The Diaries of Sun City
By Mike Russell
From short story collection Nothing Is Strange
Published by: StrangeBooks
Dear Diary,
Hello. It is Monday. I live in Sun City. Sun City is a city that is
entirely contained inside an enormous concrete building in the shape of a sun.
Its rays house our living quarters; its circular centre is where we work and
shop. No one has ever been outside of the city; it is generally suspected that
the environment outside of the city is uninhabitable.
People write diaries for a particular reason
here, where our social etiquette is constricting. Diaries are so popular that
they have their own shop. The shop is called ‘We Are Diaries’. I have not owned
a diary until now. The idea of placing my most secret, most sacred feelings out
in the world terrifies me but today I bought a small, black book with blank,
white pages and the word ‘Diary’ embossed on its cover.
I walked from the shop and through the city
centre with the diary in my pocket and caught the bus that runs up and down the
concrete ray that houses my apartment.
My apartment is at the very end of the concrete ray.
Inside my apartment, I sat
facing the far wall. I lay the diary on my lap, opened it at the first page,
then began to write in it with pen and ink.
Why can I not tell Miss
Baraclough that I care for her? It would be wrong to of course, inappropriate.
She would be offended, that would be expected of her. Reluctantly, her
associates would be obliged to sever their relations with me; my associates
would be informed and forced to sever their relations with me also. I would
feel ashamed because it would be expected of me. Yet I would not feel ashamed
when talking to you dear Diary; I would be proud. But I cannot say it to her so
this ink is wasted.
Dear Diary,
It is Tuesday. Despite my dismissal of its
worth, I have decided to write to you again. When I opened the diary this
evening I discovered the first page to be blank! My memory of writing on the
page is clear. Is my memory lying to me?
Dear Diary,
It is Wednesday. When I opened
the diary this evening the first page was blank again. Is the ink fading? I am
scared. Imagine saying that to a colleague. ‘Mr Barton, I am scared.’ Imagine
his horror, his embarrassment, his contempt. Tomorrow, I will whisper it to his
back.
Dear Diary,
It is Thursday. When I opened
the diary this evening, the first page was blank again. I decided to count the
pages. I counted 362. The pages are disappearing. Someone must be stealing the
pages. I have begun constructing elaborate scenarios from my suspicions. Who
would want to know my secret thoughts? But had I not once wished to see inside
Miss Baraclough’s diary? If I had spied it when visiting her in her apartment
and she had briefly left the room to make a cup of tea, would I not have been
tempted to steal a glance at a few words? From this confession, dear Diary, I
deduce that the pages could have been stolen by absolutely anyone.
I expect that by tomorrow
evening this page will also have disappeared.
Dear Diary,
It is Friday. I was right; the
page has gone. Today, on the bus, I wanted to shout obscenities and bare myself
to the other passengers. My confessions to you, dear Diary, are becoming more
honest with the thought that they are being read. I am no longer scared of my
words being seen because they are evidently being read by someone who welcomes
them, who needs them. But I am fantasising.
My door is bolted from the inside at night and there are no windows in
my apartment. How then are the pages disappearing? Am I destroying them myself
in my sleep? Is there a part of me that
abhors these words, that would rather I was a perfect citizen with no feelings
that need to be hidden? I will stay at Miss Baraclough’s tonight.
Dear Diary,
It is Saturday. The page has
gone. The ‘We Are Diaries’ shop is wrong; they are not diaries. I do not write
to them and it is not this book that I am writing to either. I am not
addressing these paper pages or their cardboard cover. Dear Diary, who are you?
Dear Diary,
It is Sunday. I want to leave
the city. What is outside of the city? Is that where you reside? Do you have a
throne on the other side of the world?
Dear Diary,
It is Monday. I am hammering a
chisel into the far wall of my apartment, the end of the concrete ray. Bang
follows bang with no lessening of passion. My desire grows as my energy fades.
Bang. Bang. It falls away in chunks.
I can see a little light that
grows.
The hole is big enough to crawl
through.
I crawl through.
It is so bright! The ground is
covered in pages, knee deep, for as far as I can see. White pages covered in
writing in different hands lay naked, exposed, pressed against one another. It
is overwhelming. I wade through them.
I walk in a straight line all day, bewildered
but purposeful, towards Diary’s throne.
In the distance I can see other
people. They are also wading through the pages, striding from every direction
towards the same destination, fearless, with nothing to lose. Could it be that
everyone has broken through their respective concrete rays at the same time and
for the same reason as I?
When we reach a distance where
Diary’s throne should be in sight, we all realise that it is not there, and
that it is not the throne that we are walking towards but each other.
The air is full of unrestricted
speech.
We now no longer live inside the
sun but are illuminated by it.
Now we become the throne.
Now we are Diary.
Copyright © 2014 Mike Russell. All Rights Reserved.
Interested in another short story from the book, check out "Dunce" here.
Update: Check out Nadaness In Motion's book review of Nothing Is Strange by Mike Russell on the blog.
About StrangeBooks:
www.StrangeBooks.com is a new
Indie publisher based in the UK. Their first publication is a collection of 20
mind-expanding short stories titled 'Nothing Is Strange'.
www.StrangeBooks.com believes
in the transformative power of the story:
“We wish our readers the highest possible outcome from their reading
experience. We believe that stories have the potential to be life-changing. So
let us not limit the power of the story; let us read with an expectation of the
highest possible outcome and allow every story to work its magic.”
Mike Russell, the author of ‘Nothing Is Strange’, adds this:
“For me, creating is discovering and storytelling is bringing into the
world dreams that are universal. They come from a deep place; they want to be
known and they want to help us. Storytelling is a way of turning the world
inside out, which I believe it desperately needs.”
Inspiring, liberating, otherworldly, magical, surreal, bizarre, funny,
disturbing, unique… all of these words have been used to describe the stories
of Mike Russell so put on your top hat, open your third eye and enjoy… Nothing
Is Strange!
Available from amazon here: viewBook.at/nothingisstrange
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