night on a roof by the river

it is dark outside as the cloud rolls silently across
the bristling hairs of rooftops. it's preternaturally
warm... always. the clouds are low enough that you
feel a thickness as you move. a thin layer of greasy
black dust covers everything, and the shops are even
running quiet tonight.
the sky is pockmarked with tarpoline bubbles, connected
by high voltage wires carrying trolley cars to and from
all corners of town. at their stems, huge factories
processing the steam that the world runs on. fires day
and night, soot collection filtered from the smoke,
running off in a colourless waterfall of particles,
some sparkling, some stealing whatever light there may
be refracting from a gaslight or window wanting to be a
mirror. then that black flowing mess disappears back
into the building, getting refined and turned into
bricks, or fodder or whatnaught.
the rivers join up at about the center of town. a
confluence of muck heading to the muckless open waters
of the ocean, only to help foster the mutating growth
of manatees with tusks or some such other weirdness.
very little is wasted anymore though. since the
milling corporations effectively organized their
houses. all waste goes to them. all that waste is
then sent back out to the people. the people then use
the waste and take their new waste in to the MiCos.
there are three streetlights per block, ten blocks per
region, all along the rivers. the stronghold is at the
river confluence cuz for all intents and purposes thats
a twent block stretch. thats also where the
majormarket is. around the refab station where you
pick up your bricks of soot (to be blunt) people set up
shop. trading, coin flipping, thieves and hookers, and
criminals are there too. you can buy or sell most
whatever oyu could need there. theres also an
intricate network of pickpocketery, balleting throught
he mobs with gyptic music staccattoing crescendoes of
accordian pulls and trash can bumps. choreographed
picks, trades, and feints of all sizes shapes and
colours. knowing the right people, you can even
possibly pay less to have something stolen than paying
for it on your own. but then you get docked on your
credit, locally of course. street knowledge of your
skills lands you work, in turn food and shealter. you
waste your street cred buying a thief to get you some
cutlery or a book or clothes or whatever. beyond all of
that, there is a stench that never leaves. hell, it's
practically a citizen itself. sweat and grease and
smoke, lots of smoke. the humidity is on full blast
all day everyday. the only escape is to live outside
the city, and who would want that? i mean, i grew up
out there, in the woods, with the protection acts on
the trees and so on. its dark and cold out there,
which i guess works for some but not me. im a city
kid. i love seeing the carts moving between the
dirigible bubbles of aircart platforms, one hundred
feet in the air, propellors cranking away, shuttling
people and raw materials from the mountains to the
skyline. everything has a purpose here. everything is
being used or reused or re-reused. everyone has a
role, dumper, burner, lighter, shoveller, marketier,
buyer, stealer, booker, banker, brother, sister,
mother, father, blah blah blah. you get my drift.
i watch as a man with geared prosthesis grunts by,
steampowered leg dominating his hobbled grind across
the brick sidewalk. he's got two belts on him, gutter
class, enough steambricks to last a month, give or
take. he has the air of a sweeper on him. the kind of
person that will steal your soot wether you like it or
not. sweepers like him, well, you learn quick to avoid
them. they're worse than the stealers. as we all are
trying to manage our waste and brick it up for resale,
he is there sweeping it down his drain, to the sewers,
where the natural ground compression will compound it
all into makeshift bricks, blackmarket shit. the stuff
barely burns cuz its never been refined. but theres
always some old lady with a geared up pet or bad hip
that needs a little of the smoothness to make it
through the day. that or the smokies, the dudes that
think the bricks make good edibles?! comeon! what
foolery is that? eating other people's waste! dude,
i'd never, in my weakest moments, go that far. shit,
i'd rather drink the river dry before then. i heard
rumors lately that the sweepers are even taking bodies
down below, add a pound of flesh to the mix to make it
more natural in its essence. hell, they're starting to
sound like the chemists in that regard. essence or
water or eau de rose to the brick to get hotter fires,
more solid fumes, halucenegenics, longer durations on a
steam run. yeah, like the batteries they said could
last more than two hours. nothing like that has ever
worked, i bet even since the switch! halflife
electronics is lucky to be two days. even with the
mill wheels and water wheels and wind funnels going
full time, there's barely enough to keep the elec goin
for the com pods at the gaslight posts. i mean,
there's always the rumors of the data trolls rocking
out with their old comps figuring out the ones and
zeroes of everything, but it aint gonna work like that
no more. my gramma always said that, and i see no
reason why shed be wrong.
anyway, im losing myself here. i gotta get ready to
head back in. more burnin for the night. gotta keep
the fires goin if i wanna get paid. i climb back down
the escape ladder, binoculars dangling around my neck,
gogles back on. sometimes i go up to the roofs to look
at the city, sometimes the rivers and the sea. not
really the woods though, can't see that far with the
smoke on the horizon. everything is brownish, almost
red in the top sky. i have the tarpoline umbrella over
me, and to be honest i havent wanted to see the stars
since i came here. theyre a sign of the old world, the
one where you rely on the skies for the future, you
pray for rains and harvests. here, we can make it
rain. here we can control the icy cold winds and make
them like they never existed. brick buildings aching
towards the sky in jagged formations like a castle wall
or labrynth, the constant patter of people, always
alive, always moving. and behind it all you can hear
the subtle grind. a gear moving, a pump jacking, a
pfft of a clound as it hits the filter and holds up
life like atlas. we made the clouds that put us closer
to heaven than ever before.