Green and Red Polka-Dot Paint-Job

Cold water runs down the edge of the roofs, crashing onto the streets below in steady, but thumping cascades and blurring out the edges of the myriad images and letters lining the walls to either side of the street. What had origally been rain has been re-purposed time and time again, before it reaches these levels. The cheap boots stand up to the ankles in mucky water. Particles float on the surface. Moss, feathers and the occasional piece of garbage bob up and down on the slowly rising water level. It’s never not there, these days. Whatever is drained into the ground is quickly re-purposed and comes back down in one form or another. Behind one of these bright glass screens, stands a small general store, a fifteen square meters, konbini-style arrangement owned and operated by a single person, twice eight hours a day. Mona first ducks under the curtain of water, then squeezes through the narrow door inside. The man behind the corner harumphs a “hello”, which Mona returns similarly. She trails around the small island of bagged goods, looking back and forth from the island to the shelves lining the walls. Dry non-perishables with about the same nutritional value as its packaging, to poison in a can, each with more options than Mona could ever hope to try. Gold, red, brown and yellow packaging with pictures made under studio-lighting and wax sell her the idea of a fulfilling meal, promising the diversity superceding the average lifespan of a human being by at least that of several small dogs. Mona knows the store and its owner well, considering the frequency with which she visits the store. Both know he won’t be here for very long. People like him live off their own supply. People like Mona only need to occasionally. She decides on the particular flavour of poison in a can and pays at the register.

Mona’s room has a water-filter under the window. It holds enough water to drink, cook and shower. The amount has been set to the legal required minimum for one person. It’s become a standard for people to shower at the very end of their day, when they can’t accidentally use more than they need. Mona has a pet mouse. It needs water too. She captures the steam from the cooking on a glass pane over the stove and collects it in a plastic cup. The mouse gets water every morning. It’s condensation and the cooking water. He’s never complained. He doesn’t do much to begin with, besides running up and down the obstacle course built from plastic parts and toothpicks. Up and down, and up, and down. Sometimes sideways, sometimes backwards, but always up and down. Maybe because there’s not a lot of space otherwise. Then again, there’s not a lot of space period. Mona eats her poison in a can. It tastes like the food processing plant imagines tomatoes taste like.

A normal workday is demoralizing. Like most people in production, Mona spends her days producing things she can hardly afford. Not because she couldn’t save up for it, but because if she had it, she wouldn’t be able to do much with it, other than just having it. Some save up for it anyway, because there’s not much else to do. Mona is on the fence. She thinks it’s not a good use of her savings, but she also doesn’t enjoy seeing the small increments in her savings month to month. It’s just as dull. She watches a mechanical arm press a glass window into the sides of a shiny car. This car will go from here into a marathon of decorative additions. Paints, accessories, extra shine, or matte finishes, until one of every kind has been combined with one of every other kind. Somebody will have bought it by the time it’s finished. Part of it upsets Mona, though she’s unsure why. Maybe it’s because she can’t fathom the person who would buy a car with a green and red polka-dot paint-job. She and her colleagues are told at the end of every day that again, all the cars they had produced have been sold to a grateful customer and that their work is instrumental the continued existence of the company. Considering how gauche the products are, most find that hard to believe. Mona knows for a fact that this isn’t true. Between her home and the factory lies a scrap heap. It’s very brightly coloured, and has recently grown tall enough to reach above the wall that was supposed to contain it. Several weeks prior, Mona watched the scrap-heap travel by herself, and at the very top, facing her, was a pristine car, extra-shine with a green and red polka-dot paint-job. She still has a picture of it saved on her phone. Today, the wall has doubled in height. No shiny cars with green and red polka-dot paint-jobs can be seen from anywhere on her route back home. Mona hasn’t mentioned this to anybody, and now that the walls are up, she doesn’t think she will.