[1] Stalled Engine: The Stillness
Chapter 1: The Stillness
Jasper groaned as the morning light began shining through his penthouse window, filtered through the mustard-yellow smog that hugged the city every morning. Most mornings it crawled along the streets of downtown, in the grimy towers of the financial district.
He squinted and looked out the window. There was nothing to see. From his high floor, the entire city looked like one giant cloud.
There was nothing to worry about for him. Although people at ground level had to wear masks on the worst days, he was far enough in the sky that he wouldn’t smell it. The filtration system scrubbed everything clean before it came inside. It was a persistent low-frequency hum that Jasper tuned out.
He rolled out of his bed and stumbled into his kitchen. Like he did every day, he scooped out dark coffee beans into a hand-cranked grinder. They were shipped direct from Costa Rica in one of their sealed biodomes. The bitter aroma began to assail his nostrils with each rotation.
As he set the coffee to start brewing, he stepped over to the turntable resting on his bookshelf. It bookended the few books he actually owned, along with a few magazines. He pulled a black disc out of its album and with a gentle crackle began listening to it.
The melodies of a Bach cello suite filled his room as he sipped coffee and stared out the window. He tried to imagine a different time, one before he was born, one before the world was full of smog.
Nothing was planned for the day, not really. His lifestyle was funded by his older brother, a man who had embraced petroleum wholeheartedly. While Axel spent his days talking with the corporate board members and traveling in hypersonic jets, Jasper drank coffee, listened to Bach, and collected first-edition novels from antique bookstores.
Their lives were completely separate, except for the telegram arriving the first of every month with a paper check.
Yet somehow, it had not arrived this morning. This wasn’t a problem with the mail system. He had gotten plenty of bills in his mailbox. But there was no way to pay them.
