The great nation of West Germia tried its hardest to appear as though it was a
beautiful, prosperous country; the citizens, however, knew better than to believe their
government’s attempt at propaganda.
Under a perpetually gray sky surrounded by the bleak earth, rattled with howling
winds, Germia’s exterior walls, taller than any tower, stretched far into the hazy and
ash-ridden sky which hid the sun away behind the swirling clouds. Dark skyscrapers stood
close together, clumped in unorganized patches of concrete, thick smog emerging from
chimneys and pipes, a jungle of disgraceful production. The black cracked roads were littered
with trash and fecal matter, snaking around the chaotic jungle, a horrible smell emanating
from the gaping sewer holes, grated with rusted metal..
It was this beautiful, prosperous country that Naomi called home. Wearing a dark
gray coat and stained pants, her back hugged the gray, graffiti covered brick wall to her right.
It was here, where the light couldn’t reach, that Naomi found herself every other
week, inhaling the putrid smell of rotting rubbish and squinting to be able to see through the
darkness down the alley.
Alleys like the one Naomi found herself in that day were all too common in West
Germia. Residents of the high rises on either side would throw their trash down from their
windows. There were no trash bins, no disposal trucks making the rounds to collect what
they threw, and so it was up to those rare local good samaritans to take the trash away, or at
least to push the bags to the sides of the alley to make room for anybody who wished to walk
through.
Now, Naomi wasn’t one of the rare good samaritans, though she liked to believe that
the bullying of her younger cousin was a significant contribution to society. She just
happened to arrive on a day that someone else had pushed the bags to the side.
As the slow motorcars chugged past behind her, the growling of dying engines
creeping through the crevices, Naomi moved her hands to her coat pockets, clasping the wad
of cash she had brought with her. It was much more money than any regular person should
be carrying in her coat pocket on a cold, dark weekend night like this one, but Naomi wasn’t
exactly regular.