Our Kingdom of Dust by Leonard Kinsey Read Free Book Online

in the slot, and pushed at the turnstile. It didn’t move.
    “Sir, you have to scan your finger,” explained the gate attendant.
    “What are you talking about?” I asked.
    “Your finger. You have to put it on this pad. It’ll scan your finger so that you will be linked to that Annual Pass.”
    I stared at it. Interesting technology. Biometric scanner. Didn’t actually store the fingerprint, just the spacing between the tip of the finger and the first joint. I put my pass through, put my finger on the scanner, the turnstile clicked, and I walked through.
    “Have a magical day!” the gate attendant chimed.
    “Uh huh,” I replied. Between the fucking bag check and the biometric scanner it didn’t seem like a very “magical” way to start your day. They didn’t have any of that shit when I’d been there last. A foreboding feeling passed over me. What else had changed since my last visit?
    I literally ran past the United Kingdom and Canada pavilions. So far everything looked the same… until I hit the rose-filled path that linked Future World and World Showcase, which offered me my first unfettered glimpse at the main icon of EPCOT Center: Spaceship Earth. A massive triumph of architecture, it’s an eighteen-story geodesic sphere, the only one in existence. The scale of the structure is massive and awe-inspiring… under normal circumstances. Except now, when I looked at it I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
    There was a huge wand stuck onto the side of the globe.
    Mickey’s hand was holding the wand, and there were little red stars everywhere. “Epcot” was written above it in an ugly, decidedly non-futuristic font. It completely diminished the magnitude and majesty of the structure, demeaning it and reducing it to a placeholder for a prop, essentially saying “Mickey’s hand is way bigger than this insignificant building. Mickey is master of all.”
    Something was very wrong here.
    That foreboding feeling I’d felt at the gate became exponentially worse. I ran east to Horizons faster than I could remember running since I was a kid. Just past the breezeway between the Stargate Restaurant (now called Electric Umbrella – WTF did that mean?) and the Centorium gift shop (now called Mouse Gear – which, while clever, had no futuristic connotations whatsoever) was the first clear view of my favorite pavilion.
    Except it wasn’t there.
    Horizons was simply no longer there.
    I knew EPCOT Center like the back of my hand. I could navigate the park blindfolded. There was no doubt that this was where Horizons should be. I continued walking towards it. I looked to the left: Wonders of Life and Universe of Energy were there, as expected. I looked to the right. What the fuck was that? It looked vaguely like World of Motion, except there were awnings all over it, and a car zoomed around a track that wrapped around the previously elegant building.
    Turning forward, it finally hit me. Horizons had been demolished. And in its place was some monstrosity called Mission: SPACE.
    The ride that my parents and I loved so much was gone.
    For a moment, the pain of their death hit me all over again. That pain I’d stashed away and hidden deep. My throat tightened and I choked back bile.
    I’d counted on Horizons being there! I’d needed it to be there, so I could ride it over and over again, comforting me and somehow finally easing me through the death of my parents. But instead, something I’d loved so much as a child, one of the few things we’d treasured together as a family, had been inexplicably destroyed. Not only had it been destroyed, but its elegance and beauty had been defiled by this atrocious thing jutting up from the ground like some evil cancerous growth. It was like someone had built a McDonald’s on top of my parents’ graves.
    What else had been ruined here? What else had been defiled in the park I’d been counting on to be my sanctuary, my healing place?
    I ran to the north. Universe of Energy still