Daniel had a great job. All he had to do was sit on a chair all-day and click and reply to emails. It was easy peasy. He worked in the customer care department of a company.
The city was beautiful. And very accessible. For every single thing, from cans to garbage bins, had name tags. The same was written in braille also. There was a shocking 16% blind population. Most people couldn't see very well. He was no exception.
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Another thing strange about this city was that there were no showers, only bathtubs. Whatever, he thought, he liked the bathtub. It was like a royal bathtub. Then again, he earned 40k every month. He noticed that the sticker of the bathtub was coming off. He decided to pull it out. It was annoying to have a huge sticker you can everywhere in your bathtub. Even though it was against the rules, he pulled the tag out.
Now, something about the rules. Basically, there was a shortage of food sometime back when, and lots of parents died. So that their children could eat enough. The lack of nutrition was the cause of their clumsy bodies and poor eyesight. The story was sad. There was 1 person who raised them, a doctor. He took care of all the children. Everyone loved him. He had saved their eyes but telling them not to let the tags on things get out of their sight, as it had a medicine. He was getting old.
Nothing prepared Daniel for what he saw next. As the tag came off, slowly, as he couldn't see the tag anymore, his eyes started paining. It was unbearable. But what was more shocking than that was that the bathtub which he had been on, was slowly changing its color. It wasn't a bathtub, it was a hole. He was horrified and rushed out of the house.
Whenever they didn't look at the tags, their eyes pained SOMETIMES, but never so much. He didn't know what to do. Go to the doctor? No, he couldn't trouble him. In his old state, he gave up on medicine. He had been seen very little lately.
He took out the tags of many things, and everything changed. His house was a horrible shack made of rocks. He was horrified. He went to the forbidden tower - The Municipal commission.
The government was no longer there. The place was just a storage of great forbidden books.
He opened one that said, "GOVERNMENT ONLY". This is what it said:
"This book is to be deleted when the doctor lives no more. To the person who is reading this: burn this right now. Read no more. Oh, government agent, the truth is hard and tough. Long ago, in a nuclear test, this place was destroyed. Adults all died. The doctor - a hypnotizer, didn't want the children to know what the place was actually like. He made name tags which just said what the objects were supposed to be. He hypnotized people to think that they were normal, everything was normal. The radiation has turned us into this - this thing. We are able to eat what we shouldn't be. The rich escaped, so did the government left. The doctor is the only one left for he has the cure. He will escape. I don't have much time left either..."
He started crying. Everything he has known was gone in an instant. He removed a tag from his own body, which said "Normal Human". He started changing. He looked like- was a monster. He sobbed and sobbed. All night he did not sleep. He now knew why the doctor isn't seen anymore - he had left. He left them all alone. He took the book with him, determined to show everyone the truth. He entered the office and decided to tell his partner and friend first.
His friend was talking with someone. He looked cheerful. Daniel felt horrible. Something inside him snapped - his courage.
"You were saying something?" his best friend asked.
"Just this," Daniel answered, "that the truth is bitter. Never try to find it.". And he left.
"The truth is bitter"
"I can only cause pain"
The next day, Daniel burned the book and killed himself to release himself and the other from the danger of the truth. The truth is dangerous.
Not everyone can adapt to it. Expanding your brain hurts. But you can't just not try.
