ShopDreamUp AI ArtDreamUp
Deviation Actions
Literature Text
A bell rings, and swiftly they drop it all. They wipe the dirt off of each other’s clothing, take the twigs and leaves out of their pockets, plucking them out of their sleeves, their hair. They walk into the vibrant complex, a maze of neon buildings, without any space between them. The children enter the first tunnel, with a high light blue ceiling and furry green carpet. The door shuts behind them, enclosing them in the tunnel of endless reflecting light, and completely shutting out the wind and trees and dirt.
“Parker! Thank God you’re finally inside!” his mother calls as he scurries into the apartment.
“Mom! Guess what? Today we came up with roni brown, like macaroni, and wirt brown, like wet dirt, and buff brown, and—”
“Sweetheart, they’re all brown, a muddy mixture of the blues and greens and yellows that we have here.” Mrs. Turner gestures to her flowerbed, the plastic tulips bursting out of the jade and emerald grass-imitating pebbles. Parker nods along and grabs the watering can, certain his mother would want to refresh the plants.
“Run along, Parker.”
He shoulders his bag and walks to school, through the tunnels that connect each building in the complex, in their universe. He walks through the tunnel, looking up at the unchanging sky and walking on the carpet they called grass, never seeing a window, never allowed to go out except for that one time a day, if he was good. Lately, it was being limited more and more.
***
Parker hears voices coming from their apartment and takes his hand off the doorknob, instead crouching down to listen.
“I don’t like sending them out there,” his mother whispers. Parker strains to hear.
“Why? It’s not dangerous anymore.” It sounds like Dahlia’s mom.
“We don’t know that.” There’s a long pause, and Parker can’t tell if they’ve stopped talking or if he simply can’t hear them.
“They’re just being kids.”
“I know. But it’s better for them inside. We have everything here – we’ve made gardens, and the sky, and fruit. I want them to have a childhood.”
“Playing outside is a childhood.” Another pause. “I think you’re just afraid. I don’t like looking out there either. It’s terrifying, but we can’t coop them up inside.”
“Actually, I think that’s what we have to do.”
Parker gasps.
***
“Why can’t I go outside, Mom?”
“Come help me with the garden!”
“I don’t want to.”
“Parker! Don’t you see how beautiful it is? We have to take care of it to keep it that way.”
“I don’t want it that way. It’s not beautiful.”
“Then what is?”
Parker’s gaze turns to the window, to the foggy grey sky and the dry and dusty hillside.
“No. That’s not beauty, Parker. You don’t understand.”
***
It’s two weeks before Parker is allowed outside again. He scampers out of the tunnel, eager as a puppy. He grins when he spots Dahlia standing by the gate leading out of the complex, holding it open.
“Hurry up, Parker. We wanna show you the mystery patch!”
Parker runs along, dying to discover the mystery patch his friends had found. They said they had been digging and found a box. The box was as lifeless as the rest of the outdoor world, crusting on the edges, soggy and ripping. Most of its contents were trash, but the children had found a small non-edible bean that was a new shade of brown.
“What will we call it?”
“Seed.”
“What? Why?”
“That’s what my mom called it,” Parker said with a shrug. “She has a fake one inside. The fake one sparkles. I like this one better.”
“What do we do with it?”
He shrugs again. “Well, if we can’t eat it…”
“Let’s keep it,” Dahlia suggests. “It’s pretty. I can make a hair-clip out of it.”
Parker nods, placing the seed in his pocket. With that, the kids race off into the hills, crunching on twigs and leaves, stirring up a dirt storm, completely happy to be playing in the ruins. They jump and play in the lifeless world, and no one hears the little laugh of the seed as it falls out of Parker’s pocket and gets taken up by the wind.
Literature
The Movement
We are the stardust
Of the broken
And the damned
We are the followers
Of angels
And of sinners
We walk alone
In fields of gold
And fields of green
We are the dreams
Of all the dreamless children
But, they say
I am different
And they say
We are not the same
Look up
Watch the sky
And listen
To all the cries
Of the alone
Who shriek in vain
We are part
Of a movement
Changing the world
In a matter of words
We walk alone
In step with others
Our brothers and sisters
Though we do not know
Today
We link arms
Away, away, away
We go
Illuminating the night
With the daylight
In our souls
Today
We form reality
Today
We form the world
In a matte
Literature
Your Journey is You
If only I didn't go to a mental hospital,
If only I never picked up a razor blade,
If I had not talked to Jake,
If I didn't punch my sister in the face,
If only I didn't fail my math class,
If I had done my best,
If I never did homeschooling,
If only I stopped my anxiety before it took over me,
If my mom never went to a domestic violence shelter,
If my dad wasn't a fucking narcissist,
If only I was really outgoing then,
If I had more friends then,
If I hadn't thrown a tantrum in the ER,
If only my parents had me go to kindergarten,
If only I didn't fall in a fucking fountain when I was a kid.
Fuck it. No regrets. It has made
Literature
The Headshrinkers
When Todd opened the bathroom door and found Nick lying fully clothed in the tub with his wrists competently slit, it was not an absolute shock. Like Todd, Nick had had musical aspirations, but where Todd was an extrovert with his own band, The Headshrinkers, Nick had been a regular shut-in, working and reworking his ballads just for his own satisfaction apparently. With Marlboro lights and cheap lager Todd had coaxed Nick out of his shell. ‘Teach me one of yours,’ he’d requested early on. He had even got Nick playing rhythm guitar at a Headshrinkers gig one time. Strumming throughout from behind a veil of hair it was hard t
Suggested Collections
Featured in Groups
Inspired by The Road by Cormac McCarthy, this is a story about a dystopian society after we've destroyed nature on this planet.
Also inspired by the nature-theme of this year's literary magazine at my school (which I produced/co-edited).
(C) VivaFariy
Also inspired by the nature-theme of this year's literary magazine at my school (which I produced/co-edited).
(C) VivaFariy
© 2018 - 2024 VivaFariy
Comments10
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
I'm fond of the way you've eased us into this insulated world. There's no arduous, dry exposition here that's thrown at the reader in a chunk. Instead, you slowly introduce the tunnel and the artificiality and drabness of life there.
For a piece with a “Save the Earth!” message, this is remarkably un-preachy as well. Readers don’t appreciate being condescended to so kudos to you! I think you could do more to communicate why the kids are so fond of the outdoors though (given that it is rather “lifeless” and dull, given all the brown).
Lastly, I found the personification of natural elements of the world e.g. the wind (“The wind responds with a sigh”) and the seed (“the little laugh of the seed”) quite charming.
That’s it from me. Merry Critmas, dear friend.
For a piece with a “Save the Earth!” message, this is remarkably un-preachy as well. Readers don’t appreciate being condescended to so kudos to you! I think you could do more to communicate why the kids are so fond of the outdoors though (given that it is rather “lifeless” and dull, given all the brown).
Lastly, I found the personification of natural elements of the world e.g. the wind (“The wind responds with a sigh”) and the seed (“the little laugh of the seed”) quite charming.
That’s it from me. Merry Critmas, dear friend.