The City Life

The City Life

I slumped onto the bench at the bus stop, squeezing between two other bodies. If not for our faces, we could’ve been clones – the black business suits, identical polished shoes and briefcases did nothing to set us apart. There was no individualism here. Every worker was just another mindless drone, a robot straight off the production line that was the office world.

Around me, people rushed past, eager to reach home. No one spared me a glance, and why should they? I was a nobody, just another face in the crowd of millions. The traffic lights across the street flicked between colours, whilst headlights and street lamps flared in all directions.

The city was a constant attack on the senses, and it was so easy to get lost. The smog from thousands of cars filled my mouth every time I breathed, choking me with its taste. The sea of noise surrounded me, the car engines, horns, vendors selling their wares, buskers playing their songs wearily. It came in waves, crashing over me, threatening to sweep me out to be lost forever.

How could anyone here truly be alive? We were all just machines, robots with so few differences they were irrelevant. The men on either side of me, they would have their stories no doubt. But who here would ever hear them? Would anybody here ever notice if I were to go missing? Would there be a search, or would I just be written off, misplaced machinery, soon to have my spot filled by another fresh off the line.

The bus arrived and I stood to board, thinking ahead to the companionless meal of takeaway Chinese that awaited me. I wondered if this vicious cycle of city life would ever end. Would these soul-crushing prisons ever close? Or would these destructives factories run as long as mankind, destined to destroy individualism forever?