Member-only story
Masking It
60 Stories in 30 Days — #1
In the third pandemic to hit the Domes in the last five years, I’ve gotten so accustomed to wearing a mask that the only time I don’t have it on is the reprieve when I get home from my taxing job at the Data Management facility in the heart of the Dominion. Though I’d love to say I’m a people person in theory, the truth is that the world outside my door just doesn’t interest me that much anyway. Life is not what I signed up for, basically, so I’m fine to scroll through simulations until the day something happens — like when my Matching order comes through. That’s going to be a doozy, I just know it.
But I love scrolling through the simulations on deck, thanks to my work as an Archivist with the data at the heartbeat of what the Dominion is. While people every day feared scare tactics through the mass media infiltration, I instead chose to immerse myself in other worlds that — once upon a time — had been kinder. I especially liked the aquarium settings, with the beauty of their ultra-blue waters in perfect syncronization with relaxing music filtered straight to my mind, as I glimpsed underwater creatures of varying sizes as they swam around me without a care. It was beautiful. It was like taking a vacation to a land far, far away.
But the world outside the Domes? That was a charred land, a scarred land, where people couldn’t…
