Chronicles From The Future: The amazing story of Paul Amadeus Dienach

They are now forced to come to me to conduct their strange and pointless interrogation. This happened yesterday and the day before, when Jaeger brought two of the big names of the Valley to our villa, late at night, when everyone else was sleeping, just so that they could have the pleasure of hearing about the past in all kinds of detail. I did it just for Jaeger’s sake in appreciation of all his help. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t even have agreed to see them.

I had been dreaming about and looking forward to this trip to Norfor since I learnt about the existence of this “super-city” and heard people describing it as a “trip to fairy-tale land”. Everything I had read about the position of this fourth largest city in the world, combined with what Stefan and Jaeger had told me about its great influence on global lifestyle, made me long for this trip to the so-called “Flower of the North” with fervent desire.

Apparently, I had to miss the forests, the lakes and the light for a few days in order to deeply appreciate the serenity and bliss they offer and to realise that I wouldn’t change them for anything. It seemed obvious; it was not. The famous "Flower of the North" and even Skane and Artenfor, New Helsinburg and Riegen, Tholosi and the Garden of Lilies, Svendoni and the hectic city of Sgelen, and further south the Grand Torneo, the Lesley Gate and the Star of the Dawn, New Göteborg and the majestic Enole with its enormous old streets and palaces: all the current vast states of central and southern Europe, where Stefan took me from the sixth to the eighth of this month, are not for me. I do not fit in there.

I felt like my soul couldn’t breathe in those colossal, overpopulated cities that looked more like states with their massive roads in the middle of which, despite their width, you could barely find an empty square meter or see a bit of sky, with all the flying or street-moving vehicles gliding every which way. It was the apotheosis of the titanic: a continuous hustle and bustle that drains you heart and dries your mouth. This explains why, sometimes, I curled up in the linsen and didn’t want to get out even when we had reached our destination. I did not do this advertently and I think they realised this as well.

The first thing that disappointed me was the journey. In a large avenue of Markfor, on the outskirts of the giant, nearby garden city, I was distracted for a few minutes among the crowds of travellers constantly going to and fro waiting for the daner. I was filled with joy, anticipating the vehicle that would take me to the truth of their city centres. How I had looked forward to this trip! Imagine my disappointment when, only a couple of minutes after departing, Stefan told me we had arrived! I thought he was joking! Was that it? Yes, that was it.

In every place in this world, blessed by God and nature, the further you travel, the more things there are to see. Here the opposite happens: you might get stuck between four walls made of colourless metal, but if the trip is short, you can see the whole world parading before your eyes. However, if you are travelling a bit further, the only thing you’ll see is the place to which you are heading. In the meantime, you can spend your time walking around the facilities of the vehicle: the gardens that host rare flowers from around the world, the pools, the shot-put fields, the vast lounges and shops of the flying state, or you can just relax in your armchair, watching the latest news and current affairs on your Reigen-Swage

or glancing at the young people dancing below the artificial light coming from the side, like a morning sunbeam that lengthens the shadows on the floor.

Norfor!

From the plateau of Vikingaand, which means the spirit of the Vikings, with its enormous quays where we docked, for the first time I saw before my bedazzled eyes a never-ending ocean of long boulevards and parks and alleys and squares and those, unfamiliar to me, gigantic buildings, which continued interminably up to the mountains and across the valley of Lyseblaa.

Holding Stefan by the arm, in the midst of a vertigo attack, I gazed in awe at this densely populated area that hosts twenty-eight million people, twenty-three of whom are permanent residents, and spanning the city a mesh of bridges, pitch black with all the people on it. And high up above, at an altitude of about three hundred kilometres, I could scarcely see the island-observatories, floating in the air, almost hidden behind the countless linsens that were incessantly coming and going. Stefan was trying to convince me that not only was this the everyday image of this city, that it’s always overcrowded and ridiculously busy, but also that, beneath our feet, deep inside the earth, there also existed another gigantic, illuminated city, similar to this one, full of life and awash with a soothing, pale green light that greatly soothes the eyes and soul. Well, I could not believe that!