NYC

My story begins in the basement of an abandoned factory on Fifty-third Street in New York City. I followed my cat into the basement, because I was trying to catch him for suppertime. I accidentally ran into an old steel pipe that was suspended from the ceiling. Immediately after hitting the pipe I hit the floor, knocked out cold.

I awoke several hours later, or so I thought. I wasn’t surprised that I hadn’t been discovered. With the exception of the occasional homeless drunk, or junkie, no one ever came to this building. Much to my dismay, I couldn’t find Mr. Bubbles. I thought I’d better go home before my mother began to worry. When I emerged from the building, I received quite a shock. Everything was different. The street was the cleanest I’d ever seen it before, and the buildings were immaculately clean and uniform. It was the first time in my life that I didn’t hear a sound on Fifty-third Street. It seemed that New York City was a virtual “ghost” town. I walked toward my apartment building, and noticed that my building was gone. Standing where my former home was, was an official looking sort of building.

There was a strange seal on the door that I didn’t recognize. I attempted to open the door to the building, and to my surprise the door automatically opened. I heard a mechanized voice says, “Welcome to the future of earth.” I saw no human in plain view, but I certainly felt presence of eyes viewing me during my intrigued exploration of my new surroundings.

I walked up to a huge black marble desk. Everything was either black or white inside the entrance. The walls and floor were bleached hospital white and all the furniture and accessories were black. I loved the minimalism and simplicity, but I also felt the coldness and impersonality of the place. A woman emerged from behind the desk. She was dressed very primly. Her black pinstriped skirt suit was perfectly pressed. Her chestnut brown hair was tied back firmly into a bun, and her makeup was immaculate. Not a single thread or hair was out of place on this woman. She looked at me as though I were a street kid. I did feel rather out of place in my old jeans and summer tank top in such a trim, proper place.

The woman told me that her supervisors had been expecting me. I was slightly freaked out about that, and I politely asked the woman how she knew her supervisors were expecting me considering I’d never seen or heard of this place before in my life. She answered me with an amused grin, and the cryptic answer of “We know more about you, Cari, than you know about yourself.” I noticed that there was absolutely nothing on the desk but a few buttons, which I thought was rather strange. The woman pushed one of the buttons and told me that I could go up the stairs to her supervisor’s office. I really didn’t understand what these people were or what they wanted with me. My instincts were telling me to turn around and run away from the building, but my budding curiosity got the best of me. I proceeded to the stairs expecting the woman to follow me. I turned around to see where she might be, and she had vanished into thin air as quickly as she had come.

I walked up the plain white marble stairs to face one large black metal door at the top of the stairs. The door had no labeling or any identifying marks. I just automatically assumed this was where I was supposed to go, and slowly turned the silver knob. When I entered the room, I faced three men and the woman from the lobby downstairs. I had no idea how the woman had beaten me up the stairs, but I wasn't about to ask. All the men were dressed exactly as the woman was, except they had pant suits instead of a skirt. All black pinstriped with red handkerchiefs in their pockets. All of the men also had blonde hair with the same exact haircuts and blue eyes.

Before I could say anything, the oldest looking man told me to have a seat. I was terrified beyond all measure to defy what this intimidating man said. I sat in the chair closest to the door, as they all stared at me with half-curious, half-cynical looks on their faces. I began to say something once more, but the youngest man interrupted me. “Cari, I know you are wondering why you are here, and how we know these things about you,” said the young man. “Well, Sir,” I began. The young man told me to call him Damien. “Well, Damien,” I started again, “I don’t know how long it’s been, but I’ve been passed out in the basement of that abandoned building a block down from here.” Damien looked at the others with a concerned look on his face, and I didn’t understand what was going on at all. “Cari, Do you know anything about what is going on in the world today?” Damien said to me. “Honestly, Damien, I don’t know anything about the world now. Everything seems so different.” I said.

Damien began to explain to me that I had been knocked out for twenty something years and the world now had one leader, and uniformed everything. Nothing was unique anymore. Conformity was enforced beyond measure, even the measure of life. If you did not conform like everyone else, you were automatically labeled a rebel and shot on the spot. Damien also explained that every person on the planet was implanted with a chip developed by his company to keep everyone in line and conformed to their set standards. “People do as they are told now, Cari, not running rampant like they were in the old world.” said Damien. “This is a new world and a new generation. We’ve learned from the mistakes of the past. Now, Cari, come join us in our new world. Conform and be accepted.” said Damien.

I was horrified now, and honestly couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I never was a person that took to change very well or to conformity. I was me, nothing more and nothing less. I looked at Damien, the other men, and the lady around the table seeing their hopeful faces, as I wondered how people could actually do this to each other. “I’m sorry, Damien, but I just can’t do that,” I said. “I’ve never conformed to anyone’s standards and you can’t tell me who to be or what to wear or how to live my life,” I said. Damien’s look changed from hopeful to a look of pure hatred. He pushed one button that was on the tabletop, and soon there were five guards at the door. The guards stood at the door and Damien called to them in the same mechanized voice I had heard as I entered the building, “Kill her,” he stated calmly.

I stood up from my chair, thinking of running past the guards and out the door. Before I knew what had happened, all five guards had me in their arms carrying me out of the room. Damien called after me, “You could’ve joined us in our perfect world, Cari, but you chose not to, and now you must suffer the consequences.” For reasons unknown to myself, the guards carried me out of the room, and outside the door of the official building. The guards carried me right back to the basement of the abandoned building where I had awakened and chained me to the pipe I had hit my head on. I noticed something had changed since I had left the building; there were people chained up everywhere inside the basement. The guards told me that I could hang here and think about joining Utopia or die for my non-conformity. I hang here today, three days after the guards put me down here, and it’s not so bad. I’ve made friends with the others hanging down here. I assume that I will die in several days, but I don’t care. I’ll never give in and be just another peg in the board.