[[Another bit of a short story I'm putting out here for opinions. It's 4,000 right now, so I'm not going to post it all at once. But if people want to know how it progresses, I could post more! Keep in mind it is rough draft, so there's probably silly little errors in there I haven't caught yet
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The voice inside me was screaming, telling me to pull the trigger. I had to listen to it or I knew I'd do something terrible. So I pulled the trigger. And then the screaming stopped. I looked down at the picture-vision, its flat glass screen shattered just left of center. My hand was shaking. The weight of the gun made it feel strange. So I put the gun down. It wouldn't be long until the police arrived; summoned by the silent alarm in my apartment. I sat down on the floor to wait for them, just continuing to stare at the sparking, fizzled picture-vision.
When the black coats finally did arrive, I met them at the door. They seemed quite concerned with my well-being, but I assured them I was all right. I then calmly and clearly explained to them that I shot my picture-vision. Since there was no crime committed, they were forced to leave my apartment. They did so warily, some of them not quite convinced I was not in my right mind.
They were right.
The next day I'm in a store that sells picture-visions. The wall is full of the newest, higher-tech models. I watch them flicker through various scenes, none of them on the same channel. Eventually I leave the store, having purchased a picture-vision that was bigger than my old one. The store promised to deliver it later that day.
Next I went to the park.
I sat down on a bench and fed the holographic pigeons. The trees had bright green leaves on them, and the sky was bright blue. The sun was shining, and there were no clouds in sight. I hated that they felt the holo-park had to be perfect. Why couldn't it be at least partially cloudy? And why did the pigeons never, ever, in all my visits, relieve themselves? Who said I wanted perfection? Who decided that it was best for me? I got up from the bench and left the park, feeling disgruntled.
I don't get why they feel it's necessary to decide what I watch and what I see and whether or not the sky is cloudy. It makes me think that there's some guy up there who just gets the biggest kick out of micromanaging things. Let's see, I think the pigeons in the park will be shy today. Just to spice things up. Oh, yes, and just to see if anyone notices, I'll put a dandelion next to the statue of General Methenall. Or something like that.
The pedestrian tube is rather empty at this hour. Most people are traveling about on city transit cars, resting their weary legs. I like to walk, though. People don't walk enough anymore, I think. Of course, what does it matter what I think. I want the sky to have clouds in it.
I go to the wellness clinic.
The doctor is expecting me next Tuesday, but I tell the receptionist that I must see him today. She knows the doctor is trying to have a break-through with me. So she squeezes me in. I sit down in the waiting room. The picture-vision on the wall has a happy, jubilant woman standing next to a can of All-Gone Baby Food. It's the baby food every baby wants to eat, she says. If I were a baby, I wouldn't want to eat it, I think to myself.
Those are precisely the thoughts that brought me to the wellness clinic in the first place. My insubordinate tendencies. My rebellious nature. My unwillingness to accept the social paradigm put in place by my forefathers' blood sweat and tears, so I had better appreciate it.
This is not to say that I was ungrateful for all of their hard work, but how did they know what would be best for me? They never even knew I would exist. They envisioned a Society of their Utopia, but never once did they know me, or did they stop to think about the dulling effect that perfection can have on people.
You see, in the Second Dark Age, people used to worry about children being desensitized to violence. But I thin our current societal blindness is far more dangerous. We lack the ability to accept even the simplest forms of imperfection that have not been accounted for by the machines. We lack the ability to savor an object bound by time, like a flower. Tiny buds of life that develop over weeks at a time until their blossom bursts open in a display of color and beauty that makes the heart glad, but at the same time seems futile. For in the coming weeks the cold will freeze and kill the life in that once tiny bud. And yet, by its passing, the flower’s presence was somehow enhanced, made that much sweeter.
