Montreal

If you looked at Montreal for the first time, you would say it was a dream city. There was no crime. There were no shady people selling shady stuff out on the streets. There was no killing. There were very few diseases that had not been conquered.

Everyone contributed to society. Everyone enjoyed the vibrant lights that illuminated City Square. Everyone greeted each other kindly. Everyone frequented Downey Street – the only street that had a boom box blasting the national anthem down the street every second of daylight. Of course, the music came to an abrupt end at curfew time, which was 10 o’clock.

On the outside, I fit in with everyone. But I knew that life wasn’t like this. Every single soul (including the pet rats that hung out by Ramsey Street) living in Montreal was living in a bubble made by the mysterious government. The only reason I knew this was because I wasn’t from Montreal. In fact, I was born and raised in America. Except America wasn’t what it was in the 21st century. America and her allies had descended into a constant state of battles with the European coalition.

The battles had caused massive food shortages and so it became necessary for me to abruptly drop out of high school and journey to the infamously secluded country which happened to be our neighbor – Canada. Through bribery and a weird-ass zipline (which is a story for another day), I managed to find myself in Montreal.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that the government was completely in control. They had such absolute control that no one had any idea that they were being controlled. Everything was run and made by the government, whether it be the local eatery or popular newspaper that didn’t tell anyone about anything other than the news in Montreal. Hell, no one even knew that there was more to Canada than just the city of Montreal.

Despite how unnerving it was to see a government so powerful, I managed to somehow fit in. I convinced the surprisingly stupid manager at the local smart shop to hire me.

A smart shop was a government-owned store (like every other store around) where people could buy any type of electronic device, whether it be an assistant like Waddling Watson or a 100 inch flat screen TV. Yeah, it was definitely an interesting job. Some of the stuff in there had never been seen before in America, and I had to give the Canadians props for that.

It was my third week away from my home in Boston and I was busy stocking the shelves with Pro-Fit Working Stations (which were quite profitable, pun intended). They were pretty much a desk mounted on an energy bike that powered the only electricity outlet in the rig. The government needed to make sure that people weren’t overeating like us Americans.

In America, Netflix became many people’s life when times became hard, as well as the great Godzilla Baconater Big Mac from McDonald’s.

My parents and sister’s faces kept flashing through my mind. I desperately clung to the sweet smell of my mother, my dad’s weather-beaten face, or my sister’s buck-toothed and partially toothless smile. I was so consumed by homesickness that I almost didn’t register my co-worker and semi-friend, Jimmy, standing next to me telling me something.

“…are here,” Jimmy said to me.

“What?” I asked. The guy gave me a frown and then repeated himself.

“The Angels are here,” he remarked. Then he added, “Are you okay Ian? You look like you’ve just seen Might Max himself.” For anyone confused about Might Max, let’s just say he was like Big Brother from 1984.

“I’m alright,” I told Jimmy. But nothing could’ve been farther than the truth. The Angels were more like Death. They were government troops who swooped in and took people away whenever they felt like it. No one retaliated when they came. They just obediently followed the Angels into government van and were never seen again.

I wondered if they had found me out. That I was an illegal immigrant. This was against all common logic, as the Angels selected people at random.

But my gut told me that this was no unlucky chance. The Angels were here for someone, that being me.

“Hey Jimmy, I gotta go,” I murmured.

“What do you mean?” Jimmy gave me an incredulous look.

“It is against the law to run away from the Angels,” Jimmy said, narrowing his eyes. I knew I was in trouble. I bolted. And so did Jimmy, yelling at me like a madman.

It was at that moment that the Angels burst through the doors. There were six of them, one of which was dressed in a robe and had a radiant smile on her face.

Everyone in the store was confused for a moment. Then they connected the dots and realized that I was running away from the Angels. So everyone (including my stupid manager) came chasing after me. Except they weren’t just coming for me.

I heard a collective scream and a thud as Jimmy got tackled by none other than our manager.

I dashed into the stairwell and quickly spun around. I saw my once-over friendly co-workers sprinting after me with demonic yells. When they were only a few feet in front of me, I slammed the door shut. A sickening crack followed. I took three stairs at a time and then hurried down the hallway. This was where all the employees lived, a great perk of the job. I threw open the door to my room and then slammed it shut. Jimmy and I lived here.

I quickly learned that we had very little of our own. Everyone here had two sets of clothes – work clothes and casual clothes. People could buy their own stuff, with their paycheck (which was exactly the same for low-level workers and only twenty dollars higher for managers) but everything was only needed for practical uses. No Fortnite, no fidget spinners, and, most sadly, there was no such thing as Stranger Things.

People in Montreal didn’t think much. No one ever broke from their routine, and no one ever even had a legitimate friend. All anyone thought about was what they needed to succeed in their job and what they needed to survive. No laughter. Just polite and full of fake smiles that were whitened using Dr. Fresh.

No one had any depth to their personality. No one had any vitality.

I attributed this awkwardness to the pills I saw everyone take every morning. The manager would drop them off and call them growth pills, but I thought that they were shrinking pills. They seemed to make everyone stupid and aloof.

Anyways. Back to running for my life.

I quickly opened the window and climbed onto the fire escape. What I saw was a chilling – five gun barrels pointed at me. I heard the woman with flowing robes tell me to stop, but of course I didn’t. I scampered up the fire escape and onto the roof. And now I was stuck again.

“Come down from there. Join us in the heavens. There is no pain with the Angels. We give you one more chance to atone for your sins,” the lady cried with passion. Her speech rang with radiance, but I thought it sounded like some exaggerated version of a deranged satanical woman trying to convince a child to get in her car.

I glanced around me and saw two neighboring buildings. The one on the left was a story taller. The one on the right was a few feet lower. I automatically turned right. After a few deep breathes and pissing myself, I was ready. I heard the thump of the Angels’ boots on the fire escape. I took one last deep breath and ran.

I was airborne for a few seconds. Then I came crashing down onto the roof of the other store, which happened to be a grocery store. The Angels weren’t far behind. I saw them look over at me. One person then aimed a tazzer at me. It nearly stopped me in my tracks.

But I was sent back into action when the paralyzing blue beam missed me by a mere inch. I slammed right into the rooftop door and hurried down the stairs.

I opened the door see rows of food stocked on shelves. It was remarkable that there wasn’t a speck of dust. Even more remarkable was that this grocery store was an exact replica of every other grocery store in Montreal. That was the way it was. Every car dealership sold the same few cars. The smart shop I worked in was exactly the same as every other smart shop in Montreal.

A confused employee saw me. But before he could open his mouth, I slammed him against the wall. He crumpled to the ground and I snatched his smartwatch off his wrist.

To my delight, his smartwatch didn’t require a password. I scrolled through his apps and quickly found what I was looking for – the car app. That meant that this man had a car.

I walked to the front of the store where people were murmuring about the Angels.

And then three of the so-called Angels stepped into the store.

“Catch that man!” the robed woman cried. She then promptly tripped over her robes as she ran towards me. The two other soldiers who were actually dressed to capture someone charged towards me. Employees and customers alike darted out the way. Then I sprang into action. I ran over to a bunch of potatoes and started throwing them at the Angles.

I never thought playing on a baseball team would save my life.

I ran over to an employee who was cowering behind a package of water. Apparently, the man was going around stocking the shelves when all hell broke loose.

I grabbed the individual waters out of their boxes and lubricated the floor with a healthy dose of water.

The Angels had no time to react. One of them slipped and the other one stumbled and then made a spectacular wipeout as he crashed into a crate full of fruit cups.

I burst out the door. I pressed the “unlock car” button on the man’s smartwatch I had stolen. To my relief, a car sounded further down the street, away from the Angels that had just climbed down the fire escape and were coming for me. My feet flew across the pavement and I was about to climb in the driver’s seat just as the deranged leader of the Angels came crashing out the door. Her once silky smooth brown hair now had clumps of unidentified guck in it. I could see that she had a bad run-in with the CheezeBallz too, as her she had shed her robes and her black turtleneck was stained orange from the “organic cheese”.

I didn’t waste any more time looking at that insane woman screaming at me. I hopped into the car and it shot off. Solar powered cars had advanced tremendously in Canada, ever since Tesla was swallowed by Canada’s government. A desperate Elon Musk had sold his company to Canada for only one million dollars. It was now rumored that he was living out his days on a spaceship aimlessly drifting through space.

I zoomed down the streets with reckless abandon. Cars honked at me as I tore down the road. Every single car was identical to mine, but they came in different colors. Unfortunately, I was driving a neon yellow car and that made me a big target. Government jeeps roared down the road, and I could see that they had brought out the big guns to stop me. A government jeep blocked my path further down the road. Except there was a pink gun on top of it…

The Badass Bazooka Bubblegum Blaster was a new invention created inside a lab in downtown Montreal, where all of the big government agencies were based. It was a new and exciting invention, as it coated the street in a thick layer of bubble gum that would stop any car that put its wheel on the gum.

And that was what happened to me. I cursed as the car stopped dead in its tracks.

“Get out of the car and put your hands up!” someone boomed.