poppy seeds

You must understand this, if you are to understand anything at all; I am not, by nature, a materialist. I do not believe, either, that The Wealth Gap has made me a materialist. It has only made me indiscernible from those that are materialistic.

The glass doors whir open. I step out from the warm rays of the sun, and into the preternatural light of the ground floor. My job is desirable, supposedly. Sometimes it is difficult to know if this is true, or whether I have been manipulated into thinking so. Whenever I arrive home, sporting a new outfit provided by the company, the helpless, admiring stares of my neighbours remind me that perhaps my job truly is widely desired. Unlike my co-workers, I am not so foolish as to confuse desirability with worth. Desirability is an artificial quality, a quality unconcerned with the truth. People are desirable when they are agreeable. It is not hard to be desirable, just don’t be difficult, do not disagree. I do get paid more than most. Not significantly, of course. That’s the whole concept of The Wealth Gap, I guess. While most of my friends can only afford white bread, I can afford the loaf with poppy seeds. Ah, the luxuries. I suppose I should not be so insensitive when there are many others that are starving. We are told we are the lucky ones. We are rarely told this by the famished themselves. More often, we are told this by those who do not eat bread, but are in the business of advertising bread as a luxury. They do not specify that it is a luxury only afforded by the poor.

The marbled floors of the building should suggest wealth, modernity, an abundance of space. I just feel cold. The ground level has no real purpose. On the left wall is a reception desk, but everyone who enters this building works here and already knows how to find their cubicle. To the right of the entrance is an abandoned café. It was open for a surprisingly long time, two years maybe. In the first few months, corporate thought the lack of sales was due to the quality of the coffee beans, as if any of us actually have the privilege to be concerned about something so trivial. Then, they changed the menu from sandwiches to pies, but still there were no customers. It was only two months ago when they finally realised that coffee was a delicacy no one here could afford.

As I move across the empty space, toward the elevators on the other side of the lobby, my eyes fixate on the heart-shaped elevator call-button. Our logo. The other floors have two hearts, one pointing upward and the other downward. This is the lowest floor, the singular heart points upward. I lower my head as I smile to myself. A few years ago, corporate decided to show solidarity with the population, to convince the public that we all face the same struggles, that we are all united against the same hardships. They delivered an envelope of heart-shaped lockets to every household; one piece per person. Corporations do these promotions all the time. They always have. When I was a child and The Gap wasn’t so devastatingly huge, the rich would sometimes hold charities or give out loans under the guise of banks. It would cost them the smallest fraction of their earnings, but it would give the less-fortunate hope. It gave them a taste of what they could supposedly have if they ‘just worked a little harder’. Of course, it was all just a manipulation tactic. The wealthy didn’t want the system to change, and they needed the support of the public to induce a state of stagnation; for if society evolved to reject the concepts of wealth and class, the rich would slowly dissipate, until they were eradicated altogether. By the time these heart lockets were handed out, The Gap was so large that there was no longer a middle class. Originally, the middle class was perceived as the stepping stone between poverty and privilege, and its recent absence ultimately enlightened the public. Everyone, almost, finally understood that ‘winning’ was never about being intelligent, or being a hard worker; it was an accomplishment achieved through apathy, exploitation, and nepotism. The heart locket gift did not appease the underprivileged like it would have in the past. Their poverty was too extreme, so it did not remind them of what they could achieve if they ‘just worked a little harder’, because it was finally obvious that financial security was unattainable for most. Despite this, some were grateful for the gift. Not because they thought the locket was beautiful (it was), but because it had value, or so they thought. Initially, there were people trying to sell their lockets on the street, but everybody already had one, and most could barely afford to feed their families, let alone buy fancy jewellery.

There were six lockets in the envelope on my doorstep, but I lived (and still do) only with my fourteen-year-old sister. I knocked on my neighbour’s door and I was greeted by a fragile, wrinkled lady, who smiled humbly while I spoke to her. I asked if she knew anyone on our street who had six members in their family. She told me she had six children, one of which no longer lived with her. Her husband had died in the explosion in the mines three years ago. So did both of my parents. I handed her the envelope, and I walked away.

I noticed, about a week later, a sign on that same door. ‘Six heart-shaped lockets for sale. Price negotiable.’ The following day, I approached my manager at work, hoping the company would agree to some sort of trade; food and clothes in exchange for lockets. This was apparently unexpected, and corporate did not want to spend money buying back goods that they had given away for free. So, they didn’t.

Before you hear more about my story, before you become further invested, there is something that I feel obliged to share with you. It is something that, maybe, I should have told you from the start. If I had done so, then you may have saved a small sum of time. What is it that they used to say, before The Gap grew so disproportionately? ‘Time is Money’. That’s what they would say, back when the masses were still convinced that if they put in the time, they would receive a salary and benefits accordingly. It was a time in which nobody realised that such mantras were no more than eloquent fallacies. The information that I am about to disclose to you may come as a shock. I hope that my confession is not too abrupt, but I would like it to be clear: this story does not have a resolution. It is simply the story of the entirety of my life, a life never rid of The Gap or the oppressive system which permits its existence. For many, this is simply a fact of life, and is not a surprise at all. For others, there is an inexplicable feeling, a voice of reasoning deep within our minds, convincing us that things will change, and that, by the end of the story, all will be well. Such people do not view a dystopia as a true state of human existence, but as a mere prelude to a utopia. This mindset is refreshing. It is not real, but it is, at least, refreshing. In this story, my story, The Gap grows further, and I live my whole life within this broken system. Presumably (according to the predictions of scientists), The Gap will continue to expand after my death. This will happen until a point is reached where there are no longer rich and poor, for the poor will have died of disease and starvation. When it is only the wealthy who inhabit the planet, one of two alternatives will occur. The first is ecological collapse. With only the greediest of the human race left in existence, the environment will finally be entirely consumed and depleted. This will lead to the extinction of the human race. The second possibility is that the skyrocketed mortality rates within impoverished communities will be a wake-up call. There will be a shift in the structure of society. Maybe, even, life itself will finally be of utmost importance, more valuable than any currency. This is generally thought to be highly unlikely.