This week: Your city 100 years from now.

The year is 2114. The city of Calgary has been completely enclosed in a biodome since 2073. It was necessary when the poison gas was released from a compromised military facility in Kalispell, Montana. The population has been decimated by chicken pox and measles, which became epidemics in the early 2050s, as parents slowly stopped vaccinating their children. These days you couldn’t get the vaccination even if you asked for it. It was seen as a way to thin out the herd because, let’s face it, the biodome resources are dwindling.

Cars are a thing of the past of course; can’t be having all that exhaust mucking up the good air inside the dome. Everyone travels by bicycle, which is old-fashioned and somehow comforting. And we’ve all become vegetarians of a sort; again, can’t have all those cows farting and screwing up our precious atmosphere. Life under the dome is simple and calm, two words seldom applied to the Calgary of the past. Our collective sorrow is the loss of access to the mountains; that was and remains a loss that we are still not quite over. But there is talk of erecting a mighty dome over the town of Banff, with some crazy idea of tunneling from one dome to the other. Might work. Until then we gather in the community hall on Monday nights to watch old National Geographic documentaries of nature and how it existed outside of the dome.

Next week: Write a short story in which you are the villain.

This is the latest exercise in my 642 Things to Write About Project. Click on the link to find out more, or click on the category 642 Things to Write About Project to read past exercises.  🙂