all things old pass away

all things old pass away

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


I took an old fashion bus tour of the city I grew up in. Down main street at street level.

The bus was surprisingly full, new immigrants were coming in from other States to live here because of the cheap rent and low costs of living. Of course it was very run down. High crime and life was pathetic as it always is for poor people in a place where time has moved on but those who live there don't know it. Everyone living on main street is stuck in the dead Past.

The action is high above. Hundreds and hundreds of hover crafts and Drones of all classes dart over our old Main street at five hundred feet. Air bound comfort stations and even a few flying malls are where the action is in our City. The old Main street where businesses thrived a hundred years ago are stuck in the past. Up at five hundred feet people and machines just passing through our City sometimes stop at one of the comfort station to gamble or have an energy meal.

When you take a bus tour they give you a booklet that lists all the building for sale. For two hundred thousands old script dollars you can buy any one of them. Then you can rent out to two new immigrant families to a room in the stores and business that used to line old main street. If you are a Lawyer and you can do all the paperwork required by zoning and environmental regulations and you can collect rents with a heavy hand you might make a small profit by being a slum landlord on old Main Street.

As you ride on the bus you look up and see hundreds of Real estate for Sale signs. Most of the signs are old fashion bill board type. They fade in a filtered sun light that drifts down from the floating buildings and platforms five hundred feet above. Out of towners, owners living far away, who are of Deed to the dilapidated buildings at street level on Main street pay real estate jobbers a small weekly fee to keep vandals from removing the signs. The chemicals in the paint the old signs are painted with are worth a couple of days wages over at the recycling plant.

The old paint on the signs is valuable too because painted surfaces are protected by restoration laws. New paint is very expensive and old painted words and slogans are grandfathered so humans living below five hundred feet can still read things in the ancient script. All new messages are electronic dash at five hundred feet.

It smells on the old bus. Vagrants ride around on the main street tour because Real Estate companies sometimes provide free food to riders trying desperately to sell the old buildings for their clients. Regulations protect vagrants; they cannot be thrown off the tours just because they obviously are too poor to buy anything.

I still enjoyed the old bus tour of the place I grew up in. It was nice to visit the past. I never feel comfortable being in the digital age where machines and drones control all the commercial activity. All things old pass away but I for one like to see old things sometimes to remind me of when people were at the top of the food chain. Down on main street, before life was lived at five hundred feet above the ground and before all new advertisements were digital.