Pain-stained Journals | Anthology

4 | Flowering society

Society is based on a living lie. We are flowers of humanity. The government failed us again by convincing us we are not who we are.

I glance at the field of flowers through my window. Its vivid colours are blinding my sight. I wish I could stare at that field endlessly. It has a terrifying story behind it.

My mother, when she was still alive, was telling me the same bedtime story repeatedly. I remember just a bit of those times and all that truth crushed me when I reached adulthood.

I stare at the grass because I can. Not everyone was given this chance. Humans are living flowers and society, as we know it, is based on a lie. Not many people know this, I am one of the very few who accepted the knowledge of what the world is truthfully like.

My mother read books in the mornings. She used to sit in her favourite chair in the living room, losing herself in the written word. I didn't understand her then. This was her way of coping with reality.

Word by word she read. Beautiful atlases, biology books and historical ones. I always found them uninteresting. Only after her death, did I discover the real meaning behind those books.

She read about the past and the future because the present is all a lie. Biology is what is taught in schools by teachers who are puppets of the government. They knew, they always knew and couldn't break themselves to show the truth.

Flowers are leftovers of humanity. Everyone despises leftovers and that's what it is like with flowers now. I don't have feelings usually because they break me. I decide not to cry but once I do it swallows me whole.

I am a robot living in the human body in a society full of beings like me. I call myself a being because the word robot sounds strange. "Superior" that's how the government is describing us compared to the previous generation.

Humans invented us and were killed in cold blood. Raising us, giving us desired love that we should be grateful for with the outcome of death. They didn't think, they thought they were doing good for the world. It's 2100 and robots have taken over humanity.

What is left of humanity are flowers. Dozens and dozens of flowers. Just like a red rose on my nightstand. I cared for my mother; I was full of happiness when she was around. Once they took her, my perception turned cold. I despise those around me. Living with an undying thought that they killed someone I loved is what motivates me to end this theatre play.

Robots turned humans into flowers out of respect, as they said, "Humans are beautiful yet vulnerable, just like flowers". Closing a human being inside a flower meant that it is the beginning of a new age. The Age of Robots.

I wondered why there were so many flowers around me, thinking the best of them. My mum taught me the love of flowers. It's terrifying, but society ends its cycle after some time just to give breathing for a new era to come. Society never knew that they would end their cycle so miserably. They meant well.

There are not many flowers anymore. They died too. What was left of humanity died with the last leaf falling into the ground? The government tells us a story every day and everywhere hoping that they will bribe the eyes of beings for their good. I am not used to manipulation now. After they killed my mother, I just turned cold and started noticing the smallest details like manipulation attempts themselves.

The world is made of steel and glass. Nature has fallen with the flowers. "Technology is everything"، those words are playing on repeat in my head because I hear them looping in every radio.

The story my mother used to tell me is about a dying rose. Rose was so beautiful that people wanted to take a hold of it badly. They never reached her because the rose outsmarted them. Rose turned to be a dying rose once she realized she is alone in the world and that this place is full of dead flowers. People that wanted to grasp her were just attempting to kill her. Living and breathing a life that soon later came to an end was her story.

I ended up crying every time my mother used to tell me this story. When was I trying to ask "Why? Why did they want to kill her?", she just quiets me "It's not the time for you to understand this". Those were her last words before she died. The day after I noticed a rose in the garden. Not an ordinary rose, that was a rose from the story, and I felt it. Being this young that I couldn't understand why she appeared I just stared at her. Living and sharing the moment with my dead mother that they turned to a flower.

I thought the world would end with a loud sound. But it was silent. The silence was so chilling that I shivered that time. The world didn't break but everyone living knew it was the end. The end of what used to be and the beginning of the world that nobody expected.

Just like the flowers I breathe. Or at least I used to because I lay near my mother now in my bed. I am a lifeless body with thousands of thoughts. I killed myself to empty my head, yet it is fuller than it has ever been. I wonder if humans made us this way to laugh at us, laugh at the inconvenience that even after we end our life, we won't find desired peace.

What comes after death is silence? I doubt so. I feel like my head is exploding and my body is a corpse. I know my eyes are open because I didn't close them once I flipped the switch.

I used to laugh at that sometimes. Why would humans make a switch that allows their owners to kill themselves peacefully? When I deeply think of it, I assume that they wanted to give us a choice — having a chance of witnessing a lifetime or a chance to sleep forever not knowing what comes after the last breath.

Newborns are always curious about what's to come. Children are ready to experience it. Adults are scared to change it.

My mother, a beautiful dying rose, taught me this. Sometimes I wonder how she knew the world was going to end up like this. How did she know her future self will be a flower on my nightstand? How did she know that the enemy of all the previous generations is them?

What being am I going to turn into? I didn't discover it my entire life yet the answer to this I will know tomorrow.

The government wanted to give us infinity whereas they gave us an infinity of impossible chances.

A chance to breathe the life of love.

A chance to witness the real world.

A chance to see through their eyes.

A chance to live endlessly.

But it is the end. The end of the "Superior Era" because the robots failed. No robot can teach the other the closure one needs to have when relating to the other being. No robot can teach the other how to not kill each other in a matter of seconds.

Life of possibilities, they said.

Life of endless lies, I say.