The air is putrid. The stench of burned rubber and gasoline fumes poison the innocent air around me. I look out the grimy windshield of my automobile, another contributor to the distasteful atmosphere. The view beyond the filthy glass consists only of building after building that make up the downtown industrial prison I live in. The blinding orange of traffic cones and barricades coat the surface of the city streets, directing the buzzing drones of rusty cars that meander through the obstacles towards their empty hives. There are so many cranes from the bleak construction zones that from the road it looks like I'm driving on the belly of an injured millipede, its twitching legs building factories and skyscrapers, and yet for all this effort it only prevents the creature from healing. Orange traffic cones line the busy roadway for miles, looking like huge fire ants marching along. Faded green signs, most of them weathered and bent at odd angles, direct travelers towards their destinations. Horns blast, heat rises, and shouts cut through the roar of the automobile engines.

The streets are covered in filth, and recently the air is filled more with trash than with birds. The city's homeless slouch in doorways and under overhangs, just one more reason to focus on the road. The sky is colored gray, not from clouds, but from us. The river water is dingy, like dirty bath water. The sidewalks, covered in old gum and cigarette butts, are the only paths connecting the run-down businesses. Smoke and smog wash over the city as lunch break begins and the smokers step outside to add to the disgusting environment. I park my car outside the post office and attempt a deep breath, which puts me in a coughing fit. I walk up the crumbling steps and push past the filmy glass doors. I pour some coffee into a dirty mug, punch my card, and step behind the counter. Another day in this hellish time we live in. I peer out past the muck on the windows and watch the drab city people drag their feet across the ground. Nobody smiles, nobody laughs, nobody even looks up. The happiness has been ripped out of every single one of them. Or at least that's what they tell themselves.

Truth is they let their happiness go all by themselves. All society had to do was make a comment on one aspect of their lives, and over time these comments added up until they just sat themselves at their desks and conformed. No more comments, no more problems. The final change. No one dares to challenge it because to be different gets comments, and comments cause problems. My coworkers don't even look up from their computers anymore to look at the customers, they know what they're going to see. Not that many people come by here anymore in the first place. Out the window, beyond the shuffling skeletons, I see level after level of boarded up windows, dark offices, and locked buildings. The city is alive and dead at the same time, it's full of life, but no one is living. The shuffling skeletons wear clothes and carry briefcases, but all skeletons look the same. We're in a rut, a very deep rut. There are no wonders here, no thinkers, no artists. No music, no plays, nothing.

The gallery was burned down, the theater was closed, and the music hall was bought out buy some wealthy aristocrat and turned into an office building. No one fought, not even me, who at the time was a writer. There seemed to be no point. No one cared anymore. I look once more through the filth and grime and what I see almost startles me. A beautiful girl, about five feet, seven inches tall. She gets out of a sleek black car, of which I can't make out a model or maker. I didn't even hear it pull up. Her hair is blonde, her skin pale, and her body thin. The girl, or rather, woman, is youthful and beautiful, perhaps a few years younger than me. She picks her way up the crumbling steps, walks into the post office, and, for a reason I can't explain, she smiles. She has a smile. For a split-second I feel different somehow, but the feeling quickly disappears before I can identify it. She walks up to my window and takes off her sunglasses. What I see behind them makes me gasp aloud, startling her. She asks what is the matter, and I tell her it is nothing. But I know what I saw. A sparkle.