looking down

Looking Down is an imaginative piece composed according to the requirements of the Fairy Tales 2019 Competition, sponsored by the Blank Space Project. The piece includes an 800 word story, accompanied by five illustrations. The story serves as a critique of the digital dependence of today’s society and supposition of future inclinations. 

Team: Fox Carlson, Kate Mazade

Seven more; I am almost done.

Years of laying pavers, fitting them tightly together, dedicating my life to this work has caused my calloused hands to crack, separating into fragments of dry earth. My spine groans when I stand and straighten, a trunk stretching toward the sky. The canyons set deep within my skin were carved by rivers of sweat. My body complains; yet, I persist. I know that my task is nearly complete. I have done all I can for those walking around me, droning through the city. The whirring in their hands, their only guide. 

This is not the world in which I was raised. My youth was shaped by long days spent running through winding streets that babbled with trickling fountains and hummed with conversation, framed by spires and skyscrapers.

Now, I hear nothing but dampened clicking on the pavement. I duck my head when I enter one of these cinder block buildings, auditoriums for the mechanical buzz of overburdened ventilation systems, pedestals for the rigid array of panels that fuel our energy dependence. I keep picturing the world as it was, the town of my childhood, constructed by booming calls echoing among teams of laborers, my father among them. I remember his chipped fingernails and the mortar dust that shook off his trousers when he returned in the evenings from laying bricks. Sometimes, I would stand below him while he worked on the scaffold, craning my neck alongside passersby as they stopped to admire the process, marveling at the height and the progress. No one ever looks up like that anymore.

Six more. 

At first, I was grateful for the digital advances, the precision and speed of exchanges. Technological innovation enabled smarter buildings to climb higher and faster. But we became addicted to convenience and obsessed with disconnected worlds that fit snugly into our hands, in our houses, on our walls. As access to everything burgeoned in this brave new world, people did not look up at all, craving preoccupation rather than interaction. They read and scrolled and scanned everything that swam below their eyes, becoming oblivious and ignorant to their surroundings. Eventually, bodies evolved, bending forward as if pulled magnetically toward constant connectivity. As the spine constricted, so too did the environment. Doorways relented and lowered themselves to accommodate the stooped human frame. Windows, their light bothersome and views neglected, retreated and disappeared. Facades retired their decoration; ornament was not crime but completely unnecessary. Detail unraveled and saturation faded, leaving a dull, gray monotony.

Five more. 

We used to be more connected to our cities than we realized. Loud buildings spoke to busy streets. People spoke to each other. The city was a community. The stones we laid seemed sacred because we did it together, with our hands. The glory of it was in hard work, purpose, and dedication. But without the interaction of place, there is no interaction of people. We traded craft for convenience; we sacrificed relationships for remote connections. Now, we are all strangers: buildings, streets, and people. And glory is in utility instead of age.

Only four left now. 

The architecture is no longer proud because it does not have to be. It is as if the city has withdrawn into itself. What used to be a language and a manuscript for the masses is now silent--unseen and unread. Humbled buildings sit passive and inexpressive. This dormant environment is a mausoleum for mechanical beings who take no notice of space or form. I, alone, see these changes while the rest of the world continues around me.

Three more. 

At one time, there were more of us. We were a crew, bound together by a determination to build something engaging, something from the place we were starting to forget. We fought to stay focused, fought to keep the world proud. For years, we worked along the ground. Our conversation filled the streets as our trowels scraped the pavers. We planned and refined, argued and compromised, created and crafted but all the while, our city waned. As a team, we stood against the fading of architecture, giving all that we had to the task. But one by one, they each passed on. I remain to complete this work on my own.

Just two more. 

Someday, perhaps, there may be an awakening, invoked by the colorful pavers underfoot. An interruption that will prompt questions and curiosity. A diversion that will spark an interest about the world before architecture was abandoned. A discovery that will grow into an exploration, one that requires us to look up. That is the goal of this work, to refocus attention back to the world around us. Not to alter, but to incite. Not to change the world, but to re-engage it. Not to look back to seek our monuments, but to simply look around.

One more.