1 Vivian

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I've been asking a lot of questions since I was a child: Why is everything beige? Why can't I run and laugh with other children? Why do I have to go to bed at 10 pm, and get up at 6 am, even if it's a weekend or holidays when I'm not that busy?

Adults always answered something like "it's how it should be"or "it must be this way", but it wasn't enough to satisfy my curiosity, so I started looking for information in books and any sources available.

The problem was that access to really worthwhile information resources was open only to those whose sensors are 80% full or even higher – the more diligently you follow the rules, the more enlightened you become.

That's what people in our world are called – the Enlightened.

It means that we have understood the meaning of the world order, follow the rules and thanks to this live in an ideal state where there are no vices, crimes and negative emotions.
Where everyone is always happy and pleased with everything.

The only "but" is the pain for deviations from the rules, but no one considers it as a negative - we have been taught since childhood that this is a necessity allowing us to keep everything under control, and this suits us, because we get much more in return.

What about the pain?
It comes at a certain hour and leaves. It is constant only for those who do not control their actions at all. In most cases such people simply go crazy, unable to fight the horror they have to deal with.

I hardly knew pain.

My curiosity and discipline, instilled by my parents, have helped me to go through life successfully since childhood – I graduated from both school and university with the highest grades, got a dream job.

I hardly knew pain.

I would not have known it at all if, as I grew up, two points from the set of rules that I was in no hurry to comply with did not appear on the horizon.

We are taught at school that we should get married from 18 to 22 and have a firstborn before the age of 25. Otherwise, pain.

I will never forget my twenty-second birthday.
It is not usual for us to arrange a grand celebration. Birthdays are celebrated in a narrow circle of the closest people. As a rule, we just organize a festive dinner, which doesn't last too long – everyone needs to go to bed at 10 pm.

At that time, I was in my last year of university, writing a graduate thesis on my favorite topic and enthusiastically imagined my future.

On the night after the celebration, I felt something I had never felt in my life to such an extent – a piercing pain throughout the whole body, as if thousands of sharp knives had stabbed me at the same time.

The pain lasted no more than five minutes, but those minutes seemed like hours.

After everything happened, I wanted to cry, feeling sorry for myself and my tortured body. But it was impossible – this is a negative emotion that needs to be suppressed.

I took the phone to check the sensors. As expected, several percent is lost, the color is no longer green, it's almost bright yellow. I need to do everything I can, even better, to somehow compensate for the missing part.

But no matter how hard I'll try, one thing is clear – I need to learn living with this pain.

***
Today is August 7th, it's very easy and nice to wake up.

I love summer mornings, the sun makes me smile, despite the lack of sleep.

Every night an hour of rest is taken away from me by my old friend – pain. Every year its duration increases by five minutes. To date, my torment lasts exactly half an hour, the other half an hour is for recovering.

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