- overgrown wildflowers licking rundown buildings and cracked pavements, a morbid painting
- cityscapes lit in neon, shop windows aglow with an enticing pulse
- intricate bridges and self-driving cars zipping along electric transoceanic highways
- every home appliance is automated, all service is carried out by machines, roadside eateries populated only by solitary diners and robotic waiters
- in the polished city which sits underneath a geodome that shields its glass and chrome structures from the erosion of vicious acid rain, nothing natural simply grows but is modified, planted, arranged, designed; it's only on the outskirts where you might find wildflowers or weeds, where you may find natural trees and shrubs and grasses, and this is by most considered part of what is wrong with the world, considered to be mess by a populace who are accustomed to the strange dichotomy of having control over so much at the same time as having given up control to artificially intelligent machines and other technology
- in the areas that have not been refurbished lie houses with shambled rooftops and mould infestations in every corner, ash lining the streets, gaunt faces peering out of fogged up windows; they say that in such places, at night, you can hear the screams reverberate over routine sounds of traffic and holographic advertisements for mood stabilising pharmaceuticals, subcutaneous implants that enhance the senses and combat diseases, and life insurance plans; somebody has spray-painted a plea for help in code over an old and faded 'we're open' sign
- Michael Jackson songs reverberating from the insides of nuclear bomb shelters where people escape into their alternate and entirely virtual lives; the boundaries between existences, real and simulated, becoming more blurred and imperceptible
- you can find illegal drug-laced tattoos on the arms of individuals, inked in night club bathroom stalls, the best highs produced by the ones that glow in the dark
- people becoming gradually more aware and even paranoid with concerns about increased surveillance and intrusions on their privacy; you can feel them behind you, their breaths hiss through teeth gritted behind gas masks
- you avoid paying attention to strangers in terrifying make-up and flamboyant costumes because escaped video game characters are not to be trifled with and a bunch of pixels can’t hurt you, at least that’s what the news says
- shady underground dwellings where people on the border of society, people who can’t afford to continue the breathless race in pursuit of perfection or do not have the motivation or energy to continue bettering themselves and their surroundings, these people collect dust and turn to self-harm or violent crime just to remind themselves they are still real, still alive
- outside the geodome, black rain viciously beats down from the sky every six months, corroding the windows of abandoned cars and what used to be supermarkets, council estates, schools.
