I AM NOT A ROBOT

At first glance, the metropolis that I live in looks like chaos. It kind of is. But don't tell the public that.

  Everything is ashen, layered over with coal and fumes that are taken away by Government filters that appear every morning. They float around the sky like large, foreboding, enongated floating brooms. There are hardly any cars, and no animal-run vehicles run the streets, only children that are as dirty as the tops of the buildings.

   It's always grey here, and we like that. Sometimes, the sun will appear, and people treat it like a storm. They stay indoors until it's gone, and the usual grey clouds loom overhead.

   Scared of things that are different, I think.

   I guess it's because we don't know what to do with the sun. According to books I've read, people used to enojy it. Run around in it's glow, bask, frolic. I can't think of anything more out of the ordinary. Actually, I can.

    But the truth is, there isn't chaos unless the public see chaos.

   And we're all oblivious.

   I realize that I'm being oblivious to everything just by thinking, and I jolt myself back. Just in time, too.

  "Barron." I whisper to my classmate, keeping my voice low.

   He turns his head away from the rusty device at which he's poking, looking back at me. I gesture with my head to the lecturer, who's staring this way. He drops the metal contraption under his seat, giving his attention to the slow talking man.

  He's boring. Old, the kind of old that nobody ever wants to be. Plus, he smells like coal and cigars. Pretty sure he hasn't showered in, like, a month.

  Every word he says he prizes, while others throw it away to be replaced with other thoughts.

   I almost feel sorry for him, but then the lecturer starts to hobble over to Barron, and puts his hand out. His palms are glistening in the grey light of the day.

   Glaring up at him, Barron puts the metal into his hand, and the man keeps talking as he hobbles across the pavement to a slot in the circular courtyard. The pale stones around the slot are black with ash from the square hole.

  We all know what he's doing, where he's going to put the metal.

   He pulls down the handle, and a slide drops out like an open mouth, ready for anything interesting to be thrown inside. The man drops it, and I hear it clang down until there's a splash, and I know it's fallen into the hot metal that causes some of the grime at the tops of buildings.

   Gone. Forever. Thrown in with the robots.

   Barron hangs his head down in front of me, but I know he's glaring at the lecturer for the rest of the whole hour he keeps talking.

  When we're released to stand up, it takes the seventy people in my class a moment, and as we all attempt to stand, half of us topple over. My legs aren't numb, but I pretend they are so I don't have to stand around and wait for the line of people to keep moving.

   It's all I can do to stop myself from cursing the lecturer out loud, and I settle for swearing many times until to anybody half-listening it shows that I, too, have lost feeling in my legs. I haven't, but maybe it'll get me a symepthetic glance from somebody.

   The girl I was sitting next to is still sat, and I offer my hand to pull her up.

  "There was a rain warning earlier." I tell her, and she curls her lips at my presence.

  "Go away, Aaran." She says, spitting my name like it's the dumbest possible thing. Standing up, strutting away, she limps because her leg is still numb.