the sculptors (🇺🇸)

D A Y

Shards From Eternal Now

the sculptors.

As if nature had decided that it belonged there, a perfect human-shaped figure sat on top of a hill. It's stiff, under control, greek-like pose, was bathed by sunlight. It resembled an artistic era, when men sculpted gods with their bare hands. Hands that gave form, shape, presence, and face to gods. But then, perhaps because of their submissive nature, men chose to neglect the power of their hands, turning powerful god-making tools into mearly praying instruments.

Another figure approached the first one, much smaller this time. It ran towards the statue and hugged it. The statue lost its rigid form and grabbed the kid around its arms. They laid together on the top of the hill. The sunlight shone clearer on them now, they were not statues, but men.

They played as father and son, all was well. A third figure approached. It was a woman. "Did you see how fast your father reached the top?". She asked the child. "One day you'll be just like him." She continues as the child listens with attention and the father smiles at her. "Fast, strong, beautiful, funny, responsible, uplifting, honest..."

They shared a passionate look.

"...perfect in every way." she completes.

Before he has time to answer her, they are already there. It wasn't a surprise for him, he had relieved this so many times.

"You are needed". Said one of the two men who suddenly were standing behind him in dark blue jumpsuits.

An alarm rings.

David's out of it now. Out of the dream. Or was it a nightmare? Bit of both, he figured while still facing the grey ceiling from his poorly decorated room. He always knew what he had to do after having a dream like that. He had this idea a couple of months ago, it had been helping to take the mind away from things a bit.

He got up from his stone-hard bed and got a notebook that was in the opposite corner of his room. The notebook was precious to him, it had been the reward of some improvements in his daily work. Even though he cared a lot for it it stayed on the ground with his work tools. And not because he didn't care enough about it to put on a table. It's just that a table on your room was quite a luxury.

He opened the notebook and there were pages and pages filled with adjectives. None of them were negative, all positive . He marked an extra line for the ones he had heard on his dream, as if he was keeping a score of them.

After flipping through pages and pages of adjective he finally got to some pages were there are only some phrases on each page. 3 or 4 on each at maximum. It seems like the phrases had a special place on the notebook.

"Perfect in every way." he wrote.

The alarm rings twice now.

"Shit."

He quickly puts the notebook away and grabs a roll-up pouch and a dark-blue jumpsuit. As he was near his door he remembered he had forgotten his ear protectors and came back to get them. He was so relieved he didn't forget them. A day without his ear protectors would be a day in hell.

He put his jumpsuit. "1514", that's what it said and that's how others called him. But ,actually, David was his name. He put his thumb on a button next to his door and took a deep breath. He could already hear them, on the hallway, ready for another day, and he was about to join them.

The everyday rampage waited to welcome him. A herd of men in dark-blue jumpsuits crossed the hallway from left to right, their heavy work boots and their uncoordinated march disrupted every bit of silence in the whole place. He pressed the button and his door slid open. Two men lost their balance and almost fell inside his room, he held them and pushed them back, it all took less than a second and didn't even surprise him. He waited for an opportunity and nearly jumped inside the crowd. He wasn't very strong or anything, so he had to be careful not to be stomped to death every day.