The Glass Ceiling

“Lights off, you little cretins!” A fist pounded his door with a loud thwack, and the floodlight on the wall clicked off. “I said lights out!” There was another, duller, thud a few doors down. “Shut the hell up!”

Coale burrowed further into his threadbare, scratchy blanket to muffle the sound of the gruff voice as it continued to make its way down the hallway. After a few more yelled slurs, the voice faded away completely and the hall fell quiet. In the moments that followed, Coale could hear the near-silent sounds of sniffling noses and creaking beds as kids sought what little comfort their thin, hard cots might bring them. Coale sighed and rolled onto his back.

He’d run out of tears a long time ago; the other kids would too. Eventually.

He sighed again and brought his clenched fist up to rest on his chest. Above him, the ceiling was clear, allowing the lights of the Floating City to filter into his room and chase away the dark. Resentment burned hot in his chest as his face settled into a scowl. He took a slow, calming breath, and his nose wrinkled at the foul odor that burned his nostrils.

No matter how much they filtered it, the air still tasted like sulfur and ash.

At least in here, it wasn’t strong enough that he could taste it on his tongue, or feel it eat away at his lungs. It did remind him of the soft, wheezing breath that used to lull him to sleep at night though. His fist tightened at the memory, and the point of the small object in his hand bit into his palm.

Coale grunted and opened his fingers. In the soft light of the street lamps from up above tarnished silver glinted against his pale skin. A small heart-shaped locket rested in his palm, and the sight of it made his chest hurt. He could remember a vague face: thin and angular, surrounded by stringy blonde hair. The face brought with it a painful sense of longing.

Mother…

He swallowed back the lump in his throat as he popped open the locket. The picture inside was just as faded as his memory. Time and water had warped it enough that the only thing he could make out was the gray Factory uniform covering her shoulders. He wished there was a name instead of a number embroidered above the breast pocket. It would have been nice to have at least known her name.

Coale closed the locket with a quiet snap and pressed it to his chest as he pillowed his head on his arm. He idly wondered if his mother was still alive. Was she still laboring away deep in the bowels of the Factory? Or had the fumes finally eaten away her lungs?

A car leisurely rolled through the street above him and parked in what he assumed was the driveway to their house. The Floating City was everything anyone could want in life: clean, safe, bright, and free of Smog. Citizens could walk the streets without fear of being beaten by Keepers, or risk stumbling across dead, emaciated bodies left to rot in the gutters. Coale's thoughts were momentarily interrupted by an impeccably dressed man as he stepped out into the road to cross the street. He had a bottle of wine in one hand and a bouquet of roses in the other.

Coale snorted. Must be nice.

To live in perfect health and happiness, able to ignore the fact that he was quite literally walking over the underground society that was forced to work themselves to death just to power their fancy little city up there in the clouds.

Coale's scowl hardened and he turned onto his side to stare at the slate gray wall of his room.

Holding the locket between his fingers, he slowly traced the edges with his thumb. In about a month he’d be issued a set of stiff gray coveralls embroidered with a number and tossed out of the Compound to be put to work in the Factory. He’d be fifteen then; old enough to shovel coal into the boilers.

Old enough to get sick and die.

He wondered what age he'd actually make it to. No one out there survived past their thirtieth birthday. Half the time they didn't even make it to twenty-five. Not in the Smog.

Coale had barely turned two before the Keepers began to round up children and stuff them into this god-awful Compound; this "safe zone". A place free of the toxic air that infected the outside world below the clouds. A place where the Keepers could safeguard their most valuable asset: their future "Factory Workers".

Before this fun little Compound had been built, the Keeper's precious workforce had dwindled in numbers significantly. If the adults couldn't survive the Smog, their children most definitely couldn't. And when the children had stopped making it to working age, their lungs giving way to the sickness, the Keepers' beautiful, state-of-the-art Floating City had suffered. Coale vaguely recalled being told of riots and protests when the city filters had failed; the denizens of the city crying out for clean, unpolluted air.

The Keepers went to the Factory workers with a promise. A promise of a place for their children where they would have clean air; where they wouldn't have to suffer or die at too early an age, as long as those still of working age remained working while the Keepers worked to find a better way to power the city's filters.

So child after child they handed over, and the workers continued to labor away until their bodies withered away to nothing. They'd thought their children had been taken somewhere in the City. Somewhere they'd lead a better life. So imagine the shock of some of the parents who were unfortunate enough to see their children again when they were issued their own gray coverall and sent to work in the Factory alongside them.

It was at that point they realized they'd been wronged once more. And that the only glimpse they'd get of what they'd been promised would be every time they looked to the sky where they could watch the soles of some elitist shoes as they tread over them without a single thought for their suffering.

Coale supposed this was their penance for ravaging the world. Destroying it with pollution and greed.

And thus, here they are now.

The lowlifes of society - the forgotten - remained below the Smog to work with a continued false hope that they'd someday find a place up there in the sky.

Coale knew better though. Knew just like everyone else did, deep down, this was the life they were meant for.

Having been condemned to death at birth, he found the thought of dying didn’t bother him. He would be ready when the day came. When his hands had been worked to the bone and his lungs had finally given up, he'd find a quiet alley to sit and rest. He'd look up at the Floating City to watch the cars go by, and curse them with his final breath one last time.

Eyes growing heavy, Coale popped open the locket once more and gazed at his faceless mother.

Hopefully, he'd get to see her just once before that day came.