Impurities

Written by Nicholas Lai

Edited by Vinnie Cheung

A sullen canopy of clouds hung over the city, as it had every day and night for all time. Beneath it, in rank after rank, stretching far out of sight, loomed monoliths of concrete. Their antiseptic walls reared to infinite heights, blinding white in the sun. There were endless bleached vistas, in ordered rows and files of buildings, retreating one after the other into the haze from view. From the ground looking up, wall after wall seemed to sprout out the earth and plunged into the clouds. Their sheens glowed as if they are fashioned from the sun; not one smudge of imperfection could be seen on them.

Each of the buildings consisted of identical, individual rooms, stacked countlessly. The bleak, square, recurrent walls, connect and repeat endlessly. Each room consisted of a single bed, toilet, table, and resident. They were kept, polished citizens - and above all else, they exalted purity. Their white clothes were kept as spotless as their walls, where every speck of dust, crease in clothing, and imperfection were rigorously combed out and eliminated. Throughout the rooms rang the incessant squeak of alcohol spray and scrubbing of cloth. The work was never a nuisance, but an insuppressible, instinctive duty: one that could not leave your mind, one that keeps you awake until it is carried out.

Each morning, like clockwork, the elevator in every building would begin its descent at the same time. It didn't pause for stragglers or dawdlers - it glided down smoothly and without interruption from the top floor to the ground. As the elevator reached the ground floor, a stream of people flowed out of each building, moving with a graceful and deliberate pace down the long avenues. There was no jostling or chaos in this daily exodus - it was more like a practiced ritual, with each person flowing into the street like a connoisseur trickling fine wine into a glass.

The people marched to work. There were several factories across the city where fumes billowed from their girthy pipes as they sat atop white walls and foundations. Throughout the day the people manned the conveyor belts and pumped the valves. Concrete mix churned in the pits, machines whirred feverishly, and sands and cement cascaded from chutes, sending smoke drifting through the air. But there was no filthy, industrial griminess; even in the factories, cleanliness persisted. Walls were constantly scrubbed and maintained, and pipes and tubes were flushed and cleaned out ceaselessly. All the while, not a drop of sweat ever fell in the factory: excretion was gritty and impure. Life in the city had always been slow, careful, and precise.

The people returned at dusk as the sun wanes behind the clouds. Shadows deepened between the buildings and the avenues of the city, engulfing all and any distinctions. Building merged into the building, person into a person, becoming one vague, dark mass moving in unison; like returned war heroes, they walked down the rows of grim, saluting soldiers. They would sail back up the elevators, one by one filing off to bed, smiling to themselves from a day’s hard work, and eager for the same day in the morning.

But in all the endless, sterile expanse of the city, the diligent cycles of cleansing, scrubbing, maintaining, and working, there remained the Impurities. The people acknowledged them, but hardly cared or let them disrupt their work and happiness. They came and went like sneezes; returning eventually, but always passing and being forgotten. Every day, there was the occasional splatter of blood on a wall, a mangled body in the corner, and gore strewn across the sidewalk. But by the next day, it would be swept away and cleaned, leaving nothing but a pure, white slate where the mess had once been.