New San Francisco

The year is 2040 and San Francisco is trapped beneath a dome from the Bay Bridge to the Golden Gate. Dahlia and I are spread out on a picnic blanket, drinking coffee at a park. We have a wide view of the city.

“How’s work?” I ask. 

I had to make a reservation to get through the checkpoint at the Golden Gate. This one I had to schedule three months in advance. Inside the clear glass, these people have found a way to survive. San Francisco is more alive than it’s ever been. 

When I first visited Dahlia at the dome, a month after she had moved out of our apartment, I had expected something much different — flying cars, trash cans that scooped up the trash with robotic arms, a transportation system that sucked you into a tube and dropped you off at the post office.

The new San Francisco is just like the San Francisco of before, still a bubble, but with fresh coats of paint on the storefronts and less poor people. The same famous buildings, the same steep streets. Dahlia, just by looking at her, is still the same, too, her hair in a high ponytail. Dahlia never wears pants, only shorts. 

“Work’s going great. I just got promoted, actually, didn’t I tell you? I’m a Creative Director now,” Dahlia says. She tilts her head. She sips her iced latte.

“Oh. Yeah, you must’ve,” I say.

“I could’ve sworn we talked about it.”

“Maybe,” I shrug, “So what kind of things are you doing?”

Dahlia claps her hands together — she does this when she is excited to talk about herself.

“Since I’m a Creative Director, I’m in control of all our projects. So basically I select people outside the city and give them a property, and then I document their lives and the adjustment process, that way, you know, people won’t be scared to move here or whatever. It works because then people will want to buy property through our company. I’ve got a whole team and everything, like a camera crew and people who work under me.”

“Sounds like a good job,” I say.

“Yeah, well. You know me. Like, when I first started working there I was taking coffee orders. So much has changed. They said I got promoted quickly because I’m such a good fit.”

“It’s nice you found something you like.”

“Honestly, it’s been great. I’m so happy here. Happy I got out of that shithole, no offense.”

“It’s not so bad,” I tell her. 

Dahlia tightens her ponytail and looks into the distance. From here, I can see the tall buildings from the business district jutting into the sky. The clouds are wispy, light like brushstrokes.

“How’s everything out there?” she asks. 

“It’s fine,” I say. I don’t tell her I’ve been working from home since it got too hot for me to leave the house. I don’t tell her that the drones drop off warm milk and melted butter at the door to my apartment, and that they always get the order wrong. Dahlia walks to the market every day for fresh produce — she posts about it on her social media accounts. 

“You should move here,” she says, “There’s always jobs.”

“I’m on a ten year waiting list,” I say.  

I’m breathing fresh air, cold air. We’re right beneath a towering redwood tree, and the afternoon light casts a soft glow on the guitarist who plays for change. He’s not a bad musician, like most street performers. He has a beautiful voice. 

“This coffee is good,” I tell her, “And the pastries, too.”

Beans imported from Ethiopia. Freshly baked bread. At home, I sit in the kitchen with three fans pointed at my face and I try to get work done but the flies buzz relentlessly and I can smell the warm, moist mold from the bagels I buy by the dozen.

“Right? The coffee shop down the corner from my apartment is really good, too. I only go to this one with friends," she says.

“Cool,” I reply.

When the temperature started going up, and turned my country into a ghost town, the government built the dome. A science experiment. A glass ceiling so thin and so powerful that it might not even exist — in fact, as I look up to the blue sky, I see nothing at all. 

“You know, I can talk to some people,” Dahlia says. 

“Talk to people about what."

A young family walks past, a man and a woman. The man pushes a stroller, the woman clutches her full stomach. Blowing bubbles from a wand, their toddler forges ahead.

“Well, I could make you my next project, or whatever.”

“I don’t get what you mean,” I say, though I feel my stomach throb with discomfort.

“I could move you in here and talk about what a great life you live in the city compared to being out there. We’ve got a lot of resources and I can definitely pull some strings — you’d have to be filmed, though. I guess we could get a film crew to film you at your place, but, I mean, all these things can get figured out,” Dahlia says. She bites her lip in the way she does when she is thinking. 

“Move here?” I say. I drink my coffee. 

“Yeah,” Dahlia says, “It’s super great advertising, you know.”

Dahlia has been planning this the entire time — she has called me here, to her utopia, to turn me into a pet project for her trendy real estate firm. 

“Dahlia, I don’t know —”

“Dude, everyone wants to live here. You told me yourself, ten year waiting list. It’ll be so cool. I’m kind of doing a big thing for you here."

“I’ll have to think about it.”

I can’t see Dahlia’s eyes through her wide-framed sunglasses. She looks like a celebrity in her denim shorts and silky top. 

“You should be more excited.”

“I said I’ll think about it,” I say, looking down at my drink lid, “I’m not sure yet. I can’t just pick up my life right now.”

Besides taking the taxi to the dome, I haven’t left the house in weeks. At night, I sleep on a mattress in the living room. The ceiling fan in my bedroom doesn't work. I sleep naked with no covers. I sweat and sweat. My life is monotonous, lonely. In San Francisco there are more jobs than there are people.

“Just think about it, okay?” she says. 

“I will,” I say. 

In two hours, my reservation will end. If I do not leave the city, the police will scoop me up and throw me out, just like they did with the homeless people when the dome was first built.