“Remember to
look both ways before crossing the street.”
Confucius*
Today I wrote
as usual. However while in my house I ran into a random encounter in
the kitchen. It was against a zombie. When I defeated it I got 200
EXP. I then leveled up. I got +1 Strength, +2 Agility, +3
Intelligence, and +1 Charisma. I don't really feel too much stronger
or faster but I do think I have a greater grasp of higher
mathematical concepts from the intelligence boost. Maybe the charisma
boost will also help me with the ladies. When leveling I also got the
the skill Greater Flatulence.
Anyway, onto
the flash fiction!
The Recycled
Apocalypse
You build
everything out of the Byproduct. It's all around you. It's shiny and
gray. You can change how solid it is by stirring it. You can preserve
food with it. It protects you from heat and cold if you cover your
skin with it. If you eat it it can not only fill your belly but cure
diseases. There are so many uses for it I could hardly count them
all. It's a vital resource of society, almost as vital as water. At
least it is now in this year of 4024. Well, that's what the year is
supposed to be. With most old records destroyed, scholars debate.
Among the
legends the tales go like this. Our ancestors built and built the
most elaborate society with technological wonders beyond our
comprehension. But these technologies came with garbage and waste and
over the centuries it became too much for them. So they created
something to consume it all. A “bacteria”. And when it consumed
the waste it left behind the Byproduct. I don't know exactly what a
bacteria is but apparently it can be many things, not only this great
consumer.
But the
consumer didn't just consume the garbage, it consumed every city and
all the technologies, just leaving behind the Byproduct. This was
because all those cities were made of the same materials the garbage
was. Our ancestors thought they could control the bacteria, but it
escaped, despite their effort.
So now we have
our world. A world of the Byproduct and nature alongside it. We even
write with it. The most we use of the only way is paper and we write
on it by smearing the Byproduct. I wonder how much our ancestors
built over the centuries to make so much Byproduct to last so many
generations. We use some of the old knowledge and make wooden things
and stone. But many metals are gone and the scholars claim that
bacteria is still making Byproduct in the Earth, slowly eating the
metals that are made that could have been used for their
technologies.
I want to live
in that old world. No matter how great our Byproduct is...if it is
merely something that came from the garbage of the technology...what
I have missed. I've heard of the ability to fly, things you can ride
to hundreds of miles an hours, the power to talk to people across
oceans, the ability to control things in worlds that don't exist. So
many things in the legends. I wonder about that world. It's such
fantasy. I kept calling our history legends because I don't think
that it's the history the scholars talk about exist. I think the
Byproduct is just the same thing as dirt and such a technologies
couldn't exist. But if they did I really wish I could leave the
Byproduct behind and go to the world of the ancestors.
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