dreigirlyman
Orphan. I guess that's what I am now. I had watched my father waste away in the hospital bed for the next three months. Now he lies underground next to my mother's grave. I don't know if I am even sad that he's gone. If I had even loved him.
Her body was convulsing violently, white foam covered her mouth. Little Andrew's eyes were fixed upon the spasmodic arms and legs. And he watched until the movement finally stopped. How cold she felt now. The decanter of olive oil she had been clutching only a few minutes before had shattered when she fell. The contents seeped into her hair.
The System provided a sense of solidarity to the people that they had not felt in centuries. It required merely a simple brain surgery removing the part of the brain involved with will and decision-making. Surgically removing their free will ultimately freed them from the hardship and anxiety of the human mind. The System would care for them, and all they need give in return was their services, their labor, their unyielding obedience. They may feel as content as cattle in a field. It is all so simple.
A few doors down. I recognized those screams. But I did nothing. Nothing. I was staring at my hands like I am now.
Stacks of unwashed plates and coffee-stained cups are strewn across the table. Stiff brushes steep in black water and old paint cracks in the heat. Paintings lean against the walls, some propped in chairs. Realistic, abstract, cubist, impressionistic. By the window there is an incomplete painting. Hints of a mountain background, outlines of the face. Only the eyes are distinct. I follow their sight upward to see the body slowly swinging on at the end of a rope. A pendulum measuring the passage of time in another world.
Your mind is like the streets of Manhattan. Charming, complicated, beautiful. But there are also dark alleys, shadows buried in forgotten subways. But that's what makes you real.
He leveled his binoculars over the flat landscape. A distant mountain, scattered shrubs, very few places to hide. His daughter stared at the desert sand, silent. She had not uttered a word since she saw her mother's ravaged carcass hanging on the Wall. His eyes ached, his tears spent long ago. The man picked her up and breathed in the scent of her hair. A distant shot echoed, and then darkness.
The systems of the body. Nervous, digestive, pulmonary--all allow humans to function in the greater systems of the planet and the universe. A pattern within a pattern within a pattern. How could this be a mistake? We are capable of much, but we are not gods.
Shadow imprints of hands covered the cement blocking. Chains forced him to kneel. The strong odor of gasoline thickened as the guards prepared for his death. He imagined he would be like the tragic heroes in old movies, hard and unmoved, smirking at the face of death. But his hands trembled violently, and his mouth was cracked and dry. Hot streams crept down his silent face. Fear was now his master. Then the flames engulfed him.
The professor spun around in his chair, laughing like a child. "Boy, get a load of you! Take a look at that reference book on the table, will ya?" A misty shadow floated across the room and touched the open book's yellowed pages. "Second paragraph, third line. That there describes a mistake that occurs every now and again. You're dead, but not dead enough. Somehow, a part of you is still alive, hasn't the accepted the ultimate truth, and so you're still stuck here. You have nineteen hours before it's too late, so I suggest you get going. Happy hunting."
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