Two Thousand Meters
Year 2116.
He felt like he was on top of the world. More correctly, he was truly on top of the world.
He was a one-hundred-year-old man who was the richest person in the world at the time and also the owner of the highest building on Earth with the height of two thousand meters. And at that moment, he was sitting alone on top of it.
The scenery from there was really magnificent. The sunset had never been that beautiful in his eyes. The bright sun turned the floating clouds into a glorious yellow color as it appeared near the reddish skyline far away. He could still feel the strong and cool wind reeking. The wind brought him the smells of a new building - the smells of concrete, paint and rare, expensive wood.
As a faraway look appeared in his eyes, he remembered all the old days he had passed through in order to achieve this success. He could never forget the joyful feeling the moment he finally got the license to build the tower of his dream forty years ago. The license had allowed him to tear down the local park with various flora to make space for his huge building... His memory flooded back to his mind. He remembered every huge tree in the park being cut down. The image of many colorful but withered flowers mixed with plowed, ugly soil appeared before him as if it had only been yesterday. He remembered every day he had come to the construction site, seeing the building grow taller and taller. He had been happier than ever before when the building of his dream had finally come into use. He was satisfied when sitting on top of it and seeing the sight of the whole city...
He stopped looking at the skyline. He looked down to the city under his feet. Every other thing he saw from this point of view was so small. The city with blocks of buildings now looked just like a chessboard. The roads were the same as thin gray threads that never ends... From this height, he saw every color of the city. The mix of yellow, red and purple in the sky. The overall gray color of the city. The small spots of different colors like blue, red and brown, which were colors of the other buildings. He felt proud, as the towers down there could never be high enough to compare with his... He saw every color. But, sadly, no green...
He suddenly felt a slight pain in his chest when he realized the truth. The truth of what he had done to the city he had been living. He had destroyed a park which used to be there for the benefit of the people, only because of his greedy dream. He had cut down every tree in this city to make money for himself. He had replaced them with factories. At that moment, the sky was darkening, and it should be the time for families to reunite after a tiring day of work. But the factories of his didn't seem to stop working... They were endlessly releasing clouds of smoke as black as ashes into the sky... Only then, he realized he had been watching the glorious sunset but forgetting the black colors of smoke mixing into it. The smoke even mingled into the golden-brown, polluted air to make a disgusting color.
All his proud and jubilant feelings vanished. The only feeling he had then was sadness. He felt guilty, as he was responsible for turning this once-worth-living city into a lifeless, colorless piece of land only for his own sake. He was depressed. He was lonely on top of this world.
A thought suddenly came to his mind. He had lived enough. One hundred years were enough. Enough with all the destruction. It was high time he ended this tragedy.
He jumped down, from the height of two thousand meters, and from the top of his dream...
Hanoi, 16/12/2016
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