It looks eerily luminous in City.

If I didn’t know any better, I would think it was cheery, up there in the scrapers.

“I don’t know how they breathe without the sun,” you say, reading my mind.

A sultry summer breeze swirls around us and I squeeze your hand harder.

“You lived in Suburb once… Did you ever meet anyone that escaped?” I ask.

You kick a pebble with your worn Converse shoe, and a puff of dust rises from the clay.
“No, but my dad brought us our living-check once, when the delivery system crashed,” you say. “He told my brother what it’s like there. They sleep in their cubicle. They eat in their cubicle. They work in their cubicle. Then they sleep again.”

“Did your mother get to meet him?” I ask.
“No…she was asleep,” you reply. “The baby doctors never even gave her his picture.”

“Out here, it’s different,” I promise, staring into your expressionless, icy eyes. “I’m different.”

The wind sweeps your hair across your face. You toss it back, but a lone strand lingers on your sun-kissed cheek.