The story of our heritage began with a society, that fell through its own ass, and out the other side, my dad says. Realising too late, that they had mined the well of the earth close to dry, they headed for a new planet, exploring promised riches. Leaving us behind, to work out the predictions of impending destruction.
Some folks say they ate, breathed, and shat out of tubes hooked up to their bodies, avoiding contact with the environment in a kind of hypo-allergic oversensitivity to life.
Communicating through internal chips, no speaking required...
There’s lots of talk, from the few still alive who saw them leave, now wrinkled and old.
Then the walls went up. Most of the citys had been destroyed, raided for resources.
The apocalypse of limit, a ticking time bomb. Not counting on our ability and innovation, say the Centre of Perfect Design. Yeah, Id rather not, just quietly.
Maybe some day they’ll be back, to outsource staff. The wall-dwellers monitor both the physical horizons, and radio frequencys, for signs.
I guess they thought we’d all just die here. Some whisper that the Core are the leftovers, keeping an eye on how it progresses, the growing of us.....
we children of the apocalypse that never came...
a war of abandonment...
Always preparing for their return....for the ensuing war....
I’ve always been on the fringe, the edge.... close enough to lean over the precipice and wonder what’s beyond, and if I’ll die trying to find out. It’s a place that sits betwixt.
My family are insiders, but there’s maker blood in there, or I wouldn’t trace the trails I do..
My granma knew it, but she wasn’t one for announcing gifts of difference too boastfully. She came from a time before. When being handmade was a thing of pride, and also secrets.
Not looked down upon as a remnant from a less ‘forward’ looking time. But how long will it continue this static adherence to the plans...
We’ve been here before. The wallwars came, and technology surged forward with its weaponry. Machine made was best. No signature human faults in the making, all programmed lathe turned metallic perfection. Makers were signed up compulsory, to channel the ways of designers, but not allowed to touch too many materials, or create different ways to use them. They were too precious and rare. Dont try to make sense of it, there is none...’
As time went on though, the cycle turned, and THEN they wanted skills nearly wiped from the face of the planet. Problem was, many makers had lost their skills or died. It kills makers you see, to be forced to stop. Not the violent sudden death of a soldier, but no less tragic. Yes, that was a time of fading, and its coming round again...
‘The plan’ was created at the resolution of the wallwars, it holds all we need to know for our unit to be productive and survive on the material bases, the quality ones not like what scratchers use as they peddle the wastes. There are other units out there, with their own versions, own resources, we don’t have much to do with them, but they are out there. Ocasionally, someone comes to us with news of the others, a trade perhaps, often having broken conviction with the goals of their plan, asking for shelter.
Exiles don’t last long out there....
no access to materials...
The governing Cores buildings form the centre of our town. The Office of Planning, Governance of Order, Institute of Expansion and the Centre of Design. Underground there’s a network of bunkers. Of course, most citizens don’t know this..all they see are the crafted exotic materials in the central district. A heirachy of location reflects fine skill quotients, but can be reversed.
Walldwellers are our version of defence. Some are ex-outsiders, informants of strategies.
Actually its usually only resources that bring people in, not to become a permanent part of walled city, but somehow thats where they end up once negotiations begin....
Workers, can upgrade to a more central location by honour in duty.
Every 5 years there’s a testing of skill records and input.
Processed foods, vehicles, encouragements and other gestures of loyalty to the plan.
The plan, that blasted trundling dinosaur that spat out screens and waste. Products deliberately designed to fall apart, so you bought the next model, shoddy workmanship deliberately encouraged.....
terrible and destructive. But the resources just aren’t easily found anymore.... the copper, the gold of circuitry is run low. Scavenger quality materials aint good enough for new circuitry.
The upgrade has begun to fall on a barren supply.
In the spaces between, are the Outsiders.
Small bands who live from scavenging and scraping, eeking out a living from what they find, collect. Its hard, we’ve been taught that. No luxuries, like free talk time, digital entertainment or memory banks. They forgot, choosing to look backwards instead...
Granma.... she collected. Not much, but enough. Relics of the times of makers, to fascinate and tempt. Materials I don’t even recognise. Things I’m too young to remember, being first generation. I grew up with the unit, it’s all I’ve known...
Wood. There’s a material...
Paper, books even, hidden in a box under her bed. To hold words in my hands, and feel the sacred nature of them....
beyond the glow of a screen.
Most of the elders choose to shut their eyes. What’s done is done, were looking forward now, and if the plans sustained, we of the unit will be safe. Don’t ask from what, actually just don’t ask anything at all...
Nothing within our unit is free to run, so I can’t learn to track. Unless it’s the endless trail of domestic tasks women are to pursue.....
I can’t tell you what it’s like for men to live under the auspices of the Unit. My brother could have explained it, but he’s gone now. He could have been Core, tried perhaps and it damn near killed him. The fading...
At least I get to tend the gardens twice a month...there’s some craft...
Although the pharmacy is well stocked with a range of pills, tablets and medicines, I try to remember what the names of the herbs are that grow still. Not in the central districts, only cultivated plants grow there, exotic remnant vegetation from before....
What if the stores do run out, what then?
Will people care?
There’s no trees inside, who can lend me their strength.
A wild bird is a rare sight, apart from the broody chickens...
It’s all beyond our protective walls, within the realms of the outsiders, harsh....eeeking out a living, yes, yes.
My pocket notebook is alarmed. What’s done is done, were moving forward.
Moving forward, for the sake of those to come. Yes, yes.....
what about we who are already come. Come, to another pile of tired worn excess waste to discard, over the wall.....
Preserve the integrity of the unit, discard the untidy, the chaotic...... The materials store is intact....we are chosen....
chosen for what....a life of bullshit?
Daydreaming again..... a nonplanner in the family....
granma would be proud...
Others too, if just quietly.
See the importance of controlling information.
Can’t have any old cross pollination going on, we must be focused on the plan. Thats why granma kept her secrets under the bed....
and why I keep her collection under mine....>>
