It was Lights Out in the Cityplace.
I scanned the dimming outside from downstairs, watching for any stragglers who missed the crucial curfew, to laugh at them, their foolishness.
They were going to die.
You had to follow the rules, or death.
It was that simple, really.
As usual, the Lights Out time was different than yesterday’s. It wasn’t a determined hour, the Cityplace decided when it wanted its inhabitants to sleep, and when it wanted them to awake. Therefore, Lights On wasn’t specified either.
I guess you could say that the Cityplace was alive in its own right. Well, I suppose it’s more of a robot. The Cityplace Artificial Intelligence was programmed and invented seventeen years ago by some ancient, decrepit royal scientist who had somehow managed to hold onto a shred of sanity.
I was not alive when our government first put it into place, but I know that life before the mechanical-brained thing took over was much better.
Our government has become lazy. To them, the scientist’s idea was the miracle of the century---an invention to let them do whatever the hell they want while people murder each other over who gets the most bread in the mornings.
“Just let the Cityplace do the work,” the government thought, laughing. “It will work out perfectly.”
Turns out their plan had more than a few flaws.
I crept upstairs to my tiny attic bedroom, ducking under the low-hanging rafters, to watch the Lights Out. We weren’t supposed to do so, but it was just so funny.
I peeked out of the circular window. Blinking slowly, my eyes adjusting to the sudden darkness, I smiled and whispered to myself, “Let the show...begin!” Like on one of those old T.V. game shows they used to play...before television was banned, anyways.
Anyone who disobeys this prison of a life, with all its rules, disappears. I wanted to watch them die, laugh at their foolishness, their tardiness.
It was the highlight of my every evening, trust me.
Watch the children, aware of what was going to happen, who just stayed out too long playing some game, banging on the heavy, barred wooden doors of their homes, knocking desperately until their knuckles are bloody and bruised, tears streaming rivers down their cheeks as they cry heart-wrenching sobs.
They won’t be let in.
At the end of the night, it just goes silent. That’s when you know they’re gone, and they won’t be coming back.
I took a deep breath of the stale-smelling air, and ran my pale fingers over the cool, curved surface of the glass. Staring out the window for another five minutes did not appease my boredom; none of the condemned appeared...it seems like the demons will be disappointed tonight.
I yawned, a force of habit. I wasn’t tired, it wasn’t late...only seven o’clock according to my timepiece on the wall.
The small heater in the corner of the attic came on, its light illuminating the brightly patterned wallpaper.
Even the neon flower shapes emblazoning the walls could do nothing to cheer up the atmosphere. It would do nothing to make this hell feel like home.
The loud buzzing of the heater began and made me cringe slightly, but the awful noise gradually softened as I was nearly able to tune it out.
What a boring Lights Out. Such a disappointment, to be honest.
Call me cruel, call me sick, call me disturbed, but it’s all just so common...
Death is such a regular occurrence in the Cityplace it’s nearly laughable. Hilarious, even. A big old joke.
Everyone here is like that. If it is not a relative or their friend, perhaps.
However, even when it is someone we know, sometimes we are so desensitized and used to people dying we don’t really care, let alone notice.
It’s just one day they were here, and at Lights On the next morning they were not.
No big deal.
Some of us even believe that life is worthless.
When you live a life like this...it kind of is, isn’t it?
Forced to go to bed by the Cityplace warning system over the speakers, I trudged over to my bed, rather mismatched and new compared to the other things in the room.
All of the other furniture had all been hand-me-downs from some older siblings I couldn’t remember any more. They moved out, or died, or something. Living with their quaint little families in their quaint little houses while child failure Celeste here just sticks to staying with the parents.
The new bed had been crafted by the Cityplace carpenter, before he stopped working at his shop, anyways. I don’t know where he went, I think he just moved to the richer part of the City.
It was a rich brown mahogany wood with an ornate headboard, with braids and swirls cut out of the front, a butterfly’s wings, a moon, a flower...it was all very beautiful, and yet it scared me to see what he had come up with. It expressed such a raw pain and longing in the carvings, which I could, unfortunately, relate to.
Have you ever wanted something more? I have always felt this way---escape the Cityplace, make my way through life carving a new path instead of walking the well-worn one of popular opinion and those who follow instead of lead.
Unfortunately, if you stand out, you’re annihilated.
