American Dream: A Twisted Future

Part 1

Daniel Hill

You are walking down a path in Golden Gate park in San Francisco on the west coast of the North American continent. You look around. You decide that you should have worn a warmer coat today. Despite the cold, you realize that you have never quite noticed how beautiful the park is. The sun shining through the tree leaves above you, the light glistening off the surface of the pond... No no, no time for that now. You walk for several more minutes before sitting down on a park bench near a young woman. She seems engrossed in her book. You pick up the morning newspaper that someone left on the bench.

"A famous red bridge, spanning the mouth of a bay, 13 letters" you say out loud.

"Um... The Golden gate?" she answers.

"Bingo". You scribble the words "laŭdu la estron" onto the crossword. You place the file into the crease of the newspaper and fold it back up. You stand up and walk casually away, leaving the newspaper behind. You take care to not look back as you walk through the park to your car, a grey sedan. You're still tense as you pull out of the parking space and drive down the road to your apartment in downtown San Francisco. You'll have to move if this keeps up. You park in the underground garage for your apartment building. That would be quite unfortunate, you rather like living here. Oh well, nothing can be done about that. You dig around in the fridge for some food and pull out an old pizza slice left over from who-knows-when, and decide that you're really not hungry anymore, dumping the pizza into the garbage.

You walk over to your desk. As usual you are presented with a pile of papers that you'll have to sort through before getting to the keyboard below. You would usually take the time to carefully organize the papers but now isn't the time for that. You push the pile off your desk and sit behind the computer. You check your email. Nothing. You look around the room as you feel that someone is watching you. Its nothing, you're just being paranoid. You decide to get some sleep. You go to your bedroom and close the blinds. Dropping on your bed, you fall asleep in a few minutes.