March 3, 2834, 3:00 am
The city is quiet, except for the soft sound of the domed, silver street-cleaners rolling along the roads. The only visible light is that of the street lamps, placed every five meters or so along the roads. Gigantic buildings rise up on either side, blocking any light that might have been visible from the stars, had the sky not been covered by a layer of smog and pollution long ago. Each and every inch of ground is covered in cement, steel, or a combination of both. No birds sing in the trees, for there are no trees to be found. The city is silent.

March 3, 2834, 4:00 am
After the street cleaners finish, the garbage collectors come. These vehicles are not manned by humans—why have people do something machines can do better? Each building has a garbage bin, where all the garbage that the four to five hundred people in each apartment get rid of is piled. These are significantly larger than the street-cleaners, because they have to hold so much trash. It’s not that humans are becoming more wasteful—in fact, the waste that each individual produces has gone down significantly over the past thousand years—but there are simply too many people to make it of any consequence. Despite birth control laws, despite abortions and pills, the population of the world has nearly doubled since the 2000s. With 10 billion people on Earth, one wasted grain of rice from each would be enough to feed half a country. But that’s not much of a problem. You’d be hard pressed to find any rice at all. With so many people, there is certainly to room for plants, and without plants, there are no animals other than rats, pigeons, and other pests that feed off of human waste. Not to worry, though, scientists have put many hours of blood and sweat into finding various synthetic compounds that will provide all the nutrients humans need. All you need to do is swallow your pills every day, and you’ll be fine.

March 3, 2834, 5:00 am
Five am. The laborers are beginning to rise. They move silently, rising from their ramshackle, run-down slums and flowing towards their workplaces. They fill the streets, like a soundless flood. They are the earliest to rise and the latest to go to sleep, but they are also paid the least. There are millions upon millions of uneducated, poor, lower-class citizens who would work for a pittance. What else can they do? There are so many others that need work and money and food, and so few jobs for them to do. No more construction sites; more buildings is the last thing the world needs. No more garbage collecting or city maintenance. They get up at the crack of dawn to burn the garbage, to work in apartments or schools or office buildings, cleaning and organizing. None of them can read. None of them need to. Their jobs will never entail anything that needs any mental exertion at all.

March 3, 2834, 6:00 am
Now the other workers begin to get up. These are the secretaries, the teachers, the police officers and all those who are educated, but not intelligent or ruthless enough to trample everyone else in their efforts to be at the top. They wake up, dress, and move noisily, waking up the city as they go. Life begins to flow through the streets, the people shouting to each other, calling out, dropping things, and rushing about from place to place. The sun rises, a pale reddish glow on the horizon that slowly expands and brightens, and the first rays of dirty light filter into the city. The lamps click off automatically, leaving the people in the sort of semi-darkness that always accompanies dawn. Today is an exceptionally clear day. The gray sky is tinged with blue, a rare occurrence. But nobody looks up. They have no time to waste staring up at the sky. It is going to be the same color tomorrow as it was yesterday. There is nothing they can do about it.

March 3, 2834, 7:00 am
Last to wake up, the scientists, the politicians, and the businessmen. Sometimes you can find all three in one person. After all, in today’s society, scientists are the real power behind the government. The people look up to them, lionize them, until they seem more god than human. But these scientists are the ones they owe their lives to. They developed the oxygen generators that stand at every street corner. They developed the technology that allowed two hundred floored buildings to be constructed. Without them, there is no life. Of course, there is a government. Those are the things that America is renowned for: freedom and democracy. It’s a puppet government, to be sure, but it’s a government nonetheless. It’s something the people can look up to, something they can cling to when there is nothing left.