Alone — short story.

On one of the many broad highways of Ashengard a small child sat, spanner in hand and a ruthless desert sun beating onto the tar road around him. The child rubbed a grubby rag, which read ‘To Mark, happy 8th Birthday’, across his brow.

Mark wore a stained, torn white shirt. His skinny legs were crossed beneath him, hidden by pants three times too large. He looked up, out over the city.
Here, away from the papery outskirts and high above black alleyways, the desert was visible in any direction, a tanned, bleak place made interesting only by the occasional rugged rock formation.

Looking back, the boy continued his work, adjusting the cloth cap on his head with a sweaty oil stained hand. Before him, five large objects lay among many smaller parts, a stained and dusty manual to his right. The boy picked it up, then paused to savour a soft breeze- the only thing that made the deserts heat bearable, apart from the old blanket he was sitting on, protecting him from the burning road.

Mark couldn’t remember when there were lots of people in the city, but his father told him it was a fool’s quest to leave. It was lonely here.

Reading through a page of the manual, Mark put it down and picked up what he had been working on, studying its black metallic curves. Hopefully, some day, he’d be able to finish it and persuade his Dad to leave, like everybody else had. He put the part down, taking care to place it the right way up.

Mark stood and walked over to the edge of the highway, staring our over the dizzying drop below, enjoying the feeling of the faint breeze ruffling his short blonde hair. Squinting into the murky half light of the city’s depths, he could just make out his fathers workshop. It was there that they grew artificial foods and purified the deep groundwater. They weren’t good at it though. His Dad had always been a mechanic, not a farmer. Now they were alone, apart from the dogs. Mark didn’t like the dogs. They would sniff him out, and tell his father where he was. Up here was the only safe place from them, to build the Desert Flyer in secret. It was easy enough to sneak up here, climbing scaffolding and leaping highways.

Despite this, there were days when Mark just wished travelers would come and take him away.