Crowds passed through narrow corridors leading to glass doors of the main section. Doors spun, maintaining a steady, monotonous rhythm as groups of people entered one after another. Security cameras on the ceiling captured the whole picture translating it into gray, grainy footage on the screens in the control booth. Sounds of solemn hymns saturated the air with tints of brass and booming of drums.
One of the dark perpendicular corridors on the left pierced the wall between the main hall and a small garden where pink, red, and white roses filled the cool air with faint sweet fragrances. Drops of dew sparkled on their petals reflecting the sunlight coming through the glass roof high above. Sprinklers at the edges of flowerbeds produced shimmering showers of water drops, dissipating in the air and condensing on dark-green glossy leaves and tender rosy petals, fluttering under the force of the stream.
In the middle of the wall on the opposite side of the garden was an entrance leading through another dark and narrow corridor to a dim and humid hall, filled with a web of pipes. One huge pipe crossed the hall and disappeared into walls on both sides. The rough surface painted dull green was covered with condensed water and emanated slightly perceptible steam. This main tube, wide enough for a human to crouch through, was surrounded by a maze of narrow, convoluted pipes, part of which sprouted from it, each connection starting with a bend with a massive tap attached to it. The labyrinth of pipes obstructed a passage through the hall to the other side, and rusty stains and puddles of steaming water covered the wet, dirty floor.
The door on the other side led to a small room, crowded with dusty scrolls of blueprints and endless stacks of crumbling paper. At the remaining space in the middle stood a huge desk with big wooden rulers, pencils, and paper scraps piling up on its surface. The door with a shining green exit sign above it was blocked by pieces of plywoods, metal rods, and fragments of metal frame hastily welded together.
Beyond the door marked "exit" was yet another corridor longer than all previous, which at some point turned into an undulating path, sporadically twisting left and right. The path gradually descended, with its walls getting covered in cool moisture. In the middle it narrowed to a tunnel confined by a ribbed surface of segments of metal tubes stitched together with heavy bolts; their rusty octagonal heads protruded at the seams, where two segments of the tube were connected.
The tube ended with a massive grill welded to its entrance. Beyond the grill in impenetrable darkness laid an underground railroad. When trains passed this segment of their route at high speed, the air compressed by their motion hit the tunnel behind the grill as a shockwave. Rails stretched hundred and seventy kilometers to the east, passing a big station that connected the eastern suburbs of the city to the railway system. Eastern suburbs were a no-go territory controlled by anarchists and vigilante teams with obscure ideas and hand grenades as a means of persuasion.
Tools, scattered on the table. Moving through the long narrow corridor with wet walls, dark except the areas lit by the orange incandescent bulbs. The obscure light reveals puddles on the floor. The corridor gradually leads somewhere deep underground. It's imperceptibly slanted down and is weaved in huge circles, comprising a giant spiral that keeps descending. The corridor is silent like it's insulated with cotton that muffles all the sounds. The entrance to the corridor is located in a trench between the walls of fresh ground, with layers of sand and tangle of dried grassroots intermixed with the soil.
The street is bustling with cars, and an enormously wide sidewalk is crowded with pedestrians. Paths perpendicular to the sidewalk split the line of carefully trimmed shrubbery bordering its far side. The paths lead deeper into the park, and swarms of people move to and fro along them. It's hard not to bump into somebody. There is a tall grate deeper inside. There is no other vegetation around except the line of shrubs formally separating the park from the street. The shrubs have a tired, coppery and gray hue from the heat and dust. It's a sunny midday, but the air has some misty quality because of the smog. There is a microbus, standing near the sidewalk, waiting for everybody to get inside, to transport them to a different square of this vast city. Another plain of pale asphalt, decorated with coppery shrubs and enveloped into a subtle gauze of smoke.
A small wharf perched on the edge of the river, a point of stop for river buses - small vessels regularly commuting along the river, connecting towns located alongside it. Their schedule was incomprehensible. A narrow asphalt path led from the wharf up a grassy slope toward the town. The vessels arrived and departed, leaving behind groups of people who then followed the path up merging with the bustle of the town. There was a terrace, surrounded by ancient, tall trees that overlooked the river and green hills around. On the other side, small groves of birches interspersed a vast grassy plain. Farther from the bank the groves grew bigger, coalescing, at some point, into the frontier of a light forest.
The sight induced vertigo; roofs of tallest buildings were barely perceptible in an infinity below. Hundreds of miniature apartment blocks spliced with shabby green ribbons of parks unfolded on and on toward the horizon. This view, crystal clear just below the edge of the roof, was getting slightly hazy in the distance.
It was a field of flowers in the evening. In the mix of twilight and red glimpses of sunset. Different colors tinted with red and purple. Scatterings of poppies, flashing scarlet all the way to the remote dark belt of the river far away at the bottom of a long gentle slope, covered with flowers and grass. It was a hidden place near a narrow dusty strip of the road in the Neverland, reachable by a bus that ran according to its secret schedule once in a decade. A tall wall of shrubbery and roses separated the field from the road, making it invisible from this spot.
The sky and the earth rapidly switched places. Back and forth. A huge rainbow burst from a field of wheat splashing around sprays of acidic vividness, then spurted resolutely into a vertiginous high, blindingly turquoise dome, broiling and fermenting with wispy whiffs of a rapid white vapor - dissolving ragged serpentines and swift spirals.
A mass of vibrantly bleak wheat stalks undulated and swelled, transformed into a fervent flow of green waves, flowing and surging, intertwined with a luscious splattering of iridescent splashes and drops. A polychromatic radiant arc sprung high into the infinity, touching an unattainable cupola of azure, invisible at that tremendous altitude, then dissipated into oscillating, translucent ribbons, hints of raspberry, lime, and violets, then fell from the bloodcurdling, dizzying height to a remote, invisible spot far away beyond the horizon.
Swarms of dark birds whizzed with blinding speed, whooshing past, forming frenzied chains of black bullets on the invisible whips, thrashing and flopping hectically. Frantic black carousel merged and scattered, skidding and vanishing in the distance.
Snowy mountains of furry, cottony clouds plodded ponderously through the ether, puffs of vapor boiling slowly. Lights and shades mockingly played on the smoking surface. A gauzy shade below trailed weightlessly, swiftly and silently gliding forward, submerging the grass and wheat stalks into a faint, ghostly twilight.
Flowers, vividly pale, shivered and whispered reflectively, brushed by a whiff of breeze murmuring wistfully. A drowsy hypnotic flutter of leaves and shimmering of petals. Waves passing through the field produced sequences of these soporific tremors, waxing and waning suddenly and rhythmically.
Shiny strips of light on the ground. Cumulus of foliage shimmers in the currents of the solar radiance, sending spots of illumination that skip joyfully on the ground.
Conglomerations of vivid yellow dandelions like miniature sun reflections flutter in a soft breeze.
A disheveled coverlet of weeds, impertinent green arrows raise toward a transparent azure dome overhead. Quivering blades below still retain some moisture of the morning dew. They slowly sip the warmth of the afternoon.
Dazzling flashes bounce from glass surfaces in various directions, converging, dispersing. An exquisite pale lace of lilac intersperses the emerald leaves.
Stately chestnuts stand silently, showing off their lush crowns and fluffy white candles. Blooming apple-trees are covered with a sparkling veil of flowers.
A whiff of soft wind puts everything in motion, sunbeams, grass blades, foliage - everything commences some random motion, continuously altering the pattern of light around.
