Buttons

You stand in the glowing cubical: four white walls, one overhead white light, nothing colorful rainbow hues to interrupt the monotony.

They sit before you, as you knew they would. Two buttons, not so different from those on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game at that beer-arcade you once took your wife to when you were young and dumb and getting drunk on a Tuesday didn’t knock you on your ass for 48 hours. One of the buttons is blue, like Leonardo, your favorite–mostly because your sister never let you be Leonardo growing up. You chuckle at that memory. 

The other, red like Raphael, who was also usually selected before you had the chance to select–the dregs are always left to the youngest.

The great masters, reduced to reptiles. Another thought that makes you chuckle. You look up toward the oppressive light. It was always the same. Go in, push the button, go out. 

You look at those little bits of plastic and pigment again. Always the same. Sometimes you picked one, sometimes you picked the other, sometimes you picked based on the weather, and sometimes, and maybe the most important times, you didn’t pick at all–as they were so quick to remind you, that’s always the option. Hell, there were entire podcast series discussing the antecedent and consequent ad nauseam. They always seemed to decide that the best course of action was to press the blank space between the two buttons and depart. 

“That is where the logic is!”

“That’s the right path.” 

“Forge your own way!” 

But today, you take an extra pause. You look deep into the bits of plastic, up and down the whitewashed walls. Blue is blue, you decide. It’s watery, it’s kind of neutral, it even kind of, sort of, if you squint blends in perfectly with the whitewashed walls.

It is, like your ex said you were, boring. She was the worst. 

The other sticks out. It’s loud, it’s engaging, and there’s no hiding from it. You could have spotted it all the way down the hall. But you think of another button; that stupid red self-destruct button from Spaceballs. You giggle at the thought, very inappropriate but oh well. 

You make your choice and depart. 

Outside, there’s a line of people shuffling their feet on scratchy carpet. A mother in her early thirties holds her daughter’s hand while a couple in their eighties hold hands, dressed like they’re off to church despite it being a Tuesday. 

Most just stand around absently, scrolling, waiting, listening to something or nothing. 

You make your way up into the library, fighting the urge to peruse the rows of books. There’s work to be done. 

You’re not a block away when you feel it. Your neck tingles, your jaw hangs slack. It happened in an instant.

You turn slowly, expecting the worst. 

It's even more wrong than that; not even nature should be able to so quickly erase what was meant to stand a millennium. 

There’s no fire nor brimstone. No crumbling brick, nor gushing pipes. No cackling receivers, nor screaming sirens. There were not even the reversing beeps of a dump truck, nor hearty shouts of a foreman. 

Instead all that remained was a slab of dried concrete. 

As you look back at a place that once held a myriad of hopes and dreams, of loves and losses, you see only the smooth gray remains of a place not even time will remember.

And you know in your heart which button was pressed. 

A/N:

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