world of smoke and cities

A Quiet Place in a Loud City

The smoggy sky stretched out to the horizon, the countless buildings chugging black smoke into the receiving sky. Fox watched from his perch, looking down on the busy city. The cars and people like ants scuttling below. Maybe that's all humans were, tiny little insects, scuttling from one thing to the next, never achieving anything real. From his spot on the top of the tallest building in the city, he could see everything, but hear nothing. The busy streets and honking cars, the shouting people and roaring planes, all disappeared into the wind. It was a quiet place in a loud city.

The shoulders of strangers brushed his own as he walked down the crowded sidewalk. He was now in the slums. A few rich business men walked down the street, wincing every time they hit a poor person. The rich would look at the poor like a plastic wrapper stuck to their shoe. Fox couldnt  understand the world in which he lived. Some people grew obese while others died of starvation. How some word clothes that cost more than a small house, and never thought to leave a bit for the starving family they just walked past. These were the people Fox stole from. But  it only did the rich shin the poor, they laughed at them. This was one of millions of thoughts racing through God's head. As he turned into the narrow lane that cut through the tightly packed houses of the slummish district of asgate, one of the many poor outer-circle districts of new London. He walked up a few sets of stairs and turned left. There was his makeshift house. It was better than what most people got, he had found half a shed in a garbage heap and - using mostly cardboard boxes and scrap bits of metal  - built around it. It was a roof over his head and some protection from the biting winter nights. The thick scent of burning fuel was less severe. It was a home, but it was not a house.

Fox awoke in his homemade shack at around half past one. He took a huge inhale from the mask and tank of oxygen by his bed. The pollution has become so bad over the years that all who could afford it got a tank of oxygen, to help with their breathing, those who couldn't afford it would just get sick; almost everyone in Aldgate has terrible lungs, the kind you would get from smoking all day everyday for your whole life. Fox's parents had died from lung cancer, having not enough money to afford treatment. It was not a fair world. Everyone was too focused on celebrity weddings and royal babies to notice what was really happening. Fox had been lucky enough to steal one from a man who was too busy looking at his phone to notice a crate of tanks and masks had gone missing. Fox had divided up the rest between assorted folk in asgate, along with a message to anyone who tried to steal them. Fox was a fugitive. And a good one too. I think he had about seven life sentences altogether. Nobody new who he actually was though. He was mostly known as Dragoneye on the streets. The only reason for this nickname was some dumbass reporter thought it sounded cool. Fox liked it though because it was long and all police would take so long to say it he could knock them out before they finished. Fox didn't kill though. Not even the bastards who deserved it. He thought about what the day would hold as he rubbed red dye into his hair, a nice disguise. And as he brushed aside the old sack that was his front door, he took a moment to embrace the silence. His home was a quiet place in a loud city.