“You’ll find it easier if you don’t think about them. Forget they’re here.”

*

The apartment shone bright white. Smooth, curved lines. Pristine surfaces. Soothing lights. Safe. Spacious.

Anything we needed would appear with a simple voice command. Food. Drinks. The latest audiovisual entertainment. All served instantly with a whoosh and a whir of unseen machinery.

Our neighbourhood outside was the same. Soft edges, comfort maintained, needs served.

Idyll. Utopia. These were the words I learned with the other kids at school. Our lives were easy and safe. We should be thankful. We were taught history – traffic accidents and epidemics, homelessness and hunger, war and struggle. Nowadays these things existed as abstract concepts from a bygone age.

“Music.”

A playlist launched, algorithmically tailored to my tastes. The tunes paused to deliver a message. My parents would be back late. I should eat, they said.

“Dinner.”

The kitchen interface flashed in acknowledgement.

Almost immediately, a panel on the worktop slid back to reveal a steaming dish of rice, tofu and green vegetables.

After eating, I scraped my plate into the waste disposal. The scraps were greeted with a strained mechanical whir, rather than the usual efficient hum, but I knew the machines were capable of self-maintenance. The issue would be resolved, like so much of our lives, by automated magic.

The whir became a chug. A muffled bang. A faint smell of smoke. Concerned, I pressed a hand against the wall panel that housed the disposal unit. Smooth, white, slightly warm to the touch.

The wall moved. A thump from the other side. I stepped back, alarmed as the entire panel fell to the floor, releasing a cloud of acrid black smoke into the pure white kitchen.

There, coughing and wheezing inside the wall cavity was a boy, about my age – head shaved, face dirty, blue overalls stained and torn. Tools hung from his belt. Wires and mechanisms surrounded him in the narrow space.

I saw my shock mirrored in his face. We stared, stunned, until a muffled voice inside the wall broke the silence.

“Get the fire out and fix that panel before you land us all in the shit.”

“Wait!”

My cry did nothing to stop the sudden flurry of movement that followed. More grubby faces appeared in the exposed cavity – men, women, old and young, working together to extinguish the smouldering electronics, replace parts, refit the panel. They moved deftly in the cramped space, skilful despite their unkempt appearance.

Within a minute I was left standing alone, facing a blank white surface. I tapped and called but there was no reply. I strained to hear signs of life – a whisper, a breath, a heartbeat. But there was only the cold silence of the sheer plastic panel.

*

“You knew about this? About the people in the walls?”

I confronted my parents as soon as they got home.

“Yes, of course. We would have told you, in time. We never wanted you to find out like this. And we’ll be making a full complaint, of course.”

“Complaint? Why, dad? Because the slaves in our walls revealed themselves before you were ready?”

My voice shook with fury.

“They’re not slaves. They’re… Look, it’s complicated. You have to learn to see it another way – think of everything we have, think of our lives. There has to be a cost –”

“But …”

“You’ll find it easier if you don’t think about them. Forget they’re here.”

Mathew Gostelow (he/him) is the author of two collections; See My Breath Dance Ghostly, a book of speculative short stories (Alien Buddha Press) and Connections, a flash fiction chapbook (Naked Cat Publishing). He was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2022 and Best of the Net in 2023. @MatGost