I learned she hadn’t told me everything the first time I visited a dome. It had take me so long to squeeze through the crack in the wall of the dome I’d left, but the wall of the dome I visited was paper thin. In one step, I was inside.
The inside was filled with neat houses, arranged along streets. Well kept lawns, flowerbeds, big cars and trucks in all the driveways. All the people dressed similarly, had similar haircuts, and similar behavior. It was like where I’d come from.
But the dome’s wall was covered with black, painted letters. The way the people in that dome felt about everything they hated, or didn’t understand, or were afraid of, was painted on the wall of the dome.
It was an insight I didn’t want.
I went back outside, where it was safe, beautiful, and those hatreds and fears were gone.
150 Words
@LurchMunster
Part 11 of a story I’m writing for Angela Goff’s Visual Dare. Please read the other entries in this week’s Visual Dare challenge. Be amazed at the magic people can put into 150 words or less.
The girl laughed. “I have to tell you the rules.” She tapped me on the shoulder. “You can walk right through all the walls to all the domes. They don’t really exist.” She laughed. “People think they do. People think they’re safe inside their worlds. Protected from the evils and dangers outside their controlled, managed lives.”
I turned, and faced the wall, and the crack. The reality I’d always known was inside that wall. I backed a few steps away, then a few more, until I could see the truth.
I froze. Motionless. Terrified, excited, confused, exhausted, and completely lost. I’d reached the end of the crack. I stood, frozen in time, looking out of the wall of reality. Looking out at a world, a universe, I’d never known, and never imagined.
It took time, and wasn’t easy. The bruises and cuts hurt. The physical pain stopped me many times and I wondered if I’d ever make it through the wall to whatever was outside. But I couldn’t go back. I knew the crack was sealed, but I’d gone so far into the wall I didn’t know if I could make it back if I tried.
The way back was blocked, sealed by those inside the world they knew. That was unexpected on my part, that they would seal me out. I heard her voice, “Don’t panic. Don’t do anything stupid.” Something perfect to say to someone inside a wall.
The fences others built around me grew each day. “We can’t trust you. You won’t patch the wall. If you patch the wall, we’ll take our fences down. Be like us. Be safe. Patch the wall.”
I peered into the crack in the wall, I could see something beyond, I knew something was there. Others in reality watched me peering into the crack. “One does not look into the crack!” Always they told me, “One does not look!” and “You can’t do that!” Soon, everyone I knew told me the same thing, how I needed to fix that crack. “If that crack grows, it can become dangerous!”
My Soul's Tears 