Oxygénia

"I am inexpressible grateful for your help. Alone on my own, I
could have never ever returned here... Now we want to hurry to
ORO."
"How far away does he live?"
"Not very far."
ON accelerated his pace.
"Strange, when I think about it. For quite a long time, we lived in
OROs neighborhood, and I didn't even know what was his
occupation. I already told you that we all worked separatedly. Also
on the working places, everyone had a room to himself. We weren't
allowed to discuss our work with each other, everyone got his own
partial task. And... now that I'm thinking back, it's really strange
that I didn't notice back then... after work, we entered the moving
sidewalk and headed home or for the club – but never with ones
who worked in a similar profession. Our living houses also were
sorted the way that next to a doctor, a chemist lived, next to him
maybe a computer technician or a physicist. When sitting together,
it was improper to talk about work. But we didn't understand
anything about the other's profession anyway, and it was of no
interest to us at the start. I already mentioned we played cards and
listened to music. ORO 91 was an excellent surgeon. He lived in the
next house. If I remember correctly, it was he who engaged for our
friendship. He told about himself and entrusted me he was having
his own thoughts. ORO is the greatest being I've ever met. You
know I've told you it was him who explained to us what the strange
changes at my wife's body were about, and he helped at Little ONs
birth in the canyon."
As much as they were full of expectation and walked down the
street excitedly and as much the question of what ORO knew
busied them, what he would tell and advise them, it didn't fail to
come to Peters attention how different everything here was from the
concrete city since the divergence was so obvious. Here, the houses
had windows, but they, however, all were closed. If they even had a
handle? Or could one only see through them, but not open them?
Here the living houses could be clearly divided from the rest of the
buildings. Around the houses were places with artifical grass. On
the artifical grass artifical flowers shone in red, yellow and blue
colors. Some of the larger buildings were stores with huge display
windows. Here, there were many goods: colorful clothing, furniture,
houseware, writing utensils and strikingly much parlor games,
amongst them some kind of Roulette and about thirty card games.
In the concrete cities of the Trunk Bearers, one could only eat in the
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