What If You Lived for 1 Year Under a Dome

Hey, if you’re reading this, I want you to know why I did it. It all started with getting rid of air travel. Then, they ripped up the railroads. Finally, they got rid of intercity roads.

Towns were isolating themselves from each other, for...“safety” they said. And to make it official, they built the domes...

Day 1. 6:48 AM.
It’s a monumental occasion, and you don’t want to miss it. After 5 years of construction, your town’s dome was finally completed last night. It cost over $150 billion, but it was a smart investment in a self-sustaining future.

Inspired by the dreams of yesteryear. There were ancient buildings with massive domes that stood for millennia. Then sports stadiums adopted this strongest of architectural shapes — “superdomes” they called them.

Indoor sports resorts under the protection of a dome, like Tropical Islands in Germany. Giant biodomes and greenhouses such as the Eden Project in the UK. The next step was only natural — cover it all, the whole town!

7:00 AM on the dot. Your 2nd alarm snaps you out of your thoughts, sitting there in bed waiting for the big moment. It’s time for the first sunrise! It looks so real that you initially think something’s wrong...that the dome is gone. But if you could see it up close from your downtown apartment, you’d notice the hexagonal plates. You can’t, of course — this thing is as tall as Everest.

It takes 10 minutes for the sun to fully rise, and then the room is as light as if it were midday. You finish your coffee and toast and walk outside. You and everyone else in this town of 100,000!

No more megacities like New York and London. They were broken up and put under domes of no more than half a million residents. Can’t have too many people breathing all the oxygen, right?

Some people are out jogging, others are reading books on park benches. The weather’s perfect, of course. It’s a steady 71°F [71°F (22°C)] — what scientists found to be the most comfortable temperature for people. No more surprises from Mother Nature — she can be gorgeous...but also cruel and destructive. No, now humanity controls the weather!

You spend the whole day walking around town. But the streets start to clear up after lunchtime. A half-hour rain shower is scheduled every day at 2:30 p.m. [14:29 14:30] to water the crop fields.

Day 2.
Sunrise: 7AM.
Temperature: 71°F

You always know what to wear. There are no more meteorologists, no more weather forecasts, no more getting caught in unexpected rain without an umbrella. There’s only stability. Safety. Uniformity...

You’ve decided to spend your Sunday with friends. You talk, laugh, and just enjoy each other’s company. Nobody’s distracted by a phone screen or social media notifications popping up every 2 seconds. Towns have been disconnected and closed up — there is no more internet.

Day 3.
Ugh, Monday. Back to class. You get on your bike and make the short ride to campus. The roads are full of other commuters. Other cyclists, kick scooters, skateboarders, walkers — no drivers. Cars emit exhaust fumes, and dome life can’t afford that.

You’re majoring in Civil Engineering. Most universities have switched almost entirely to agricultural studies — farmers, botanists, soil scientists, and the like.

That’s where all the jobs are in this little self-sustaining ecosystem. But you’re interested in a particular internship — the best student in your faculty will be invited to work in the Dome Department!

You’re sitting there taking notes when all of a sudden, the lights go out! The classroom, no, the entire town is in complete darkness! Your professor tries to keep everyone calm, but all you can think is, what if the light never comes back? It’s the first time you’ve thought about it. You’re under the dome, utterly dependent on it running smoothly. You feel so vulnerable!

A couple of minutes in the darkness feel like centuries. But then, the “sky” starts to blink, and the light comes back. All the students let out a sigh of relief. Seems you weren’t the only one having those thoughts. That’s when a message appears on the dome above, and you hear a voice read it:

“Dear citizens. It seems the dome needs more energy than we expected. Please have patience as we try to figure out this issue. For the time being, we’ll be restricting private use of electricity. Thank you for understanding.”

Day 6.
Life under the dome went from stable predictable perfection to major inconvenience. The electricity ration went from 60% to 30, down to 15, and finally none. You’ve been thrown back into the Dark Ages. No more refrigerators, TVs, and vacuum cleaners. The townspeople are patient, but that patience is running out fast...

Day 8.
They’re now limiting daylight hours, and the daily rains aren’t coming. Something terrible is going on with the dome. A lot of businesses have closed, classes are canceled, and tension is building up among the people as food runs slim.

Day 10.
Your cupboards are empty. Time to head to the grocery store. When you get there, the shock freezes you where you stand. The store is almost completely empty. No food, no soap, no nothing. You manage to find some canned goods that had rolled under a shelf. There’s also one remaining bag of potatoes with gnats flying around it.

Maybe there’s some produce in another store. You walk to the one on the next street. Nothing. A third — empty. You go to every store in the area, only to be met with the same result. The city is out of food.

That evening, you get another announcement from the Dome Department. They’ve finally come up with a solution! They’re going to start renovating the town to make space for more fields. They’ll get rid of unnecessary facilities, and some people will need to move in with friends. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than being hungry...

Day 23.
The streets are mostly empty now. The few faces you see are usually quiet and gloomy. Must be the limited light. At least there’s still air and water. But how long before those run out? Eeriness fills the town...

Month 2.
There’s no money, no more stores, no buying. The community has switched to a barter system. Need a haircut? Pay someone with a head of lettuce. A few potatoes will buy you a newly sewn shirt if you can find some fabric...

Month 3.
Good news! They’ve made substantial progress on the town renovations. There are a little more crops, more food, and people are pretty well-fed. Classes and businesses are opening back up. It seems the city just might survive this thing, but... the residents’ minds have already been shaken. At least...your mind has.

This isn’t how the world should be. Cities need each other! They exchange services and goods. That’s how you get development and progress! Humanity used to go to space, and now we can’t even go to a neighboring town! You have to change something...

Month 6.
You’re hitting the books harder than ever. The renovations are done, and your town looks like a whole different place. It’s all covered in fields with corn, grain, and potatoes — 70% of the space in the dome is dedicated to crops! It feels like you’re living in a greenhouse.

You have mashed potatoes for breakfast, baked potatoes for lunch, and fried potatoes for dinner. You’re sick of potatoes already, but at least hunger isn’t a threat anymore. Nobody remembers what chocolate tastes like.

Your graduation day is in a month, and it looks like you’ve got that internship in the bag! You wanted to work in the Dome from the very beginning, but you want it even more now because you have to stop this.

1 Year Under the Dome
You’ve been working in the Dome’s Engineering Department for a little over 5 months. You’re a third-shifter. Overnight staff work in pairs. Your partner fell asleep just before sunrise, and that’s when you finally get your chance. You leave the room and walk to the Main Service Room.

They wanted to protect you, but there’s nothing worse than isolation. You have to end this. The button is right in front of you. Your heart is beating out of your chest. You take a deep breath. Close your eyes. And hit it.

A second later, you hear a scraping sound, and you can see the dome going down. The sky behind the descending walls is endless shades of orange, pink, and purple. Sunrise. Not the digital one! And very soon, the whole town will wake up to the real sky and light summer breeze. You’re back. And then you see the security guards approaching... Have to wrap this up now. Gotta go.