Marco delighted in the soft spray of mist coming from the water fountain in the central square where he was sitting. In the distance, he could hear some children playing in the pleasantly warm sunny weather. The pleasantness was disrupted by the all too often lonely thoughts that tugged on his heart. He could hear the children playing, but the walls that kept everyone safe separated them as well and it had been a long time since he had actually seen a child. A few minutes later some bells rang for a wedding or maybe an event on the opposite side of the walls. Once again he couldn’t see it, only hear it in the distance.

Looking up at the expansive sky with a deep blue that seemed to stretch out to the infinities of space above, his heart soared back up to the sky just for today. As today finally he would be out of these four walls that kept him safe; and also imprisoned. He would be back under the deep blue sky he and his sister used to play under soon.

The square he was sitting in had an old style fountain in the middle. At the four corners there was an apartment block where everyone lived, a community center where activities were held, a hospital, and a supply/eating area. There was a road in between each of the buildings heading off in the four direction with a roundabout that went around the fountain. The gates were rarely opened though for a vehicle. These four buildings, and the fountain in the middle had been his life for a long time.

After a few sicknesses had spread through and some raving lunatics had decided to go on killing rampages the government had decided on behalf of the people that it would be easier to stop these events by separating people. The elderly had their own quarters one of which he was at to keep them safe from the flu and other diseases that threatened to kill them. The kids had a quarter with their parents to keep them safe from the single males who would otherwise mistreat them if they found them unsupervised. Or so they were told. Marco was one of few people that wasn’t born in the city and had lived before everyone was put here under the reasoning it was for the health of the planet and their own safety.

On screens they were constantly reminded of the world before. Where diseases ran rampant killing millions a year. Children were molested with no way to stop it. Killers could easily hide in the endless city with no gate checks, or disappear into the countryside. The planet was dying they said and along with it the humans that lived on it. Starvation, disease, and all sorts of horrible things ran rampart.

However, what Marco remembered was slightly different. He had lived his life in one of the few places left where people were allowed outside the walls. A few communities had long resisted being swept up to be deposited in the city, and the government had deemed it too bothersome to get them. The uneasy contract had always been as long as there was no trouble, the communities could remain. Instead of the poor detestable conditions presented in the news of the community he remembered playing out in the meadows that seemed to spread forever with his little sister. Or running along a road over an hour away from home before finally returning. Finding the ruins of a giant building that had a long been mostly lost to time deep in the forest. Campfires with friends and family.

After a breakout of a sickness which had taken his sister though, the authorities had finally had enough. At 20 years old he was taken from there and was given a choice of several different styles of square to live in. It was not a pleasant life for him on the inside. People were always wary of him, being the outsider. The news they had heard of such places led them to believe they were terrifying places. He was told repeatedly not to do any actions to rile others up. That talking about how great it was where he used to be was in no uncertain terms antisocial behavior and would lead to him getting put into a square with other social deviants. So he kept his head down and didn’t get to know other’s very well. He never married, most being afraid of his past and believing he was a possible hidden psychopath. He spent most of his life feeling lonely and detached from the world.

His body had started aching from waiting for his driver Lorenzo. He was late and the pain pills no longer worked on the aches of old age as well as they used to. Just when he thought Lorenzo was never coming he finally pulled up. Lorenzo had once promised him that he would give him any favor he wanted in return for what he had done for him. He hadn’t called on it for years. There was nothing he could think of that he really wanted. The square gave him everything needed, and even a higher ranking official like Lorenzo couldn’t give him the freedom of a community outside the walls that he wanted. But, now as he was getting older, he wanted more than anything to see the community he had grown up in, played in, rolled down the green hills in one last time.

As they pulled out of the square and up on to the highway that connected each zone he could see the city with his own eyes for the first time in decades. Square after square each catering to a specific demographic sprawled the landscape. Some for young couples, some for your men or woman separately. Some for families. And many, in fact maybe most, to cater for the elderly. To keep them safe from the other areas.

Finally they left the city walls with it’s double electrified fence that faced inwards to make sure no one tried to climb it to get out. Endless farmland with drones fertilizing, harvesting crops, and repairing equipment seemed to be the only thing that existed outside the walls. Till finally they reached the end of the fields and hit an old road decaying from lack of repair. Lorenzo apologized to the sleek, clean car and proceeded to switch to manual drive over the old road that was barely visible anymore. Finally they came up to the village he had lived in as a kid. Brush was now overgrowing the fields where they used to grow food. The houses were being consumed by the very nature they had been built in.

He had heard long ago two ancient armies fighting in a civil war had clashed there and nearly 100,000 had died in the fields. The same fields that thousands of years later he and his friends had played in with wild abandon. The horror of that day washed away by time, which always made him think as he got older that anything horrible that he was feeling would one day be washed away as well. Even after the most evil of things, at some time in the future in the same spot families could once be found happily dancing beneath the wild blue sky. As long as there were people hope remained eternal.

Lorenzo said he’d give him an hour and then left him alone. Marco had never felt such loneliness. Nothing but the rustling of leaves when a breeze blew was left to the town. He walked up to his old house. Vines grew inside of it and he had the feeling it might fall down at any moment as he stepped on the sagging wood beams in the foyer. He walked his parents room door frame and ran his hand along it where the line marks, still barely visible, showed the height of he and his sister at each year of their life. Then on to his bedroom where he would stay up looking at the window into the forest and imagining what adventures he would have the next day. On to his little sisters room where his heart was ripped open once anew as if he was having to watch her get sicker and sicker on her bed again. Their parents worried about having to call a dr. from the city which would get them removed from the village to there. The price they had to pay for civilizations services.

He let out a single ‘sorry’ not even realizing he was crying. The overwhelming since of hopelessness finally catching up to him. Suddenly a cloud that had been overhead moved and light slanted hard through the window. A hundred years of families laughing, playing, learning, and living in this house seemed to dance around him all at once. The walls still remembered the lives of those who stayed in them. The light grew even brighter and he started to wonder if maybe he had finally had it. He thought if so it would be better to die here near the grave of his sister and community rather than the sterile, unfeeling walls of the city.

Then he heard a voice ‘Since when did you give up so easy?’ It sounded so familiar, even so he wondered how the high pitched child’s voice could be Lorenzo’s. He must be calling him to go back by now. ‘Over here silly’ the voice called again. He turned and looked where the light was flowing in. There was his little sister, bright as could be, smiling. ‘Everyone’s missed you’ she said. ‘Wha-..., what is going on?’ was all he could get out. ‘When we were kids we always imagined what was out there remember?’ she said. ‘The possibilities seemed endless.’ She stepped toward him her almond brown hair in curls bouncing lightly along the footpath of light. She got up right next to him cupping her hand near his ear like they used to do when they were kids telling secrets. She whispered, the small very real feeling exhale of breath making his hair stand on end. ‘Endless doesn’t even begin to describe where we are going.’ She grabbed his hand and he braced to move his creaking body once more, but found to his surprise it moved without resistance as he raced off after his sister.

Lorenzo went into the house looking for Marco. Annoyed that he had to step into what could possibly be a death trap. It had been well over an hour. He would be chewed out at the gate for being late for sure. He heard giggling which shocked him for a second. He started wondering had they missed some of the children here? Maybe some had escaped being taken to the city and were still living like savages out here in the woods. He got to the room at the end of the hall, sunlight reflecting out of it where he thought he had heard the voices. Just as he went in he saw the shadows of what looked like two children, running on a sunbeam, hand in hand. He blinked and a cloud obscured the sun and the vision vanished. ‘Must be some spores from this old house causing me to hallucinate’ he whispered. He turned to go look around for Marco, hoping to get them both back to the city before they caught something nasty here. He had been exploring the village while away from Marco and inexplicably his heart had yearned to stay longer, enticed by the rolling valley and open air. But, now as he saw how big it was, the forest having who knows what in it, and how many places Marco could have gone missing in he shivered. He wondered how any child could have survived in such a large open place without getting lost and killed. And as the sun started setting he could only think about how he wanted to get back to the safety of his home and the town’s walls.