An Empty World

“I’m taking arts.” I declared to the world. I was nervous, anxiety and fear bottled up inside me. My palms were clammy and my knees wouldn’t stop shaking, but my voice was loud, calm and confident. I knew what I was doing, the decision I was making, and the consequences that came along with it. i was  prepared to deal with them.

And sure enough, they immediately reared their ugly heads. There were loud gasps, sharp intakes of breath, and even some tongues clicking.
“Why?!”
“Don’t you know only low-scoring losers chose arts?”
“Beta, listen, arts can’t get you a good job. We just want a good, secure future for you…”
Tongues wagged, heads shook, hands wrung, and eyebrows raised. But I maintained my composure- I had a solution. I pointed to the mysterious-looking large metal archway next to me.
“Behold! This is a magic portal. It allows people to travel through dimensions.” I took a dramatic pause, allowing my words to take effect.
“Today you lovely people shall be travelling through it. Why, you ask? Because I want to show you an alternate universe-a bizarre and strange world where you will see some rather...interesting things. Hopefully, it will be an eye opener for you. So, hop in, ladies and gents!”

My enthusiasm was met with confused stares and looks of apprehension. I sighed. Of course, people so narrow minded they dismissed an entire field of study surely couldn’t accept my high-tech para-dimensional teleporter. Fortunately, I had anticipated this as well.
“Beam us up, Scotty!” I yelled, and the voice controlled teleportation beam shot out of the arch, bathing all of us in an eerie blue light. Then, in the blink of an eye, we vanished. Well, technically, we didn’t vanish, we traveled through time and space and landed in an alternate universe. But, to an innocent bystander, it would seem as though we had vaporised into thin air, which is entirely possible of course- one can never be too sure with these new age fancy high-tech sci-fi toys. Thankfully, we hadn’t been vaporized.

We were in the alternate world, taking in our surroundings. We seemed to be standing in a busy street. There were a lot of people, and there were several shops and other buildings. However, the entire scene was quite unusual. The street was very clean, and very organized. The cars on it seemed to be very technologically advanced, but they looked very dull- nothing like the sleek, stylish cars you see in futuristic movies.
The people on the street seemed to  very civilized and well-behaved. A bit too much so. Their clothes were sober ( and almost identical), and their behavior and expression made them seem more like androids than actual human beings.
There were other oddities. For example, this world seemed to have no colour. Everything was composed of the same dull shades of grey, white, black and brown.

The party from the other universe stood on the side of the street, staring incredulously at everything around them.
“Where have you brought us?” they asked me
“ A world you should all love-a world without art.”
They looked at me, puzzled.
“Well,” said one software engineer as everyone slowly wrapped their heads around their situation. “ It shouldn’t be very different from our world then-maybe not as pretty, but that doesn’t matter. It seems to be better, actually!Look at the streets-so clean and organized!”
Several people nodded in agreement.
“ Let’s keep moving” I said

We kept walking, crossing several shops. Some of them were restaurants, or cafes. Everyone peaked in eagerly, curious to see this other-worldly cuisine. To their dismay, the food looked quite unappetizing. It seemed like it would fill your stomach, but was bland and dull. It looked nowhere near as delicious as the food in the shops back home did. The bakeries didn’t even have pretty cakes and sweets- they had only hard bread!

We then came upon an electronics store, expecting holograms, spectacles with computers in them and touch-screen TVs. And see all of that we did. But they were strange. We were accustomed to seeing videos or movies or even music displayed on the gadgets, to aid the customers. However, these displayed only textual information. Even the TV was devoid of any sort of visual media, and there seemed to be no music players at all.

I hurried the gawking crowd on further on the street. We came into a big square. It seemed like it was the central area. There were several seemingly large shops, like any other city square, but it was all vastly different from what we had imagined.

My companions, utterly frazzled and nonplussed, sat down on a bench, unable to comprehend this bizarre world. There was silence for a minute, as they tried to compose themselves. Then the barrage of questions began.

“ What is this place??”
“ Why don’t their TVs show anything?”
“How come there are no clothes or shoe stores?”
“Why aren’t there any book stores?”
“Why is their food so disgusting?”
“I haven’t heard a single person speak anything but English!”

I stood quietly, waiting for them to finish. Then, I responded to each one.

“There are no TV shows. No movies or music either. And no clothes/ shoe stores because everyone wears the same thing-there is no concept of style or fashion .Oh and, books don’t exist, hence the absence of bookstores. Their food is nutritional-it isn’t very pretty though. Aesthetics don’t really exist in this world. And as for the language, there’s only one-a very simple English. Languages didn’t really develop in this world.

They all stared at me, shocked. I continued, barely suppressing the urge to smile in a know-it-all I-told-you-so manner.
“There’s a very simple reason for all this- the absence of art. This is a world without arts. It doesn’t exist in this universe, and you can see the consequences.”

That just seemed to confuse them further.

“What do you stupid arts have to do with anything?” asked a frustrated medical student.
“It has everything to do with everything.” I replied “What, did you think art is just painting?And history and geography? You have never been more wrong, my friend, not even when you decided to give into your parents’ demands and take bio.
The arts are everywhere! The language we speak, the clothes and accessories we wear, the books we read, all the entertainment and media we consume. So many things are part of this domain. Our entire lives, or entire cultures are centered around the arts. And yet, you say it’s not important, and a waste of time.”

Realisation seemed to be dawning on the populace. And along with that, a sense of shame and embarrassment as well.

“ The arts are incredibly important in our world. Without them, we are dull, and our civilizations are backwards. We should be glad to exist in a world that is filled with so much art. Why do we dismiss it so?”

The band of people looked ashamed. I was glad. Finally, they understood.