Smog City

I’m standing at the junction of Denman and Davie, watching as a car turns and speeds away. The exhaust coughs out a cloud of thick, dark smoke that billows and curls in the air. It’s another visitor. They come here in their cars and foul up the air some more. I lean forward and breathe in deeply. When you’re hungry, nothing tastes as good as the emissions from a diesel engine. The particles go deep inside my lungs, where the acid lining melts them.

There’s a bulletin out for a missing 12-year-old girl named Emily, so I’m walking the streets looking for her. Her family lives out near Whistler Mountain, but they came in to the city this morning. The girl went missing sometime around 1:30 p.m. It’s now 3:30 p.m., and her parents are frantic with worry.

Typical of Vancouver, it’s starting to rain. The few people out on the streets are scattering, seeking shelter in the shops and restaurants. Only machines live in the city now. Metal men like me. Humans can visit once in a while - once a month is considered safe - but they can’t live here anymore. The acid rain would peel their skin off and the smog would rot out their lungs.

I take my umbrella from my pocket, open it up, and listen as the raindrops bounce noisily off the acid-resistant shelter. As I’m pulling my coat tightly around myself, I spot her — a lone, small figure on the other side of the crossing, almost hidden by the sheets of rain. Could this be the girl? When the traffic lights change she runs across, feet splashing in the pooling water.

“Wait!” I call, but she runs straight past me, down toward the beach. I hear her coughing, and think that she shouldn’t be out of bed, never mind out in this downpour. I follow her, trying to keep the umbrella over me, my raincoat whipping in the wind. I stop suddenly where the pavement merges with the sand.

“Hello!” I shout, trying to lift my voice above the wind and rain. I’m reluctant to go out onto the sand because it plays havoc with my joints.

The girl turns toward me, her small face peering out from the hood of her coat. I match the image against the missing person report, and confirm that she is the one. I send a telepathic report to headquarters indicating that I have found her.

She coughs again, a deep wheezing sound, and then turns back toward the ocean. I take a few cautious steps toward her and call out, “You know, your parents are looking for you!”

“I got lost,” she says, “but I recognize this place.” Her voice is muffled by the hood of her coat and by the rain, but my hearing is excellent. She turns around, and I see her pale face as she starts to walk back toward me. “I just so wanted to see the ocean,” she says. “And my parents....” Then she stumbles and falls down into the sand.

I run to her and kneel down, holding the umbrella to shelter her. Her breath is less than a shallow wheeze now. I listen carefully to the air traveling in and out of her body, and can tell that her lungs are raw with infection. “Are you asthmatic?” I ask.

She nods. “I haven’t been to the city in years because it only makes me worse,” she says. “We live up in the mountains where the air is clearer, but even there it is getting worse and worse. I pleaded with Mum and Dad to let me come here today. I miss it so.”

People do still come to the city, still driving in their cars, spewing carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen, volatile organic compounds, and particulates into the air. But when they get here they stay indoors, in the malls, where the air is purified. Not many people come down onto the beach anymore. I’ve been told that it is still beautiful, even now, with the waves breaking against the shore, but I’m no judge of that.

“Help is on its way,” I tell the girl, and we wait together. Then I hear an ambulance and a police car arriving. Her parents get out of the car and rush toward us.

“I’m Emily,” she tells me, knowing that she only has moments before her trip to the beach will come to an end. “Thanks for helping me, mister.”

“Yes, thank you,” her father says, but he does not look at me. Emily’s mother is hugging her as they climb into the ambulance. I hear the woman say to her husband, “We have to move farther north — and very soon.” Her husband agrees. “I’m sure we can still sell the house,” he says.

I sit down on one of the gnarled and twisted logs scattered on the beach. It creaks and a piece of the bark breaks off and falls into the sand. I look out across the bay. The rain has stopped, and somewhere above the dark rain clouds I see a hint of the Sun. That’s all we ever see of it now. I think of Emily and hope that she will be okay. I liked the way she called me “mister.” Like I was one of them, a real person. I stand up and hobble back to the pavement, feeling the sand in my knee. I have reached the end of my shift, so I figure I’ll head over to the repair cell, where they’ll fix me up.

The rain has cleared the air a little. But this is not such a good thing for a hungry metal man. Still, it will soon be rush hour, when the good folk get back into their cars and head home to the northern hills. I take a walk up toward the busier streets, hoping to find some fresh smog for dinner.