Cloud City's greatest monument is the multi-billion dollar Moonscraper,
which top is over five miles above the surface of the planet.
It is the tallest free standing structure in the city, and it makes the
citizens of Cloud City feel a sense of pride.

Pan six miles south of Moonscraper and you'll find yourself in
the Para-Docks. A rough neighborhood, where people spend more
time surviving then actually living. The Moonscraper can be seen
from the Docks, but the haze makes it seem like half a dream.

No one that grows up in the Docks ever lives in a place like
Moonscraper, or even somewhere like Sunshine Village.
The people of the Docks live and die in utter poverty.
That's why it has such a clever name; Para-Docks.

These days the Earth is uninhabitable, a wasteland.
People tell stories of bombs dropping, hazing up the air,
making it unbreathable. My grandfather says money
is what tore the world apart, bombs were just the aftershock.

Now all that's left of the world is this city that surfs clouds,
powered by the very radiation that killed the Earth.
An irony lost on those in power; those with the capital to build
Moonscrapers and Sunshine Villages, and to destroy them.

Para-Docks is the suicide quarter of Cloud City. It is literally
where people come to die. They jump from the Docks and
enjoy a free fall of almost thirty seconds before they hit the
hot dust. It melts their skin off but doesn't kill them.

No one talks about the skin melting; the searing physical pain.
Though for most of these individuals it is a small price to pay
for freedom. They spend their whole life chained, living in
misery, always looking for something more.

That's what Moonscraper and Sunshine Village will do to you;
get you hooked on the money, the lifestyle. Then when the
markets turn, things get ugly. People lose everything, and suddenly
a hot dive into radioactive dust clouds sounds like an escape.

Parachutes would burn up instantly in the dust, it's a sick joke.
The name came from those living in the Docks. They mock the
once wealthy as they deliberately descend to Hell. They don't
have a lot of money, but they find contentment in the shadows.

Perhaps they don't know what they are missing, never having a dime,
but I can bet you wouldn't be after what they had if you saw the
end result. Burning corpses raining down from the sky is enough
to deter even the most foolhardy, sure as Hell.

Too bad the Moonscraper doesn't offer a Para-Docks view.

07/20/2012

Author's Note: Feedback appreciated.

Posted on 07/21/2012
Copyright © 2024 Jody Pratt