Morning all and happy Monday. I hope you had a fabulous weekend and are ready to round out the end of June. Timers set and lets see what today’s prompt brings us.
No idea where this is going but I suspect Andy is going to see or hear something while on the roof. I do kind of like the world set up though. That could be fun to play with.
Monday, June 29th: The telescope was on the roof.
The telescope was on the roof. Andy used it to watch the stars when the sky was clear. Ever since the anti-pollution ban went into effect and light pollution was listed among the things prohibited, the stars were easier to see from his building’s roof.
Others complained about the need for blackout curtains. He didn’t mind because of the stars. He also knew that the trees in the city, both in the parks and planted along the sidewalks, were healthier as well. The planter boxes bloomed and, in some cases, produced vegetables as well as herbs. These weren’t the scraggly things they could have gotten before the ban. In fact many people were now trying vegetables and herbs they only heard of in books and movies. They were trying out actual flavors instead of relying on the synthesized ones.
Some complained that the synthetic industry may end up being hurt by the growth, but Andy suspected it would take a lot more than window boxes and city planters to injure it too badly.
He was willing to admit that the non-light pollution ban probably helped out a lot more than the light but he was willing to group it into the mix as he enjoyed the benefits.
‘Plus they weren’t in a place to quibble on the details.’ People were dying faster than the next generation could replace them. While he doubted the government truly cared for the health of the workers, they did care to have workers. Contamination from pollution was killing people and there weren’t enough workers to go around. That was when something had to be done. Unwilling to focus on any one industry lest they feel slighted, the full pan went into effect. Slowly people, like nature was recovering.
And Andy got to watch the stars. He did that most nights. Watching them above until it was time to go in and go to bed. It was why his telescope remained up there. Tonight however there was a storm predicted and he didn’t want to risk the telescope. He climbed the stairs and slipped out of the roof top door. The building wasn’t tall as far as things went. Other buildings towered over them. Theirs was a two-story building with a first floor diner and their apartment above. The roof was his alone, his private world. Up here there were deck chairs he scavenged and repaired. There was a small table and he even had a cooler he would fill with ice and place bottles of soda in.
He spent years hanging out up here. Many times, he had to wear the breathing unit when the air quality was too poor to breathe and his umbrella was a reinforced uv proof sunshade to prevent radiation burns, but the space was his. It was quiet.
That more than anything was what he valued. Down below, he could never find any quiet. He lived in a house where people talked constantly. They even talked over the television, commenting on the news and giving characters in their favorite shows advice. Andy was certain his Uncle Max actually held one of the newscasters personally responsible for the news he read aloud to the at home audience.
The roof was his escape.
Thinking of the storm, which his Uncle Max thought the meteorologist, Keith Summers cooked up in a secret basement laboratory somewhere, the storm was going to come with heavy winds and lightning as well as pelting rain. Andy decided it might be best to secure the other items on the room instead of leaving them out to face the storm. He folded his chairs and brought them over to the square where the HVAC unit protruded onto the roof like a small house on top of the regular roof.
Ten til Midnight 