LJ Idol: Week 5: Build a Better Mousetrap
Apr. 14th, 2014 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flipflop_divaThey call me Ancient3123 because that is all I am now. Another old face in a line of old faces, undeserving of a name to call my own.
I have been here for years. Perhaps lifetimes. I cannot remember. Everything here blurs together, every day the same.
The alarm goes off at five o’clock in the morning without fail, one day after the next. There is never any change. It’s always the same shrill ear-piercing beep, and a bowl of cold porridge being slipped into my cell. I never see what delivers it.
At five ten, I am herded down a steel hall to shower and dress, side by side with all the other Ancients. There are a lot less of us now than there used to be. I never hear what happens to the Ancients who disappear.
At five twenty, I am led down another hall and into a warehouse. There is a chair marked just for me. I should feel special, but I don’t. But by five twenty-five, I am seated and attached, my mind no longer in my control, but in theirs.
A long time ago, back when I had a name, I remember there were others who called me a genius. An even longer time ago, back when everyone had names, I thought I could change the world.
Maybe I am. Maybe this is my way of changing the world. Giving my brain power to the collective and making it stronger.
Not that I have a choice.
But maybe it’s better this way.
I finish my work at five o’clock in the evening every day and I am led back to my cell. Dinner is another bowl of porridge, but this one is warm. Lights go out at six o’clock, and so does all the noise. No one here ever tries to talk.
Not anymore.
We are supposed to just sleep, not dream. But sometimes something goes wrong and I dream anyway. Dream of the days long ago, before the bombs fell and the machines took over, when the world was free.
Free.
It is a word I do not understand anymore. No one here is free.
Maybe it’s better this way.
Sometimes I dream about the night they finally came for me. It was cold and dark. We were huddled together. I had thought we were safe, but they found us. They ripped her out of my arms before I could speak, before I could say goodbye, and the baby strapped to her chest was taken as well.
I never saw either of them again.
They tell me it’s better this way.
The machine that dives into my thought every day, that harnesses my brain power to help power the world, talks to me sometimes. I’m not sure it’s supposed to, but I hear it loud and clear inside my head.
“You are one of the lucky ones,” it always says. “It’s better this way.”
I don’t feel lucky.
I don’t feel better.
I want to escape.
I fear there’s no way out.
[[This is obviously fiction. At least I hope.]]
I have been here for years. Perhaps lifetimes. I cannot remember. Everything here blurs together, every day the same.
The alarm goes off at five o’clock in the morning without fail, one day after the next. There is never any change. It’s always the same shrill ear-piercing beep, and a bowl of cold porridge being slipped into my cell. I never see what delivers it.
At five ten, I am herded down a steel hall to shower and dress, side by side with all the other Ancients. There are a lot less of us now than there used to be. I never hear what happens to the Ancients who disappear.
At five twenty, I am led down another hall and into a warehouse. There is a chair marked just for me. I should feel special, but I don’t. But by five twenty-five, I am seated and attached, my mind no longer in my control, but in theirs.
A long time ago, back when I had a name, I remember there were others who called me a genius. An even longer time ago, back when everyone had names, I thought I could change the world.
Maybe I am. Maybe this is my way of changing the world. Giving my brain power to the collective and making it stronger.
Not that I have a choice.
But maybe it’s better this way.
I finish my work at five o’clock in the evening every day and I am led back to my cell. Dinner is another bowl of porridge, but this one is warm. Lights go out at six o’clock, and so does all the noise. No one here ever tries to talk.
Not anymore.
We are supposed to just sleep, not dream. But sometimes something goes wrong and I dream anyway. Dream of the days long ago, before the bombs fell and the machines took over, when the world was free.
Free.
It is a word I do not understand anymore. No one here is free.
Maybe it’s better this way.
Sometimes I dream about the night they finally came for me. It was cold and dark. We were huddled together. I had thought we were safe, but they found us. They ripped her out of my arms before I could speak, before I could say goodbye, and the baby strapped to her chest was taken as well.
I never saw either of them again.
They tell me it’s better this way.
The machine that dives into my thought every day, that harnesses my brain power to help power the world, talks to me sometimes. I’m not sure it’s supposed to, but I hear it loud and clear inside my head.
“You are one of the lucky ones,” it always says. “It’s better this way.”
I don’t feel lucky.
I don’t feel better.
I want to escape.
I fear there’s no way out.
[[This is obviously fiction. At least I hope.]]
