Welcome to the world where the sunrise is a forgotten lore, where children sketch the sun in a palette of grays and breathing is synonymous with filtering – welcome to Smog City. Here, the sun has become an urban myth, a celestial body that older generations recall with a strange mix of reverence and pain. The once clear blue horizons have been replaced by a permanent griseous curtain. Puny skyscrapers, now mere silhouettes, jut impotently against the gloomy skies, challenging the heavens only in fairy tales.
Days commence not with the rosy-fingered dawn, but with dim streetlights winking out, indistinguishable from the true morning light. People scuttle between structures, faces half obscured by masks that have become as essential as the devices they clutch with pale, trembling fingers. ‘Going outside’ has become an act of courage, and the few trees that once valiantly fought the toxic tide now stand as brittle monuments to a prior world.
Nature’s palette seems to have lost all but the smudgiest hues. Fruits and vegetables, coaxed from the soil in artificially-lit underground farms, never knowing the kiss of sunlight, inhabit the markets. ‘Vitamin D sold separately’, the vendors quip, a dark humor to their trade. Solar power is a bitter irony here in Smog City; the precious panels are as shrouded as the hopes of the population. Fossil fuels, the very arsonists of our atmosphere, continue to burn with impunity, a mocking pyre to human progress.
In this dusky world, children learn to draw the sun without reference, eyesight dulled by the omnipresent haze. Balls thrown high into the air vanish before they descend, as if the smog itself is a malevolent force swallowing joy. The inexorable spread of pollutants has ingratiated itself into every pore, every breath, every thought.
The city’s remaining wildlife, marred by this murky existence, carries on with the stubborn persistence that characterizes all life under pressure. Birds, their dulcet morning songs now choked, navigate a labyrinth of smokestacks instead of open skies. Their sooty feathers resemble the ash-covered branches upon which they precariously roost.
Amid this bleak landscape, there remain those who rail against the dying of the remaining light. Activists, last keepers of the flame, push for change, but their voices are as muffled as the laughter of the children they fight for. They speak of renewable energy, of policy revolutions, of a return to a time when the horizon promised a new beginning rather than the continuation of a perpetual dusk.
The glimpses of the unseen sun come not from the sky but from within the hearts of the weary. Artisans imbue their craft with colors drawn from memory, hoping to rekindle the radiance of a time passed. Musicians compose melodies that capture the brightness they yearn for, while poets pen verses of the warmth felt in dreams. These are the silent rebels in Smog City, the dreamers that dare to envision a dawn.
As night befalls the city, devoid of stars, the relentless fog covets every glint of artificial light. The inhabitants, living in this twilight existence, whisper tales of a world that once danced in the sunlight, stories they scarcely believe were ever real.
The Unseen Sun is not just an obscured celestial entity, it’s a metaphor for lost potential, for hope squandered in the alleys and avenues of Smog City. It’s the beacon that could guide us out of this man-made midnight, if only we could burn away the veil that we have woven with our own hands.