Television

Ezra's tale begins, as we get the first-hand look at Amostere, the grimy place she calls home.

The television was blaring static as she looked on, head resting on her calloused hands, permanent blank stare crossing her face. She seemed to be transported to another world, by the images that the static stirred up in her mind. The sound rushed like ocean waves into her ears. The television was like a shell, allowing her access to this hidden world of sound within.

Her mother stood in the doorway watching her, before tilting her head down and shaking it ever so slightly, then walking away. Her daughter could never learn to let go of old relics. Ezra had been watching the same black and white snow flecks scrambling about on the television screen for a few days now, always starting at precisely three o'clock. It was as if she were hypnotized by it.

 The program that used to be on at this time everyday was on no longer. There weren't any channels left, no one to broadcast them, or to produce them. The people who operated the puppets in her favorite show were likely dead now. She thought about this as she stared into the void. What the lives of those few could have meant to her, continuing to shape her through a program until she was at least a bit older. But no, it was over now. This television was their grave-site, and she was probably the only dutiful mourner left. The old-fashioned clock rung four times, it would have been over by now. Her mother feared she was finally going insane.

 So she turned the television off, and turned her attention to her stained but sturdy boots in the corner. As she slipped her large feet into the warm leather she clutched her legs and grimaced for a second. Shaking her head to clear it, the pieces of grief flying into spaces un-seeable, she took a deep breath. Pushing her hair behind her ears and straightening, she called,

            "Mum, I'm out!" One tired arm through the worn green jacket sleeve, then the other. Then came the gas-mask. She stepped out dutifully into the foggy heat, her dress swaying as she stepped down the steps and into the street. Swerving past the many husks of abandoned cars left to rust or scavenged for parts, she walked down her street. Usually she would be riding her bicycle to get to the market.

As she walked over a hill she spotted it, glimmering in the afternoon sunlight. The glass building loomed high above her, into the vast and cloudy sky. It was the best gathering-place around, and filled to the brim with clean air.  You could see the pollution from the outside pressed up clean against the glass walls. The buzzing sound of the air purifying room was comforting, as she walked through, she smiled at the metal ceiling and took her mask off gratefully, sucking in the new air with fresh lungs. She boarded the elevator with other people from the slums. Climbing onto the iron grate, and looking around. They were all trying to make a better future.

She arrived at this job by chance. A local meat seller had a son who was visiting him for the day. As his father prepared her packages, she talked for a while with him.

Resting her hands on the grungy counter, she smiled politely at the finely dressed gentleman. Well, the clean clothed gentleman. Not covered in the dust and grime of a day’s work down here. He had an airy quality to his step, almost as if he could float away at any minute, yet his solid arms would suggest otherwise. Realizing she was looking at his arms quite intensely, she looked down in embarrassment.

 His eyes ventured to meet hers, and she blurted out, "I’m an air-driver" "Kind of like the taxi drivers they used to have? Just, you know, in case you were wondering."

“It's so nice to meet you,” he smiled, and it seemed genuine.

This was a different reaction than she expected, coming from one of the uppers to a lower. She knew that. But she liked it.

 

Reviews

[colleen Drippe']

Not bad, though there isn't much here. And you did it in a way that kept up interest without having to do a lot of explaining. That is an art, I think.
You will need to keep putting in snatches of background as you go -- or is there more already done somewhere? I'm still finding my way around the site.