*I can’t believe myself. No stupid, overly long conversations only added for comedy? Yeah, well, this was inspired by a prompt from my writing class. We were going over an excerpt from Last Child in the Woods by Louv, and this popped in my mind.
“So this is the future?” Lia gazed up at the starry sky, the glittering specks arranged in the numbers ‘4015’, for the year. They were fake lights, put in space by astronauts back in 3974. There were no more nationalities, nor specified races. Everyone blended together as citizens of Earth, with some extraterrestrial tourists mixed in.
Cozart stood next to her, scanning the glowing, neon buildings and bright, high-speed hovercrafts in the metropolis. He had already visited this time zone several times, and was showing it to Lia. "Mankind has come a long way,” he commented, thinking about the technologies of his time. The purple-haired teen shot a glance at Lia. “Even further, for you. Centuries ahead, this is.”
“Yeah,” Lia muttered as she scuffed the grassy hill they were on, not as cheerful as her usual self. An emperor butterfly flew by, and the young girl extended a finger for the insect to land on. She brought it closer once it rested, catching a glimpse of its strange pattern. “Hey, what’s this say? It doesn’t look natural.”
The tall boy craned his neck to see what Lia was referring to. Squinting his eyes to see the rather small colors, he slowly read the red print that stretched out across the butterfly’s wings. “Carmilla’s Wedding Plans. Currently 50% off for Winter Season.” Cozart ruffled Lia’s hair. “Yeah, it’s not natural. Genetically engineered animals and plants are commonplace in this time, and using them for advertisement is a huge thing.”
Lia frowned, lightly shaking her finger to get the butterfly to fly off. She stared after the insect, which disappeared into the glowing background of the city. “It’s not right,” she simply stated.
Cozart shrugged, even though Lia wasn’t looking. “It is to them,” he said, referring to the citizens of the 4000s.
“But…” Lia clenched her fists, grinding her teeth. Memories of her childhood flashed through her mind; Of running through the grass, of climbing large oak trees, of making flower crowns. She unconsciously rubbed her leg where the tribal stripes marking her age were. “Nature isn’t something you should control. It should be… natural. Man-made nature just isn’t right,” she repeated. She bent down and ran her hand over the grass, bending its stalks. “Even the grass doesn’t feel natural. It’s too smooth, not sharp, and much too soft.”
“They changed it to make it safer. No more cuts, and falling won’t hurt as much,” Cozart flatly replied, in the manner of someone who had said something way too many times. Then, his gaze and voice softened. “Lia, you don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to. We can get the twins to take us to a time where forests and plains are plentiful.”
Lia furiously shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. It’s not just me. Even if I go back, I can’t forget that this is what the future is. Bending nature to our whims, disappearing ecosystems… Why do people do this?”
Cozart folded his arms, his single eye watching a bright, sparkly sign on a tall building that read, ‘TIME- 20:34’. “I know it’s hard for you to understand, since you grew up in a nature-respecting tribe. However, times change. People must adapt to the changes, even if they can be considered bad by some. Everyone has their own way of surviving, and those methods evolve as humans progress.”
The two stood in silence for a while, watching as the city lights go from white to an aquamarine shade of blue. The night air stayed warm, even at such a time, due to the widespread, tiny machines that kept the temperature at a certain degree. Every day, people voted from holograms that popped up in front of their doors to see how hot or cold they would like the next day to be.
“I don’t like it,” Lia said in a small voice.
“We don’t,” Cozart agreed. “However, this is what their generation has grown up with. To them, it’s perfectly natural that this is how the world is. Alien visitors, unnatural nature, and the like. It’s improbable to think that mankind should halt in its tracks, that it should unanimously agree to stop technological progress and live simple lives after all the feats they’ve accomplished. Our thoughts are nothing more than an opinion. Putting it into words, this seems like an improved future. No more incurable illnesses, no more wars, no more uncontrollable natural disasters. They’ve even gotten rid of global warming. What reason does humankind have to stop? Absolutely none.”
Another small lapse of silence reigned, before Cozart let out a sigh and put a hand on Lia’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s go back. The others are waiting.”
Lia turned to look at him with somber eyes, before nodding. She turned to have one last look. "Alright."
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,006 Literary Works • 672,809 Reviews
Hey.... *waves hand vigorously*
I really liked the story and the neutrality of it. There a balance of two opinions depicted in this story which is really soothing.
To be honest, if the future is going to be that amazing and wonderful, then I definitely want to be a part of it. Also, I long to witness the lush green and the "natural nature" that has been referred to.
If it were published as a novel, I'd definitely read it that's how much I found it interesting. I liked Lia's character, I mean I liked her character a bit more than Cozart's and I want to witness her character development, if you continue to work on this into something bigger.
It's a fascinating work and I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Hey, there, EnderFlash! racket here to review your work!
First off, I really like this genre, this idea, this story, pretty much everything. Good job!! A bit confusing to me was the genre you put this in. It seems more sci-fi and futuristic than just realistic. Now, it could be completely realistic, but we just won't know for another 2000 years or so, so I think this would be better put in sci-fi and realistic.
Well, I really like how you got right to the futuristic aspect right at the beginning, telling us exactly what year it is and that astronauts had rearranged faux-stars 'back' in 3974. ^.^ That 'back' is very nice. The telling of how everyone is just a citizen of earth is a bit off-topic, not necessary to the plot, so you may need to be a bit more discreet in your mentioning the aliens and earth citizenship thing throughout the story. Or just leave it out. Your choice, but it doesn't really work right there.
In case you were wondering, I love the name Cozart, and thank you for putting a spunky name with a nice more normal name together. It works well!
Okay, the purple hair is a bit irrelevant, even if I do enjoy the idea of a purple-haired future-guy. A 'He' here, or 'The young man' or whatever might work here a bit better, as no one was mentioning hair, and it does not come back around. It does make it sound a bit more futuristic, but it is a bit random.
Okay, this implies that there are two boys and that Cozart is taller. 'The tall boy' works a bit better.
Okay, I like the animal advertising. That's really creative! But I don't think they can genetically engineer that, as every animal is a bit different in appearance. Maybe there's a factory that clones animals and adds ads and things. Man, that was a lot of a's and d's. 0.0
I think 'Cozart replied flatly' works better here.
Wait, Cozart has ONE eye? And purple hair? Dude, what happened to this kid? Did he get dared into dying his hair and playing with pointy objects as a child? 0.o
I like how Lia's from a tribe. Yaas, good planning there.
At first glance, I'm not liking the telling about the machines that control the weather, the info on the genetically engineered butterflies, the talking about Earth citizens, but I now realize it's setting up this story's setting. It's good, though you may need to blend the info into the plotline and story a bit smoother, as it's a little choppy.
The 'that' in the last sentence should be taken out.
Oh, I like them! They're cute! Can you write more of this story, please? I like the world; it's interesting.
Is your name EnderFlash for Ender and the Flash? Ender: best character, best series, beaten only by Bean. Flash: Marvel, marvel is awesome, therefore the Flash is too. I still need to watch that show....
Anyways. good job! This is great! Sorry, had to pick out the little, tiny disturbances, but despite how it may sound, this is awesome! Thank you for writing! Write more!!
~racket
Actually, Flash is DC xD It's considerably LESS awesome than your interpration to say that my name originated from when I was playing Minecraft at 8-9 years old, and it just kind of stuck. ;-; Sorry for ruining your thoughts.
Cozart's appearance and Lia's background can be very confusing; I guess it's bound to be, since my friends and I have long since come up with their backstories, which happen to be not included in these stories.
Also, about the genetic engineering thing, that was just an idea I got from an old 2002 announcement where scientists started to work on a project that would allow them to determine the patterns that appeared on butterfly wings. That kinda blew my mind.
((... I'm glad you like these two .3.))
That's so weird. Do you know if they actually got the experiment to work?
I have no idea. Like I said in the beginning, this was based off of an excerpt from Last Child in the Woods, so the announcement was mentioned there. Maybe they're still working on it.
Ah, I see. It would be weird if they did get it to work.
EnderFlash, I really enjoyed this story. The conversation is strained because of the two seemingly conflicting viewpoints. Each generation has to deal with the world changing in ways they never anticipated. I imagine that this is the way some people from older generations look at our quickly evolving culture today. To me, the dialogue and the alternative reality is hopeful, even if it's difficult for the character Lia to come to terms with a future she can't understand. Global warming has stopped; isn't that what groups of us are trying to prevent now? It seems to come at a high price though. I think I would also mourn the feel of natural grass, the uncontrollableness of the weather, and the wildlife, like Lia. It's sad to think that there may be a point in time when humans will become so used to artificiality, that they will never know what real grass feels like. I understand both sides of the dialogue here, but I'm leaning more towards Cozart's point of view. I would just like to see a future where we stop killing each other and where we are all finally equals.
Really great read. Thank you for sharing. You get a gold star from me.
- Dream.
Hey EnderFlash,
First of all, congratulations on getting featured in the Literary Spotlight.
And I must say, you deserve to sustain the position. It is a really new, fresh and inspiring piece of fiction. I read it twice. But I did not find even a single flaw in the writing, presentation and expression. When we imagine of the future, we built dreams of our utopia, but we hardly imagine that future could be this much devastating. So it was a great effort and really well written!
-Ishita Dutt
Oh, wait, what, I did? I didn't and still don't see it, though .u. Either way, thank you for reading!
... Yeah, I don't think i'm in the spotlight xD Maybe you saw this somewhere else?
I don't remember now but I still guess I did. Maybe it was for a short while or something
I thought this was really neat. People get so caught up in what's on their screen and not out their window these days. In other words, you've made a very realistic future!
Another thing I liked was the contrast in names. Lia is a more traditional name you'd see today, which is reflected in her different "tribe" who don't fancy the future as much as others. Meanwhile, Cozart, which is a more unusual name, thinks that the future is completely ordinary. He honestly almost seems a bit fed up with Lia at the end at how she disapproves of people's idea of normal. Kind of scary that THIS could at some point in time actually be normal, considering the rate of technological advancements are going.
Nice work! This was a nice short read that shows a evident problem with today's society.
Thank you! Although, to be honest, I was more trying to show how 'normal' changes as time goes on, and that it's not really fair to say how bad someone else's 'normal' is. Oh well, at least you enjoyed it!