he was standing there in his immaculate shirt and tie he even looked quite dapper, something she had never associated him with before.

He looked up and their eyes crossed. He obviously wanted her to walk his way. For a moment she hesitated but then she went up to him.

“Hey, Henrik,” she said.

“Hey, Lana. Looking good. Though I’d probably say that even I you weren’t. But you are, just to be clear.”

He was flirting as though the years in between never happened. This time she didn’t ignore it.

“You look great as well.”

“It’s been a while. Did you miss me?”

“Yes,” she said and she realised it wasn’t a lie.

He smiled, like a boy that was falling in love for the first time.

She smiled back, equally smitten.

“Hey, Henrik, wake up.”

Henrik snapped out of his dreamy gaze but didn’t stop staring at the girl across the room. The one he had obsessed about years ago. She spotted him too now, and politely (perfunctory) waved.

But she wasn’t walking his way.

 

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