Electric Avenue ~ March Eighth Two-thousand and Six: The Future.
Even during the day, it always seems like night. No matter how many times I have entered this city, the same guard is standing watch. Same old drill, the androgynous sentinel asks for my identification and proof of address. These guards are always there, stale and stagnant. I’ve grown use to this. I just need to give them one more thing. Like at a speak-easy, I whisper my password into the sentry’s ear. This just gets me admittance into the city.
I am lucky enough to be lead straight to where I want to go, my post office. I meet another guard. Once again, I give identification, another password, and they hand me my mail. The mail-carriers don’t deliver the mail anymore, they guard it. Mail-guards I guess. Everything here in the city is guarded. It has become that guards are just modern padlocks. Things like identification and passwords are keys to unbolt them. It’s a joke really, but I still run through it. Finally, I enter the city that moves with the rotation of the sun. Here the world is flat like monitor. Strange, after being told your whole life that the world was round, it turns out to be false. Just like everything else.
First thing I do when I get into the city is catch a rickshaw. I climb up what used to be a telephone pole, type my destination into the keyboard, and off I go. While riding I read my mail, nothing, just a flyer invitation to a music show tonight that I’ll probably not go to. I have to work.
I arrive at my destination. Its one of the buildings I have a room at. Once again there is a guard and once again a password exchanged along with information. I go inside my space here and, like always, there are many bulletins that have been posted on my bulletin wall. I usually don’t pay much attention to those. I don’t see any messages left on the machine and I check to see if any notes had been left on my front door. I always entered through the back at all building. Everybody does. There are no new notes. The last one posted was two days ago from Alice. It was a motion bill of a band I like. The two members looking confused at each other. I glance at the bulletin wall once more and I see one that a close friend had posted about the same show I got an invite to. I’ve got to send her a message telling her I can’t make it. Like I said, I don’t usually pay much attention to these unless it is from a close friend. Most of them are just childish playful banter. Though, sometimes one will catch my eye. Like this one that was next to my friend’s. A bulletin entitled “A REVOLUTION HAS BEGUN IN L.A. ...”
I opened it and was gripped at its contents. It had mentioned about the different states of revolution, the sense of violence that comes with it alongside the hope it may provide. It spoke of urban farmers, whose land was being seized by the city they cultivate in to make way for a garbage burning plant, which seems odd to me because one cannot have garbage without food. Where does the apple core go if the apple didn’t exist? One thing I forgot to mention is that in this city there are only two fifths of the human senses used. Seeing and hearing. Though, touching is involved, information is passed visually and/or audibly. Touch is more of an action. It is only a process to obtain the information, not for pleasure or experience. I guess you can say that this is a city of sight and sound stimulants.
This isn’t to say the urban farmer bulletin didn’t get to me. In fact, I want to do something about. But I need to dwell on that a bit. Another message I need to send to that particular person. No one seems to be home that I know in this building. I leave to check another flat. Once again I climb the pole, type the destination and head out. I arrive at the next building, do the drill again with the sentry, and enter. I like this place a little better than the last place. It gives me a little more room to breath. I get to know the people here better and no one is too hung up on their image, which I like.
I open the front door and look over an entry I posted a couple of days ago. Usually someone would write a comment on it but no one has left a message. That’s alright. I walk to my friends’ doors down the hall. No one is home but some have left messages on their doors. Some of them are a bit wordy and I’ll read them later. I just have time for short entries now. A friend of mine had left an entry about stinky people and scones. I wrote underneath that I’ve never had a scone before. I walk to another friend’s door, who mentioned how much he hated posers. I sarcastically joke that he has no talent. After that, I pack up my things to leave the city again. I have to get ready for work. Luckily, leaving the city is a lot easier than entering. I just need to make sure that all of the doors are closed before I leave my places.
I am lucky enough to be lead straight to where I want to go, my post office. I meet another guard. Once again, I give identification, another password, and they hand me my mail. The mail-carriers don’t deliver the mail anymore, they guard it. Mail-guards I guess. Everything here in the city is guarded. It has become that guards are just modern padlocks. Things like identification and passwords are keys to unbolt them. It’s a joke really, but I still run through it. Finally, I enter the city that moves with the rotation of the sun. Here the world is flat like monitor. Strange, after being told your whole life that the world was round, it turns out to be false. Just like everything else.
First thing I do when I get into the city is catch a rickshaw. I climb up what used to be a telephone pole, type my destination into the keyboard, and off I go. While riding I read my mail, nothing, just a flyer invitation to a music show tonight that I’ll probably not go to. I have to work.
I arrive at my destination. Its one of the buildings I have a room at. Once again there is a guard and once again a password exchanged along with information. I go inside my space here and, like always, there are many bulletins that have been posted on my bulletin wall. I usually don’t pay much attention to those. I don’t see any messages left on the machine and I check to see if any notes had been left on my front door. I always entered through the back at all building. Everybody does. There are no new notes. The last one posted was two days ago from Alice. It was a motion bill of a band I like. The two members looking confused at each other. I glance at the bulletin wall once more and I see one that a close friend had posted about the same show I got an invite to. I’ve got to send her a message telling her I can’t make it. Like I said, I don’t usually pay much attention to these unless it is from a close friend. Most of them are just childish playful banter. Though, sometimes one will catch my eye. Like this one that was next to my friend’s. A bulletin entitled “A REVOLUTION HAS BEGUN IN L.A. ...”
I opened it and was gripped at its contents. It had mentioned about the different states of revolution, the sense of violence that comes with it alongside the hope it may provide. It spoke of urban farmers, whose land was being seized by the city they cultivate in to make way for a garbage burning plant, which seems odd to me because one cannot have garbage without food. Where does the apple core go if the apple didn’t exist? One thing I forgot to mention is that in this city there are only two fifths of the human senses used. Seeing and hearing. Though, touching is involved, information is passed visually and/or audibly. Touch is more of an action. It is only a process to obtain the information, not for pleasure or experience. I guess you can say that this is a city of sight and sound stimulants.
This isn’t to say the urban farmer bulletin didn’t get to me. In fact, I want to do something about. But I need to dwell on that a bit. Another message I need to send to that particular person. No one seems to be home that I know in this building. I leave to check another flat. Once again I climb the pole, type the destination and head out. I arrive at the next building, do the drill again with the sentry, and enter. I like this place a little better than the last place. It gives me a little more room to breath. I get to know the people here better and no one is too hung up on their image, which I like.
I open the front door and look over an entry I posted a couple of days ago. Usually someone would write a comment on it but no one has left a message. That’s alright. I walk to my friends’ doors down the hall. No one is home but some have left messages on their doors. Some of them are a bit wordy and I’ll read them later. I just have time for short entries now. A friend of mine had left an entry about stinky people and scones. I wrote underneath that I’ve never had a scone before. I walk to another friend’s door, who mentioned how much he hated posers. I sarcastically joke that he has no talent. After that, I pack up my things to leave the city again. I have to get ready for work. Luckily, leaving the city is a lot easier than entering. I just need to make sure that all of the doors are closed before I leave my places.