Complacency

Complacency

One word, eleven letters. It is a calm satisfaction with one’s own situation; to me it’s my treasure.

My name is Ajea. I live in the 55th City in the Vanguard High-rise, Alto level and today my word is complacency. I unearth it from my totem, a prized procession from my former life, delicately running my fingers across the paper.

Dr. Dementia gifts us one word each day. It is a sentiment placed among the relics of the past. Small pieces of our individuality leftover from the Insurgence and the most we can have without risking our safety and security.

The world before lacked any security, or this comfort. Our own ambition and individuality became our undoing and destroyed any semblance of that. My word, however, protects me from those mistakes.

Complacency evokes a feeling of safeness, belonging, and most important routine.

Routine that pushes us forward. It drives us.

I spend every morning at my workstation. I run diagnostics on the 55th City systems.

Drones for security, food delivery, and most important wellness. They govern us because we are incapable of governing ourselves. From my window, I look down at them flying over our endless city like angels. The drones that run our society even with all the perfections still need human ingenuity to address potential faults. It is a symbiotic relationship shared that gives us purpose, and a reason for being in this simplistic life.

Midday we take our social break. The security measures on our residences disengage and we make our way to the common room. Pieces of my routine follow me from day to day. I sit with my friends and we talk about the latest media programs. Across the room, a lone woman eats. Her ID badge identifies her as “Cara”.

She has a youthful demeanor and a distinguished elegance, welcoming eyes, and yet, she sits alone.

Back at my room, my supplies have arrived, I bring them inside and finish my work.

The end of my day is met with wellness checks, media consumption, exercise, and meditation followed by mandatory counseling with an advisor drone.

Just before bed, I open my totem, a small heart-shaped locket weathered by days that have been lost to me containing a picture of a woman I no longer remember. Could it have been a sister, or maybe even a lover? I will never know. Before the final minutes of my day taking a moment to write my word and place it gently inside. The Dr. Dementia drone is hovering outside my window; it is ready for the reset. With one bright flash, I drift off…

Weary

One word, five letters. To experience exertion, physically or mentally becoming drained leaving a husk.

My name is Ajea and this tower is my prison. From my window, I glimpse at a world that is no longer inhabitable, long ago claimed by soulless drones that swarm the sky like black ravens against pale smog.

Among them is Dr. Dementia, the one who lays claim to our dreams and memories. In the old world, people would have less and less and yearn for more and more, eventually, there wasn’t enough, and it led to the Insurgence. Now there is just enough and no more. Even our memories are a luxury, Dr. Dementia, and his one gift reminds me of that.

“Weary” drags me down to a place where I wallow. It is a deep place where the surface is nothing more than a pinprick of light distant and unreachable. It’s a feeling I get when I work with no purpose. I ease myself into my workstation and begin mending my captors. It is a relationship of convenience as I know there is nothing below the skyline.

Midday roles around and I leave my residence for my mandatory social break. I would typically sit with my group but today I find cannot face them, or anyone for that matter. I resist my routine and sit alone; in a moment I am joined by someone.

Her ID badge identifies her as “Cara”, her hair is faded, her expression seasoned yet still she retains a warm smile.

“I thought I’d be here alone but I’m glad you are here.”

I thought I would be too. Her company is much more welcoming than the others like meeting with an old friend. Maybe I knew her from before. Regardless I enjoy the moment and let myself depart to a place of unfamiliar comfort.

I return home and finish my day. I look over my totem, a heart-shaped locket, and place my word inside. Dr. Dementia is outside my window once again and with a quick flash, he greets my dreams…

Cara

One word, four letters. The meaning escapes me. It seeps through my memory like sands in an hourglass. Perhaps the woman from my totem, I can’t say.

My name is Ajea and I live above the skylines. As a child, I would look up here and imagine the heavens but that youthful idealism has now been replaced with reality.

The only idealism left in my life is my one word “Cara” one of the only pieces of my identity I’m allowed to retain.

Have I written a name before? As cryptic as it is, it has no meaning to me, yet it allures me. As I work the name takes hold, never far from the back of my mind. It nibbles away at my thought.

The social break comes and I walk to the common room and join my friends. We chat about our work but I cannot focus. I almost don’t notice her when she walks in.

Mature yet beautiful she makes her way across the room leaning into her cane and takes a seat at the lone table. I get up and greet her immediately.

“I know it’s strange but I had to see you, you were my word,” I say as I produce the crumbled piece of paper from my pocket.

A smile grows across her face “It’s not as strange as you think” she says, pulling a piece of paper from her pocket, on it, one small word scrawled out:

“Ajea”

The end of the day comes again, and I reflect on her importance. Did the person from my totem make me feel this way? Dr. Dementia peers into my window and I am filled with an unfamiliar sense of dread. I don’t want to lose her, even if it’s just for a few hours…

Yearning

One word, eight letters. An intense longing for something, what that is exactly, I do not know.

Could it be something from the old world maybe? No. To yearn is to look forward and not back. It is to see something on the horizon beyond the veil of this ashen world.

Optimism overwhelms me today. Through the mundane tasks of my work, I start to feel a sense of freedom. My job is still routine but I know there is something more. It is a foreign feeling to me, excitement and a little fear.

I work through the morning before taking my social break leaving my workstation behind. I sit with my friends and discuss the programs we’ve been digesting. A lone table remains empty at the border of the room that remains empty for the duration. An unexplainable sense of loss overwhelms me.

At the day's end, I face my mirror and open my totem. It contains a woman I no longer remember, a daughter maybe? I find myself getting the same feeling from the mirror as I gaze into my weary eyes. Outside a faint buzzing draws near and I know it is almost time. I take a moment and write my word as the drone hovers in sight…

Complacency