Chapter 3

The Afternoon sun blazes through the windows of the car, driving me home.
Of course, it’s not actually driving. The ground is way too hot for that. It is instead floating. How high off the ground depends on the type of car it is and who it is supposed to carry. I’m being carried on the second level since I have a job that is at least remotely a job. That means I’m being carried about 10 metres off the ground.
I stare out of my heavily tinted windows. Not as heavily tinted of course, as the cars on the levels above me. But still better than the low level of tint the passengers of level 1 cars are stuck with. Apart from other cars and the delivery drones, not a single soul ventures outside.
Very understandable, of course, it’s peak March. Afternoons are unreasonably hot this time of year. Or any time of year, in fact.
As the car drops me off at my apartment, I feel the heat firsthand for a brief second before the AC unit inside my building greets me.
I live on the 64th floor. Quite low, but it was the room assigned to me after I got my job, and switching rooms is a complicated bureaucratic procedure that usually leads nowhere.
I stare at the two elevators on the ground floor of the lobby.
They are currently both out of service due to a technical error.
They usually are.
So I take the stairs. It only takes me half an hour. That could be a new personal best.
I share the floor with five other neighbours. I have yet to see any of them, but from what I hear through my walls, they must all have very exciting sexual encounters every night starting at eight pm and ending just before my alarm at six am.
I turn left and scrummage around inside my pockets for the key. A smile spreads across my lips.
Now that my workday is over, I can focus on improving myself and doing the things that fulfil me. You know the saying, “we don’t live to work, we work to live”, right?
So, I enter my apartment, or as I like to cutely call it “cell,” and even manage to take off my shoes before I collapse into bed.