I once witnessed someone walking down the streets of Progress. An unusual sight, to say the least. Nobody in Progress uses the streets, too dreadfully inconvenient. Besides, why would anyone ever walk? Before I can elaborate on that story, I need to address another question many pose before coming to our city. What does a man do when all his desires are fulfilled? Every whim and pleasure are provided to our citizens, so what is one left to do?
In Progress, we have set our sights on perfection. Truly, it is the only thing that can be worth striving for after utopia has been reached. That is what they say anyway. We similarly must expect perfection within our city, and so one of our committed goals is to make the perfect city. Our task began with fixing the dismal infrastructure, cleaning up the streets and buildings, making sure every single possible flaw was removed.
We scrubbed the subway stations of dirt. We repaired the numerous torn and decaying wires hampering our electrical grid. Filled in the potholes and cracks in the cement. After the basics, we turned to the larger issues. The holographic advertisements needed some tuning up. The mag-lifts needed to be replaced. The antimatter powered hubs had to be optimized and recalibrated.
As we gazed on our shining city, we realized just how far from perfection we were. The roads were crooked and confusing, the buildings bent and twisted, the electrical grid not efficient enough. We realized to our joy that the very foundation of Progress was rotten, and so it needed to be removed and rebuilt.
We tore the city down and started again. Once we had erected our new gleaming metropolis, we realized there were yet more problems. In perfecting the residential zones, the power plants were forced out of place. In increasing the size of the transportation network, it conflicted with our burgeoning skyscrapers. The foundation always posed more and more problems, and so we realized we needed to do away with the concept of foundation itself.
A building blocking the construction of a road? We’ll remove the skyscraper and keep going. An apartment block restricting a subway? Well, there is no time like the present. Every imperfection must be done away. We certainly always have the resources to spare, and so the work never ends. Progress is always being built and torn down again and again.
Then our great scientists realized that even this grand idea was insufficient. The world was too skewed. The very concept of a city with such things as buildings, roads, and transportation was flawed from the beginning. Such restrictive concepts held humanity back for too long. We needed a new idea, one that would not be constrained by traditional modes of thought.
The building blocking the way? The road doesn’t need to go around. Grav-locks meant we could shift the road up, down, sideways, or in any direction you can imagine. That pesky reactor getting in the way? Why not use a spatial dislocator and fold a dimension inward? A whole new realm of possibilities opens for the creative. Why settle for one moment of an apartment block when you could have its whole history with a temporal converter?
Dear Reader, now you see the problem of streets in Progress. We have eliminated the concept itself. Everything within Progress is a street, a building, and a residence at the same time. At least, according to your traditional mode of reality, it is. Everything is everywhere at every single moment.
That was what was so odd to me, looking out from what you could call my apartment, seeing that singular man walking across Progress. I saw his form striding across the asphalt, moving through dimensions and singularities, through winding corridors that both existed and did not, across iterations of time as centuries progressed.
Now what was puzzling me was this: when everything is everywhere, there is nowhere left to go. An odd thought to those outside of Progress. But tell me, what is the point of traveling when you practically exist at every location simultaneously? Truly, there is nowhere left to go, and so there is no point in going anywhere.
I am aware of people who took to the streets of Progress in a daze, as lost atoms of humanity, being washed around like foam on an ocean. I had even met a few of these sorry individuals, seen their empty gazes as they kept drifting on and on to nowhere.
But this man was not one of them. He strode with purpose, and that alone unsettled me. Now, I understand the proper etiquette of those outside our beloved city. Let the man go on his way and leave well enough alone. Normally, I would’ve done exactly that, but something drove me to follow him, an impulse I scarcely recognized. It was a desire that I couldn’t quite put a name to, not yet anyway.
I decided to follow this man. I put on my coat and went out the door—or window—whichever frame of reference you prefer.
I understand that is difficult for you to imagine. I have thought about the troubles of conveying the image of Progress to people living in conventional realities. In following this man, we travelled across the space of galaxies within seconds. We crossed dimensions, going from simple two-dimensional lines to complex interwoven geometries unknown to ordinary minds. We rode specks of light across unknown spectrums and existed as waves of sounds reverberating through space. None of these sensations or experiences one can properly communicate to the uninitiated.
You might envy us for that, but these things are mundane to us. They happen all the time. They have always happened and will always continue to happen. Regardless, I have decided upon simplifying the details as best I can for the sake of the reader. While my descriptions are not even a fraction of the truth, they are sufficient for the time being.
Back to my point, I followed this man just out of his sight. I saw he wore the uniform of Chimera Industries, one of the more prominent construction companies working in Progress. However, the ancient yellow vest was torn and dirtied. The hardhat he wore had holes and cracks from a lifetime of labor. His trousers barely hung on by a few threads and a leather strip of a belt. Another odd display, nothing was old in Progress.
I couldn’t make out his face, but his emaciated form hinted at a skeletal appearance. The man no longer had hair or even light fuzz. The skin was wrapped around the head in a malnourished fashion.
It was a sorry visage, and it only continued to unnerve me further. The man’s body confirmed the same story. His hands were covered in a multitude of budding blisters, scratches, and outright gouges into his flesh. All of it was underneath a layer of dark grime that seemed like a second layer of skin. Slung across his back was a rusted pickaxe which hung from a thin strap of cloth torn from a remnant of clothing.
He limped forward onward and onward to nowhere. One moment we were walking along a beach and another we were in the bowels of a factory. All of it being created and taken apart mere minutes after passing through. We passed by many other construction workers tirelessly working for the benefit of Progress. We are always striving for more beauty, more elegance, more perfection.
None of them paid us mind as we passed through, and then we were in a long, plastered corridor. It looked like an ordinary hall out of some office building. The electric lamps buzzed above the white hallway, which stretched into nearby rooms. It seemed rather peaceful. Unlike the other locations, no one was actively around. Uncommon, but these instances do happen. It might take a day, a month, or a year, but eventually someone will come around and begin work.
I hid in an adjacent room filled with old printers and tables holding blank paper. Peeking my head out, I saw the man pause. For a brief terrifying moment, I thought he had spotted me. Not that I was afraid of the man, but the possibility of the purpose I saw would vanish and disappear forever.
To my relief, he never once looked in my direction. Instead, he wearily unstrapped the pickaxe from his back and swung at the plaster wall. The rusty metal sank into the material quite easily. Pulling it out, a gouge of white dust exploded and left a mark.
Was that it? Some tiny dot in the mass of Progress? It would be swept away as a grain of sand on the beach. An automated repair drone would come buzzing down the hallway and fix it. Or maybe the hallway would be deleted from existence and rebuilt entirely by one of the other companies. Or it would just be forgotten, and the result would still be the same.
The man swung the pickaxe again, striking the wall and gouging out another chunk. White bits fell onto the floor as he tore down the wall. I couldn’t help but stare at the man in disbelief. He worked at the wall methodically, intently removing more and more of the plaster as he continued digging.
The situation was outright perplexing. If the man so desired to tear down the wall, then there were a million better ways. Tools that could disintegrate and reintegrate matter, machines which could bring thoughts into reality, even something as simple as a laser drill would work.
As he labored, it suddenly dawned on me that the purpose might not lay in specific work itself. Maybe it was not the work that mattered but the pickaxe.
Perhaps some further context is needed, Dear Reader. There is no such thing as property in Progress. There is such an abundance that the term itself is meaningless. Just as there are no houses in Progress, there is nothing to put into a house. Every person “owns” everything that has existed or will exist. You might wonder at the mechanics of such a thing, and there are thousands of methods: quantum duplication, matter siphoning, law abstraction, the list goes on.
But when man can own everything, an enlightenment dawns. Emotions such as sentimentality or fondness or just simple attachment go away. Those emotions require a history: an object to be discovered, cherished, and eventually lost. But the Man of Progress cannot lose anything, nor can he gain anything.
So, the Man of Progress has no desire for material things. He stands above his ancestors as a king would in a palace towering above the peasant farmers. Nothing is forbidden to him.
And that man, that odd construction worker, could have several billion duplicate pickaxes down to the atomic frequency. He could have a replica cut off and reconstructed from his own timeline. In all essence, it would be the same pickaxe. Not just a perfect copy, but the exact one over and over again if he ever lost or discarded it.
In my experience, man often then plays a peculiar trick. He tries to reenact the emotions of nostalgia or what you would call sentimentality. He tries desperately to mimic the reality that had come before. An actor on a stage, repeating the same meaningless lines again and again. Some manage it for a while, a year or two at most, but eventually they stop caring because there is simply nothing to care for. Perhaps that was what the odd construction worker was doing. Some pitiable dance before he woke to reason again.
However, Dear Reader, even this did not sit right with me because I have known such people, and this did not fit that picture.
I knew because the odd construction worker became more fervent as he dug further and further. A hole grew in the wall, one that widened, and he simply did not stop. Hours passed by or what equates to hours in Progress. The man’s work grew more and more desperate.
It was growing more and more perplexing to me. There is no rush in Progress. We are patient people, and nothing matters as long as we are always coming closer and closer to perfection. The odd construction worker’s efforts became manic, turning to a lunging madness as the hole deepened.
His body shook as he swung the pickaxe again and again, chipping away the white plaster until it almost covered him in white dust. His sweat laced his every part of the effort, mixing with the plaster and becoming a white paste. The blisters on his hands popped and burst as they rubbed against the wood of the handle. Scratches and wounds dripped with blood, streaking red into his grimy flesh, and still he worked ever harder.
It was becoming insufferable as I watched. I bit down on my tongue to keep from calling out. A part of me wanted to stop this man, to bring him back to some semblance of reason. I desperately wanted to break whatever trance he had found himself in, but if I did that, then I would never know the reason for why he worked. The purpose of the digging would flee from me because my presence would intrude upon it. The act of interrupting would only ensure that the truth of the digging would be lost.
So, I waited and waited until finally, with a resounding strike, the pickaxe sank not into further plaster but hit something solid. The desperation which once enthralled the man departed immediately, turning to joy as he unearthed whatever he had struck.
I watched as he uncovered a strange concrete structure. It was little more than a closet one might find in a subway, a metal door inset into stone. The odd construction worker happily turned the handle. Inside was nothing but some ancient cleaning supplies and a broken shelf. He shut the door behind him, and I was left in the hallway alone and perplexed.
Stepping out, I made sure not to alert the man inside as I approached the concrete structure. Closer, I saw that the material was worn and old. Unusual in Progress, nothing was old in this city. Running my hand along the stone, I saw an imprint carved into the rock.
Progress Supply Closet 3251. That was what caught my attention. There is no need for numbering in Progress anymore. Therefore, this little structure must have been part of the original foundation. It was the first iteration of the city, and that meant it existed before Progress truly became what it was now.
Suddenly, I knew why this man had worked so hard. Why he cared so much about this mundane thing. This singular object had been before Progress known today. It had come from a world of is and isn’t, and somehow throughout all the years of Progress’ history, it remained. Perhaps overlooked through simple thoughtlessness or hidden away by its owner, it didn’t matter which, the result was the same.
As the city overturned and overturned again, this small nook and its janitor had been left alone by the ages passing by. A part of it rested outside of the reality of this glorious city. That made it unique, something that couldn’t be built or recreated or duplicated.
It was a fixture in the chaos. Something that was and couldn’t always be, and that made it more permanent than anything in Progress. I understood the worker then. It was the same as a child hiding in his bedroom closet from the terrors of the outside world. It was the secure walls and seal of the door against the rest of the world. Something real and safe to keep everything and everyone out.
And I confess, Dear Reader, that awoke in me some of the humanity which I utterly despise. This man owned something that I didn’t. He held something which I couldn’t. I hated him for cherishing it. He didn’t deserve to have this, nor did he deserve to keep it. This closet that had once likely been part of an ordinary subway was a priceless treasure. I fantasied killing him there and then for having it.
Then I would have it. Something that was mine and mine alone. The rest of Progress could continue as it had been, having the whole of the cosmos, but I held something none of them would even dream of possessing. I was so caught up in this fantasy that I didn’t hear the door crack open, the construction worker slowly looking at me.
In the shock of the moment, I glanced down at his vest and saw the faded black image of a mop printed on the yellow. I was partly correct on my previous assumption; he was part of Chimera Industries’ janitorial division. The final piece of the puzzle fell into place. This strange man was not an ordinary citizen of Progress; he was one of the first. The clothes were his; the pickaxe was his. All of it was his and only his. He likely sequestered these things away over the long years, hidden from the knowledge of the others, a secret buried for him and him alone.
However, reality set in as the shock wore off. That rage and delicious fantasy fled from me as we both stared at each other in horror. I might’ve been able to kill the man and take what was his, but it needed to be done by surprise and silently. A single shout would alert the workers in the distance, and now that opportunity was ruined. The horror quickly turned to hatred once again.
Neither of us would allow the other to possess this treasure. It was too great, and the notion that it would partly belong to another was insufferable enough. So that left only one option. I fled back into Progress. The man didn’t bother to give chase. He knew there was no point.
Once I got back to my apartment, I phoned the Chimera Company and requested that the white office hallway be torn down. To my surprise, the order had already been put in. Likely, the man wanted to rob me the pleasure of taking his precious secret. Either way, it was one more imperfection removed on our journey to Progress.