I’m not afraid of death. I mean, no one is. In a perfect world, why would you be? The city lights never flicker, and the roads are always smooth. As I pass a construction site, I see someone slice open their hand on a rusty bolt and laugh. Like I said earlier, death isn’t an issue here.
My sneakers smack concrete as I walk up the stairwell of my apartment building. As if muscle memory, I go through the motions. Wave hello to my perfect neighbor Celine, walking her dog John, who never barks. Grab the package outside my door, turn key in lock and throw it inside. I step inside myself, and the putrid stench hits me almost instantly. I raise my colorless hand to my perfectly angled nose and frown. This part doesn’t usually happen. I follow the smell to my bathroom and push open the door. On the wall, written in bright red lipstick, “You are not living.”
My lower lip trembles, and I sprint down the steps, cut out the back door. As soon as I step outside, I trip on a crack in the sidewalk. That’s not right. It’s not—utopia lasts forever, right? I hear a shrill scream coming from the construction site I’d passed earlier. The worker who’d cut his hand sprints down the road bleeding—bleeding red?—from his right palm.
It is nature, we had forgotten, for all good things to end. More terrified faces falling over each other. Watching as realization overcomes the fear.
Who am I? Hell, I don’t even know what I look like.
The streetlight flickers.
I flicker back.