Eve stands behind the bar, hands busy washing glasses, eyes open, ears open, nose open, a vessel to be filled with the sights/sounds/smells of the patrons. She sees a man – no, still a boy, playing at manhood – walk down the steps and into the bar. Illuminated by the glow of a sign that reads “Elysium”, his features sharpen and become clear to her. Clean, new clothes, without a speck of dust. Upper City she thinks. There was another dust storm today, if he were a local he’d be coated in a fine layer of grit.
Behind the man-boy stands the hulking frame of a suited – and clearly armed – bodyguard. Kid’s important. Daddy must be a CEO or a politician. Her eyes flick to the patrons seated in front of her. Her regulars.
Donnie, a construction worker, relaxes with a beer after a day in the Upper City building another sparkling high-rise to house some corporations subsidy/tax-evasion-strategy.
Joseph (or Josephine, during the Friday night drag show) nurses a Bloody Mary. They’re a firefighter by day, easily the most respected profession in the Lower City. Fires aren’t uncommon; many of the buildings in the Lower City predate anything resembling a fire code.
Behind her, Eve hears Sarah, an EMT and the hardest drinker Eve has ever seen, coughing into her whiskey. Her respirator hangs from her neck. Smog must be worse than normal today. Eve wouldn’t know, she’s on the tail end of a double shift and hasn’t stepped outside since early that morning.
Her eyes return to the man-boy, who has taken a booth seat in the corner. Across from him sits a dirty, middle-aged man, his face obscured by his hooded sweatshirt. They talk business in hushed tones. Eve sighs. Dealers peddling their toxic shit are an unavoidable reality here, but she prefers that they do their business outside the bar.
The man-boy smiles and nods, then stands, the meeting concluded, but with no handshake, no exchange of goods. He walks, not to the exit, but directly to Eve, and takes a seat at her bar. She is nearly overwhelmed by the scent of his cologne, which has clearly been applied with a very liberal hand. A virtuoso in the art of deceptive smiles, Eve effortlessly hides her disdain for the man-boy and his Upper City arrogance.
“What can I get for you?” she says with flawless false cheer. The man-boy flashes a grin that he thinks is disarming, but is not. “No drinks today, I’m actually here for business. Are you the proprietor of this establishment?” Eve’s brow furrows. “Not exactly, but I do manage the day-to-day business. What exactly can I do for you Mr…” “Grifton. But please, call me Blane.” A spark of recognition lights in Eve’s eyes.
“Wait, Grifton as in Mayor Gideon Grifton?”
“That’d be my father, yes. You see, we’re hosting a fundraiser for dad’s reelection campaign this Saturday, and I’ve been tasked with finding a caterer. Nothing too fancy, just an open bar and finger foods will suffice, and I was wondering if you’d be interested. You’ll be payed well, I assure you, and there will be some rather generous tippers in attendance. You’d likely make more in a day than you typically do in a month, if you’re interested, that is.”
Eve is stunned by the proposition, but hides it well. Here in Lumina Vista, opportunities like this don’t just fall into your lap. There’s always a catch. Dealing with Upper City suits never ends well for Lower City folk. She knows better than to bite, but the bait’s too tempting. She needs money, and she needs it quick.
In a few minutes, the arrangements are made, and the man-boy and his hulking shadow disappear into the night.
***
Eve walks home, hands in pockets, bathed in the ever-present glow of white light that washes down from the Upper City. She carries no bag, no purse, no reason for anyone to accost her on her early morning sojourn back to her apartment. Her hand rests on a small caliber pistol concealed in her pocket. She doesn’t believe she’ll ever need it, but only an idiot would walk this block without insurance.
She walks through a black cloud of smog, courtesy of the Upper City’s filtration system that keeps their air as clean as the Lower City’s is dirty. Her respirator does its best, but can’t keep out the nauseating smell. Clean air comes at a premium in Lumina Vista.
A figure steps out from an alley a few yards ahead of her. He wears a hooded sweatshirt. She turns to go around him when he speaks. “You took the job for Grifton, right? He has another request for you. One with an even bigger payout.” She pauses, then lowers her head. There’s always a catch. “It’s simple. I’ve got a package for him that would be a bit difficult for me to deliver past the gates to the Upper City. All you need to do is take it with you when you head to the mayor’s little soiree. Easy enough, right?” Eve sighs, then nods curtly, and continues on her way.
She arrives at the dilapidated apartment complex, and ascends the stairs to her floor. She enters her apartment, and her body finally relaxes. Locking the door behind her, she walks through the tiny kitchen, ignoring both the pile of dirty dishes her daughter had failed to clean and the meal Seraphina thoughtfully left for her in the fridge. Eve passes by her daughter’s room, pausing briefly to confirm that the rebellious teen is truly in her bed, and enters her own room. The bed is unmade, and empty. Peeling off her clothes, she falls into it, exhaustion overtaking her. She begins to drift off, but a cough from the bathroom brings her back. The first cough is followed by a succession of increasingly deep, raw, body-wracking coughs. Finally, the coughing stops, and Eve hears the creaking of her bedroom floor, and feels the pressure of another body pressing into hers. She wraps Seraphina in an embrace. So small, so fragile now Eve thinks, her eyes dampening. With money tight, she knows that their life together will be cut tragically short. Soon she hears the shallow breathing of her sleeping love, and follows her into the dark.
***
The weekend comes quickly. Eve piles the chafing dishes, liquor bottles, and other various accoutrements needed for the job into a van she borrowed for this specific occasion. As she drives towards the gated checkpoint that separate the Lower and Upper City, she tries not to think about the mysterious brown box tucked inside one of those chafing dishes.
The guards glance at her temporary employment pass and wave her through. The mayoral seal in the corner of the document carries weight, it seems.
Eve has been in the upper city only once before, on a fieldtrip when she was a young schoolgirl. She remembers feeling infinitesimal beside the gleaming glass towers, a feeling that hasn’t changed with time. The reflective surfaces of the buildings catch the artificial sunlight and give the city an effervescent glow. Even in the worst dust storms, the white light can be seen throughout the lower city.
She reaches the mayoral mansion and yet another checkpoint. This time, the guards are more alert, more aggressive. One asks her if he can check the back, and she obliges with a smile, hoping the beads of sweat forming on her brow will go unnoticed. The back doors of the van open, and she hears the shuffling of the dishes. Then, the doors close. She is waved through the gate, and in relief she exhales a breath she didn’t even know she was holding.
***
Eve has never felt as out of place as she does now. She was born in filth and smog, and has lived and worked there every day of her thirty-eight years of life. She worries that the elites that surround her can smell the Lower City on her clothes and hair. She closes her eyes and imagines herself back at the bar, remembers the smells and sounds and faces of her regulars. Beneath the veneer, was this really that different? Her eyes open. Among the crowd of flashy, well-dressed socialites, she recognizes the faces of Lumina Vista’s most fabulous celebrities. The largest news channel’s lead anchorman leans on the bar, flirting with the model that graced the front page of Lumina Life magazine last month. His wife stands nearby, uncomfortably glaring at the scene. A movie star laughs and puts his hand on the shoulder of a town alderman, who is cracking off-color jokes that some would find offensive, if not downright racist, sexist, and classist.
Eve soaks in the environment and quietly serves the pleasantly inebriated crowd. Blane, to his credit, didn’t lie; her tip jar has never been so full, and she didn’t even know they minted bills in denominations that large.
Across the room, she finally sees Blane enter, a few steps behind his father. The mayor clinks a knife to his glass, calling the room to attention. He begins to thank his guests, and as his long-winded speech begins, Blane quietly leaves his side and makes his way through the crowd, and is soon standing in front of Eve. “So, love, did our mutual acquaintance’s package arrive unharmed?” His smile exudes a seductive charm, but his eyes have an intensity that frightens Eve. She nods and walks back to the kitchen, with Blane close behind. Eve finds the chafing dish, but before she can remove the lid Blane pushes her aside, not out of malice, but as if he is moving an inanimate object that blocks his path. He pulls the brown package from its hiding place, and quickly tears off the top. From the package he produces…a bottle of wine. A very old vintage. Nothing as illicit as what Eve had imagined. Blane’s smile widens. He thanks her and returns to the party.
She returns to her place at the open bar, and notices the tip jar now contains a considerably thick wad of bills, contained by an elastic band. Relief fills her, relaxes the cells of her body and sends tremors of bliss down her spine. She has given Seraphina a chance. Her eyes return to the mayor just in time to see Blane pour a glass from the ancient wine bottle and hand it to his father, whose speech has reached its climax. A toast is raised, and across the room glasses meet lips, and sweet liquor washes down the throats of the crowd. For a second, the room is silent. Then, a choking sound. A glass shatters. The mayor grabs his throat, and his face turns purple. Blane, a skilled actor, displays an almost-genuine look of shock and screams for a doctor. By the time one reaches the mayor, the only medical duty left to perform is the final pronouncement.
Eve, like the rest of the room, is frozen in horror. She notices Blane speaking to an officer. He looks to her, and with the motion of a single finger, he seals her fate. Large men surround her, grab her arms, and pull her away. As they drag her to the exit, shouting words she cannot hear, she sees a man in a hooded sweatshirt appear beside the bar. Unnoticed by the guests whose eyes are fixed upon Eve, he picks up the tip jar, turns to her, and nods once before disappearing among the crowd.
***
Considering the severity of the crime, Eve is held without bond, and is not allowed visitors. Her daughter weeps in Seraphina’s arms each night before they fall asleep, clinging to each other, unable to let go of the only connection they still have to Eve.
Early one morning, a day before the trial is to begin, there is a loud knock at their door. Seraphina hastily throws on an oversized T-shirt, one of Eve’s, and answers the door. No one is there. Her brow furrows as she looks up and down the hall, but there is no sign of the one who knocked. Then she notices the jar at her feet.
Notes:
Song: White Light – Gorillaz
How big?
A sprawling metropolis. A clear separation between classes. Literally a “tiered” city. A layer
built on top of another.
Best represented by the distortion in the song:
The older, lower level is a clash of the ostentatious and the disgusting:
“Neon makeup on a slaughtered pig.”
Bars, clubs, drug dens, orphanages, and soup kitchens can be found on the same street. The rich
come down to buy their drugs and, in the case of their youth, cosplay as poor. Violence isn’t as
common as you’d think, but the occasional OD’d rich kid found in an alley leads to police
crackdowns.
The calmer, middle section:
The new, upper layer of the city is a striking blend of gleaming glass skyscrapers and (artificially
maintained) greenery. Home to CEOs, men + women in suits, and the corrupt governing body of
the city. The beauty is as fake as the people. It has a heart as black and dead as theirs.
Age-
Lower level dating to industrial revolution, providing for an almost steampunk ambiance.
Upper level is post-millennium. Almost futuristic.
Climate –
Upper layer is kept at an ideal 73 degrees F at all times, weather maintained via an artificially
constructed sky. Rain is prescheduled, anything bad is filtered out and funneled into the lower
level.
Lower level often suffers through horrific dust storms from the arid and dead areas that surround
the city. They are at the mercy of a world ravaged by climate change. A series of gates separate
and protect the upper level.
Government – Corporations own the politicians, freedom of choice is a lie. So basically the
same as it is here…
People –
High ranking execs, drug dealers, struggling single parents, nannies for rich couples who can’t
be bothered to raise their own kids. A thriving and exhilarating scene for the marginalized:
minority groups, LGBTQ+, basically everyone that’s worth hanging around. Oppressive
moralists who attend the cathedrals on weekends and hate the marginalized, but indulge in their
own amoral pleasures.
Look –
Lower – Very steampunk dystopia.
Upper – Like the meme of a bright shining future, but so clearly fake that it is unsettling.
Tension – The tension in a city is ALWAYS a clash between the ruling elites and a marginalized
underclass.
Feel –
Like a wild animal, injured and frantic, ready to die but determined to take its attacker down with
it.
So who should tell the story (or who should it follow)?
If passive, a good choice would be a bartender, the ultimate observer who can hear all stories
from all people.
If a more active participant, then who? An average worker? A corporate elite? A dealer? Or the
classic “everyman” that can be a faceless vehicle for the reader?
A vote for passivity is the ability to create a sketch of the city from many voices, and the
bartender can become active and have their own motivations…
Bartender it is.
Who? – She is……nondescript? Or should her features be distinctive? (Note to self: don’t fall
back on bullshit clichés. Lord, I don’t want to be one of those “men writing women” bozos who
can’t see woman as a complex individual.)
Protag – A scar on her cheek? Dressed in a way not typically considered feminine? (Or is that
itself too cliché in the “not like other girls” vein?) Brown hair? Brown eyes? Or something
lighter? She has a kid. Is it too cliché to make kid her motivation? Yes…if that consumes her
whole personality.
Age of child? Younger would be more vulnerable, but have less agency. Teen? Still vulnerable
but fighting for independence. Teenage girl.
(Back to protag) Age – late 30s? Married? Single? No. Kid from previous relationship, but w/
new partner. Takes two to pay for anything these days…..
Sickness…breathing toxic air each day does damage…who is sick? Protag, kid, or partner?
Kid is too cliché. Partner feels like the best choice.
Treatment is too expensive – protag goes to extremes for money. Running drugs? Other
contraband?
Bar– is in the lower city, but has all kinds of patrons. Also does catering? Gives employees
access to upper city, makes protag good for running contraband between the two.
City name? – Lumina Vista.
Protag name? – Eve (Evangeline)
Child? – Ophelia
Partner – Seraphina
Sketchy mofo: eh…just call him “the man” or something
Mayor: Gideon Grifton
Elitist fuckboi – Blane Grifton
Bar name: Elysium
Tie it back to the song, pace of the story should match.
Matthew Alcorn (he,him) is a teacher and occasional writer of strange stories and poems. His work has been published in Idle Ink and Thanatos Review, and is forthcoming from Exposed Bone. When he isn’t working with students or writing, he spends his time trying to find new ways to make his daughter laugh.