Future Perfect

Future Perfect

Glance into a foggy window in time full of darkness and corruption, where the deeply rooted human desire of greed and power has completely overtaken what used to be innocent. The smoke blocks out the sun, casting a cold shadow over the land. Foliage and vegetation has been sucked into Nature’s downward spiral, leaving only barren wastes devoid of existence. Machines walk the earth, constantly serving and slaving as far as their chips tell them to. A higher power is a number these beings cannot count to, the universe is all here and now in all its blighted glory. One of these beings is awakening for the first time. With a vociferous screeching of metal on flesh, its rusted eyes coil open.

Tip-tap, tip-tap spoke to him. With a jolt the cocoon opened, jettisoning the tiny flea into the blizzard outside. Something had changed. What happened to the fields? A sense of familiarity swept over him, yet instantly imploded upon itself. There used to be a field of daisies, instead only a metal carcass resembling an elephant remained. Look upwards. Raining chunks of flaming debris were headed straight for him from above, as though seeking revenge. The searing embers sought him out like a vulture hunts rotting meat. He didn’t care; he let the metal hit him. Something had changed. Morals, sense of self, everything had changed. He tried his hardest to smell skin and hair burning; his calculations did not allow it. There wasn’t any pain, only a tiny chink in his armor. Armor? As he looked down at himself, the gripping horror struck him.

Numbers falling across his eyes and formulas postulating all possible danger failed to produce any result. Blinking lights in the back of his head told him his temperature, height, weight, local forecast, horoscope, and sports scores. Illuminated white metal seamlessly caressed his body, from a distance looking like a sleeker Michelin Man. His temperature gauges read -30, yet he felt stable. Fading memories revealed to him his previous life at the packing plant, living one day at a time, paycheck to paycheck, without a care in the world. That hollow life seemed substantially more real than the unimaginable wasteland his current world had become.

Suddenly a foreign warmness shot through his circuits, directing him to the south. A quizzical instinct popped up on his display screen and he could not disobey. Something, some force greater than he could comprehend was calling his frozen joints towards an unknown destination. The frigid winds picked up, their chilling crystals of death swirling about in a whimsical fashion like otherworldly spirits escaping their earthly prison. Step by step he walked through the icy sands, leaving a trail of deep footprints utterly unsure of where his journey would end. Impulses awoke within him suddenly, like a grizzly bear awakening in the spring, hungry for life. His awakening jolted him, for he opened his eyes in a very different world as when he wired them shut. The ancient doorway to his cave had been pinned shut by a fallen stalactite, dripping with the essences of greed, corruption, and decadence. He existed; he could touch his hardened exoskeleton and his sensors indicated he was really here. Existing yet trapped. Uncertainty of course never occurred to him, just as his five senses lacked precision. He dreamt not of unicorns and princesses, but of the gripping torture of reality. He foresaw not a world of hope and progress, but one of eternal standstill. Another breeze of snow kicked up, revealing many hazy figures in the distance.

Rage and anger began to overflow inside him, shooting upward in a discharge of primal fury. As he rushed forward with the choking vapors in the air coursing through his iron lungs, the chips inside him began to go haywire. The arteries of his heart began to pump sweet adrenaline, igniting his antagonism with the spark only nature could create. Dust and bones were crushed beneath him, rubble and wreckage caved in like secrets exiting the lips, and the sky was doomed for it was next. Restraints busted while armor chipped and flew back into the forgotten distance, immediately lost to the hazy fog. With a whisk of his fingers he created dark clouds on the horizon, descending upon this wretch of a world to make anew. Grabbed by her pigtails, Mother Nature begged for mercy. He would not let go, for power was in his wicked grasp. Its dominating scent turned him inside out, unlocking his robotic prison and opening the rusted gates of possibility.

While the storms were gathering overhead, the reborn being cackled eerily. His shrill cries were loud and violent, finally setting free the hive of feelings hiding dormant for centuries. Buzzing around his head, these ideas and emotions pricked him with their venomous stingers, each dagger a vessel for the poison corrupting his shattered existence. One by one they stabbed his newly malleable flesh, creating a hole and filling it with emptiness. Escape was impossible, for the bar code along his abdomen not only was his model number but proof of his slavery- enslaved by reality, enslaved by memories, enslaved by the hollow yet impenetrable carapace his skin restricted him to. Sensors had busted, yet something clicked inside of him that told him this was the beginning of the end. He was preparing and gathering the strength and peace of mind necessary to ascend to where he was going next.

Dropping to his knees with muscles twitching and mangled teeth chattering, the freezing rain began to shower the man with its piercing blades of pain. Confusion had led to curiosity, which fell down a well into understanding, which manifested into rage, which had now evolved into 4 walls without a door. He was boxed in, cold, alone, and forgotten. Those walls were now narrowing and morphing into faces, each of them telling the story of the world. The faces were colorless and featureless other than an oval for the outline and a basic, indistinct mouth. Stories were positive and they were depressing, but all in all it seemed humanity persevered in the end. However, towards the end of the line, the diatribes began to tragically escalate into shouts and wails. Shouting and wailing gave way suddenly to white static, the lifeline on humanity suddenly falling flat. Outside the walls, waves crept up to his chin. The soft, inviting thought of numbness opened its wide, accommodating arms. Nature was bringing him back into her essence, to his one true home. The raindrops tip-tapping on his balmy forehead seemed like hammers pressing him further into oblivion. Tip-tap, tip-tap once again spoke to him, and this time, he knew the answer.