The City under the Sky of Stone Part One - Original fiction

by Michael Warner Molema

The elevator creaked and squeaked as it sunk down the deep hole it was built within. The machine was a room two meters square with couches on three sides and a luggage rack situated in the middle. The elevator was filled with twenty-or-so people, all of them moving into the secret city.

After about five minutes a large white screen dropped in front of the glass panel doors, a projector started up with a clicking whir, and the elevator’s lights turned off. “Greetings,” cried a voice from the trumpets set in the celling. At the same time the projector threw a man’s face upon the white screen, the face was quite handsome. “I am Johnathan Strauss. You may call me Nathan.”

The elevator was silent, except for the creaks and squeaks of the mechanism, because for almost all of the people in the elevator had never seen a projector or heard a voice recording. “I, like you, have lived in the world for many years. I, like you, have voted, hoping that politicians would change the world for the better. And, yet after all this time hoping for change, we find ourselves repeating the same pattern over and over again.

“I, like you, have desired change. So, I gathered those who thought the same, and together we built a city, a secret city. This city would be a true republic, a place where you can elect your fellow man, and those you elect will sit upon the council that will decide the fate of this city. This city can be your city, and together we will build the greatest republic in the world.”

The projector clicked off and the white screen was rolled up into the celling. After several seconds the darkness of the stone vanished from behind the glass doors, leaving a breath-taking view.

“Welcome to the Republic of Illumination!”

Spread out below the falling elevator was a vast subterranean city. Great stalagmites and stalactites were merged with buildings of all shapes and sizes. Lights, blazing white, lit up gardens covered by huge glass domes. Other lights lit up buildings, and spot lights traced their way through the inky black void that surrounded the city of light. Bright lights of every colour covered the stone and steel and glass structures that filled the great cave that held the secret city of Illumination.

“It is called Illumination because of the light,” whispered a little girl to her father. “It’s beautiful,” whispered another, a middle-aged woman with a British accent and fine clothes.

“Indeed.” I said, the first word I had spoken in years since the death of my beloved grandfather.

The lights flickered on within the elevator, washing out the view of the great city that was quickly rising to our level. A woman’s voice chimed in over the speaker, “Now arriving at Illumination Entrance Terminal. Please prepare to disembark the elevator.”

The image of the city vanished and the light within the elevator showed grey stone rushing by just beyond the glass doors. The elevator stopped and we were greeted by the sight of a statue of a man holding a glowing sign saying: We Chart our own Course.