Vents

Viktor’s eyes bore naked into the blackness of his studio apartment, pierced by a sliver of light through the curtains. It was 3:12 AM and his restoration lozenges had worn off nearly two hours earlier than prescribed. His dose was already higher than normal and he had just traded his last doctor’s tickets three days ago for a four month supply of B-12 syringes. Overheating, he pried away his ear muffs to hear the distant low rumble of the state-sanctioned Kineticas. The monotonous throb echoed oscillated synths and a four-beat exasperation. Sounds engineered to satiate higher stress levels of the civilians who can’t afford restoration lozenges. They used to be called Discotekas before the incursion. The early morning time allotment was nearly over and the next one would begin at 7AM. Most of the civilians were prescribed ear muffs to accommodate for the incessant thumping across the Sector

Vik sat up in bed, staring at the wall that began several inches from the edge of his cot, rubbing his eyes and itching his loins. Scents of damp salt permeated the room as his walls were covered in a thin layer of algae growing from nutritional agar. Every living chamber was fitted with agar walls for oxygenation of which it was Vik’s duty to maintain by state mandate. It helped with the toxicity of the air. He sprayed it twice per day with a nutritional saltwater solution that arrived at his doorstep every evening at 9PM.

With a dry mouth, thoughts buzzed about Vik’s head like an encroaching static -his frontal cortex numbed by the lasting side-effects of the fading restoration lozenge. His throat ached and his eyes burned red, for his corneas were sensitive to the thick apartment air laden with dust and particles. He swiveled his thin legs over the side of his cot to face the window, running his hands through peppered, wiry hair. His heart-shaped locket necklace was dangling around his neck, the small LCD screen on the locket showing a dull, red “1”. Thoughts of the old world cascaded down vik’s forehead in feverish perspiration as he could feel the grime in the air sticking to his dampened skin. The sun would be up in ten hours, burning through the thick smog as it approached its daytime apogee. Vik tore from his bed, forcing his way into a patched corduroy coat that bore the old rebellion insignia and tall, steel-toed boots that shone through threadbare canvas wrap at the toe. The shrill cries of the new world sunk into Vik like the crude vacuousness that wrought decay upon his tender heart.

He was one of few older survivors of a cleansing that occured after a global blackout thirty years ago. The invading troops orphaned the children in Viktor’s sector and bombed the majority of connecting infrastructure surrounding him. Cities were leveled and replaced by modernized prefab apartment structures kitted to handle higher ambient radiation and supplies of agar for sustainable oxygenation of the rooms and halls. The State engineered medicine for hormonal and daily cyclical functioning; solutions for sleep, staying awake, breeding, and exercise. It banned non-reproductive intercourse for the first three years, however The State lifted the ban after concluding that productivity could be boosted with a monthly quota for non-reproductive intercourse. Reproductive science proved that conception was most successful with a lower chance of defects at the age of fifteen, which then became the standard minimum age for voluntary non-reproductive intercourse. Vik had rings around his eyes.

He pulled out a box from under his cot that contained his old bible and a bag of tobacco that he found in the rubble of a gas station. He folded a torn piece of Revelations chapter 4 around the dry tobacco and used the residue of his agar wall to keep the tobacco wrapped tight. He trudged out of his room and into the hallway to the stairwell, losing himself to the sodden renovations of his nightly nostalgia, leaving behind only the thick wisps of heavy blue smoke as he spiraled down the concrete stairwell. His mind wandered around the banalities of the old world remembering the scents of laundry and the textures of his old cigarettes he used to smoke. He remembers the boldness of his youth, holding a rifle and standing next to the supermarket cashier before vainly mounting one of several counter-attacks. Taking another drag of his cigarette, Vik pushed through the exit onto Glavny Boulevard.

The air was twice as thick outside as it was in his room and light travelled sparsely through the nighttime haze. Looking up from the ground, the glow from the towering floodlights appeared like angels frozen in descent above the streets. Vik continued down the road under the false illuminations of an impending rapture from the static heavens above while the viscosity of the air plunged past his scarred trachea. He gazed until the road disappeared into soft shades of grey, clenching the heart locket around his neck. He couldn’t sleep and he was too old for the Kineticas that riddled the sector. The medication wasn’t working.

Finally, reaching the steps of his local “Non-Repro”, he made his way into the male entrance doorway after flicking his cigarette onto the street. Beyond the doorway was a single room with a young man asleep at the desk that Vik had never seen before. He was one of the younger civilians assigned the night shift. The room was flushed with a dark red light from LED ceiling panels. Vik placed his hand on the top of the young man’s head to which he then jolted awake with a nervous cry.

Vik spoke with a tired, guttural moan,

“Will I have a partner at this time?”

“You will, she has been here for over an hour waiting for someone.”

The young man scanned Vik’s heart-shaped locket, bringing the LCD to display a “0”.

“You will wait here, your partner has fallen asleep.”

The young man dragged himself past Vik to the only other door in the room leading to the male and female shared chamber. He returned after six minutes.

“Go inside and be quick about it.”

Vik willed himself to the door where he could hear every heartbeat pushing hot blood past his ears, pumping into the bags under his eyes. He began to salivate profusely as a cankerous ache in his stomach pressed against the bottom of his throat. Opening the door he looked inside to find a pair of bloodshot eyes staring at him from the corner of the room with a grimacing smile and dark circles that had a noticeable depth to them. Before him was a little girl, flat chested and shivering. Both her hands cradled the heart-shaped locket dangling from her neck as she began to giggle.

At the sight of the girl the blood drained from Vik’s face. His knees began to buckle beneath him. The heat vanished from his body leaving only the soreness of his limbs and the weight of his shoulders as his eyes began to sting, filling with tears. He fell over into the floor with tears streaming down his face unable to look at the girl any further.