The Six Foot Room - Part 4

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The walkway was clean; there was nothing out of place. Jaym's felt it looked unnatural. Too sterile, which wouldn't be bad, was it a medi-centre. It wasn't that though, it was supposed to be the great outdoors. It looked anything but great, and it didn't feel like the outside world.

The old world used to be chaotic. It's only right for nature to be filled with chaos and strived to make little sense in the eyes and minds of Humans.

He'd be lying if he said it wasn't picturesque, but that wasn't the point. While it was ascetically, it filled him with no joy. It didn't fill his eyes with beauty, instead, it filled his heart with a darkness that he hoped would have been washed away by being out of his room.

This place was as if it was being projected by yet another filter. His waking life was all filters; machine trickery and fake beauty.

"Isn't this nice?" Jaym's escort asked. The young man started to roll up his sleaves as his eyes drifted over everything around them.

"No." Jaym's said, trying not to sound too cantankerous, but he couldn't help but sound that way.

"No?" The man feigned shock. "Would you like to go back inside?"

Jaym's looked around, ignoring the man's question. Caretakers, wearing black overalls with white logos on the breast tended to the pathways, as well as the trees and bushes. An army of groundskeepers struggled to maintain this horrible place. Before them, the old hobbled along, aided by their escorts, no different than him. The winding path slithered ahead, disappearing over the hills on the horizon. There were no buildings, no towers, no man-made structures other than the walkway.

"Where are the buildings?" Jaym's asked in a low voice, barely audible to even himself, or at least he thought that until he saw the face of his escort drop.

"Don't you remember? We went down the elevator and then took a pod to get here, far from there." He rambled on, before stopping for a moment. "Oh, look at that, the water is like glass."

Jaym's followed the direction of his escort's pointing finger. There was a small pond in the centre of the green being taken care of by a groundskeeper. The water was like glass, reflecting the hot rays of the sun above.

"I don't remember taking a pod." Jaym's eventually said.

"Ponds have a way of helping me relax." The escort said whimsically, ignoring what Jaym's said.

After looking at the young man, he figured that there was no point in trying to speak with him. No answers would be had from him, or his sort.

"Let's go over to it, shall we?" Jaym's turned and headed straight for it.

"No, the groundskeepers don't like people walking on the grass." He said, rushing to stand in the way of Jaym's and it was the fastest he'd seen him move all day.

"I've had enough of this place, these lies, this stupid game." Jaym's said as he moved to walk around the man. "I have all of my faculties. I'm not a fool. We've been walking for a while now, and nobody has passed us!"

"What does that have to do with anything?" The young man said, continuing to block Jaym's path.

"Those people walking away from us, and those walking toward. They've been in that position this whole time, yet no one has passed us by." Jaym's then started to look at the grounds keepers. "And them. They've been working this whole time, but I haven't seen any of them do anything!"