The Setting of a Future (339 words)

The city had become, quite simply, grey. In order to give advertising the most impact, the buildings, roads and signs were desaturated. Now the only glimpse of any bight colour to the weary people of the inner city would only come from the billboards, which use this isolated feeling of happiness to sell a better life. Art had been abandoned. If you wanted to laugh, smile or perhaps cry, the only place left to look was the advertising space. For the majority of people, this worked. It had taken many years to accomplish, but graffiti had been deemed as a menace, and modern art as a joke. Two ideals, seemingly of free will on the part of the general public, were nothing more than sinister forces at working, drawing peoples attention from the free expression of mankind, and towards the dedicated space reserved for marketing.

Television did its part too. Sensationalised rolling news coverage focused on the dark and fragile side of humanity, leaving the public with a sense of vulnerability. Relentless bombarding of terrifying pictures conveyed a world of fear, to which even the most intelligent of scholars who wanted to know their place in an ever changing world could say nothing but "Oh dear". No longer did people riot, they were too scared. Instead it was a much better idea just to watch the soaps, filler between commercial breaks.

The government too become corrupt. In preservation of their own welfare, minsters slowly manipulated the rules to give themselves more financial security and profit. No longer did a man enter politics for the benefit of his constituency, but as a pre-planned career path of high profit and no tax. The unions had truly been the voice of the people, but it had been a long time since they were no more. In collaboration with the newspaper's and broadcasters, pre orchestrated events kept the fear alive in the population, defending the institutions from an uprising.

Yes, the market forces had won. In this new world, satisfaction was impossible.