He cautiously approached the entry door to the surface. Every few blocks along the sidewalk, there were doors on the sides that were only meant for official government officials to go down to bring trash, and occasionally retrieve valuables that were accidently thrown in.
They were usually locked, but lately the guards have been forgetting to lock them since no one in their right mind would bother going down there anyway. After Henrik became king, the surface became a dump site for the city. With its distance from the main population, and impressive sanitation technology to keep the smell from creeping up to the city level, it made perfect sense. The surface of Prokopolis was essentially an old decrepit city repurposed into a perfect junkyard.
Dennis knew exactly what he was getting himself into. He had entertained fleeting thoughts about doing this plenty of times, mostly because of his genuine curiosity, but never took any of them seriously. He had watched the city workers go down there from time to time, and it never seemed too physically demanding. They would go in with nothing but bags of trash and face masks to cover the smell and were usually back up in 10 minutes.
Also, in the back of his mind, he remembered that Vance had claimed to have gone down before to retrieve a baseball he hit over the fence, but no one ever took his claims seriously until that moment. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but at that moment, Dennis was fully convinced that if Vance could do it, then so could he.
As he climbed down the ladder steps to the surface, turning his head often to make sure no one was looking, he began to question how well this idea was thought out, but kept pushing through. As much as Dennis hated the idea of committing a crime and running through five blocks of repulsive garbage, he hated the idea of missing school even more.
As soon as he hit the bottom, he took one look towards the direction of Vance’s house, checked his watch to make sure it was the right direction, then immediately began to run as fast as he could. It looked just as he imaged. Old buildings with broken down windows, over filled dumpsters, graffiti laced brick walls, and of course, piles of trash bags littered across the street. He weaved around the big piles of trash bags, and occasionally even jumped over the small ones, never slowing down. Once Dennis turned around and saw that he could no longer see the ladder he climbed down to get there, he began to second guess his idea. The fear was starting to creep in and the look on his face showed it, but it was far too late. He was already halfway there. The surface was dark, lit only by dim wall lights every ten yards or so. The air was thick, and hard to breathe, which was expected, considering the trash. With Prokopian sanitation technology, it didn’t smell nearly as bad a nation’s supply of waste should smell, but up close, was still pretty terrible.
Just as he felt like he was getting the hang of the running and jumping over trash, he inevitably made his first mistake. With his eyes fixed straight ahead, he never saw whatever it was that he tripped over. It felt too soft to be a rock and seemed to come out of nowhere.
His hands flailed in the air for a moment before coming down quickly to help brace for impact with the ground, but it didn’t help. He made a loud crunching noise as he landed face first into a pile of trash bags that ripped open and spilled out into the street. It was mostly old moldy books, apple cores, napkins, and a few paper plates.
As he picked himself up, he noticed his trusty backpack seemed to have dropped a few of his own books into the mix. It wasn’t hard to tell which ones were his, because they weren’t covered in the mystery goo the other books were covered in, so he grabbed the book he saw were clean, and threw them in his bag. He then stood up, brushed himself off, and immediately began running again, not giving the fall a second thought.
To Dennis’ relief, every street had been exactly where he thought they were based on the maps he saw, so when he finally got to the ladder that he knew would bring him right next to Vance’s place, he pumped his fist and let out a quick, “Yes!” before quickly climbing up to reach the surface. Right before popping his head out exposing himself to any possible witnesses that may have been standing nearby, he checked his watch. Despite his little set back falling into the trash, he was still on time.
Luckily for him, just as it was when he climbed into the surface, the gate was unlocked, and there was no one in sight to see him come out. Once he got onto the sidewalk, he closed the gate behind him, and turned the corner to see Vance and his mother patiently waiting across the street, looking towards the direction of where Dennis would have been coming from if he has taken the normal way. He ran to them and knocked on the pod, surprising them as they were facing the opposite direction.
“Hey guys! Thank you so much! I ran here as fast as I could!” Dennis said with the look of guilt and gratitude on his now dirty face.
“Oh my!” Vance’s mother shrieked “Don’t apologize! You came right on time!” She said, as she pushed a button to open the door for him. As soon as Dennis stepped in, she noticed the smell.
“Dennis! Mijo! You’re covered in filth! What happened to you? Are you okay?” She asked.
“Oh! It was nothing Mrs. Velazquez. I just tripped and fell in some dirt on the way here. I was running as fast as I could” Dennis replied.
“Well, as long as you’re okay, that’s okay with me”
“Dennis!” Vance chimed in. “You reek dude! Did you fall into dog crap or something?” Vance asked while pinching his nose.
Dennis too was too tired and relieved to take the question seriously. He quietly sat there and contemplated what he had done and risked just to be there on time. He then remembered why he was late, and aggressively reached into his now dirty and scratched up book bag to pull out Vance’s paper, and handed it to him.
“Vance! Did you have Dennis do your assignment for you again?” Vance’s mother screamed as she saw Vance receive the paper from Dennis’ hands.
“Mom… I…” Vance was for once, at a loss for words, while giving Dennis a death stare, and wondering why he would be dumb enough to do that right in front of his mother.
“He needed me to revise some of the grammar, but overall it was fine. Really liked some of the stories you used. Very original!” Dennis replied to save the day.
“Thanks Dennis” Vance said with a sigh of relief. “I was a little afraid it might have been… done before”
“Well look at that!” his mother replied. “Never knew my little Vance was writer! I have been telling you to let people check your work before you turn it in, but you were always so hardheaded. I’m so proud of you, son!” She said while Vance and Dennis were looking at each other, trying as hard as they could to hold refrain from giggling out loud.
It was at this point Vance took the opportunity to change the subject and start telling his mom about how excited he was to play for the high school baseball team, despite having not tried out yet. Dennis usually would have reminded him of that fact, but today, Dennis was just happy to have made it out of the surface in one piece. He still couldn’t believe what he had just done.
As the pod approached the campus, Dennis couldn’t help but do one more bag check, remembering how a lot of it fell out during the fall. He wasn’t too worried about losing a highlighter or pen, but really wanted to make sure all the expensive textbooks that he had taken the initiative to check out early were still there.
He opened his bag, also noticing the loose zipper that he would soon have to replace and began going through the checklist in his head.
“Calculator, pencil, black pen, red pen, blue Pen, yellow highlighter, red highlighter…” he whispered to himself before getting to the books. “…algebra, chemistry, geography, health, and--- history?”
Dennis froze in shock, but not for the reasons one would expect. It was normal for Dennis to check out books for classes that he didn’t have, but Dennis didn’t check out a history book. He couldn’t have. No one had owned a history book since they were outlawed years ago.
Dennis took a moment to process what he had done. He had accidentally grabbed a book from the surface that was deemed illegal in Prokopios. It had to have been at least 20 to 30 years old.
It wasn’t a small offense either. It could have had him literally thrown in jail if he were caught with it by a King’s guard. This thought terrified Dennis, but at the same time, for some strange reason, he couldn’t have been more excited.
Comments (0)
See all