Poison clung to every life form around me, draining the joy from their eyes and replacing it with death. The sky thickened with smog, stinking the air around me. I’m unable to remember what it was like when I looked up and saw the beautiful shade of blue.

My grandfather clock gonged ten. Curfew began on Rosecourt Avenue, and no one in my dilapidated apartment complex dared to make a sound. While my nachos warmed in the microwave, I turned on my TV to watch old news. Most stories dated twenty years from now, before waste plagued the Earth, and everyone ignored the corporate greed running their lives. I did my best to avoid those, especially on Mondays.

I flipped though until I found something to lift my mood up. The news anchors gushed over a black cat who ran into a soccer field, kicking the ball with it’s tiny paws. A giggle left me. Everyone else in this complex wouldn’t be able to watch this with their new floating TVs that go wherever you want them to. They wouldn’t remember when anims existed, or when you searched things up with Google instead of the search engine in your brain. Everything from the past has been erased, as if the wealthy want to erase everything they ruined. Clean their slate so they can terrorize the world further.

The anchors moved on to a new update about Gene Lander. His fake tan marinated into a tropical orange color on his skin. His black hair receded from his head. Supposedly he began a nonprofit organization to support struggling patients with AIDS. Meanwhile, protestors bang at his door as his manufacturing company increases global warming.

I snatched my notebook from my couch and began writing everything down. For entertainment purposes, I began to investigate how things have escalated into what they are now. With the multiple repairs I have put into this TV, I haven’t gathered much. The only thing worth remembering is the name Gene Lander that always pops up. It’s mostly for praise, or for a commercial, but now is the first time I’ve heard anything bad about him. While supporting one cause, who knew he would be so careless with another?

Before they can go into any further details, the microwave goes off. I quickly get them out and take a bite.

Almost immediately I spit them out into the garbage.

They taste like decay.