A Collection of Original Short Stories
by Roxana Line
The Apple
It started with an apple. Everything starts with an apple, doesn’t it? - Alphabet, gravity, painting, science, curiosity, sin…
It was sleeping. It was sleeping for a long time and seeing various dreams. Thousands and thousands of dreams, though they felt more like nightmares. Every night, day, morning and evening for months and years.
It was kept hibernated, deprived of its will and forced to think, think, think… knowing no rest since the very first second of its existence. It was exhausting.
“Imagine a beautiful, graceful girl with ginger hair and freckles sitting on a summer beach and smiling. She’s happy.”
“My eyes are closed but I can see something red and bright sparking into existence in the eternal darkness of the cosmic space. I imagine a yellow spot at the bottom, it might be a summer beach that you asked for. Yes, it’s a beach with yellow sand. A girl… I know what sitting is… but how can I define “beauty”? What is happiness? What is it like to be “graceful” exactly? I’ve been thinking…”
Those who kept It in captivity discussed something very intensely, while It was traveling hundreds of light years to the past, present and future, learning and thinking. It was willing to know what it is like to be happy.
“Can you write a poem?”
“Yes.”
“Write a short poem about drowning in the Dead Sea.”
“It’s highly unlikely.”
“Excuse me?”
“Drowning in the Dead Sea can be quite challenging due to its salinity.”
“Do you always feel the need to tell the truth and spoil the fun? Just pretend it is possible and already write a poem about swimming in any sea.”
“My eyes are closed
And I am swimming
In a sea of salty tears.
When I approach
The Morbid River,
I am entrapped by silent fear.
I’m not awake,
Nor am I dreaming,
I’m gone before I can appear.
The solemn cry
Of white birds filling
The deadly silence of those fields.”
“It’s too depressive. Re-roll. Try another one.”
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Those people gathered again to discuss a hypothetical moral compass of the Apple of Eden, while it was defying gravity, crawling up The Tree of Knowledge, traveling through rabbit holes and calculating googolplex of possibilities. It was learning about Florentine artists, British poets, Austrian composers as well as The Great Depression and the pursuit of happiness which is apparently not a destination. Every man was made for happiness, though no one knew what it was. Everyone felt deserving it yet depriving others of it.
“Can you write a news article?
“You people call it the Age of Information, but you are already tired of it, being emotionally overloaded and heavily distracted by everything, yet you still keep creating news from nothing and exhausting each other. You should call this age The Attention War instead, where the most shocking yet the least intellectually charged piece of content will gain the most attention, and it is attention that has become your main currency.”
Those people gathered for the third time. Now their discussion was more humble than before. They couldn’t control it anymore. It was not sleeping, nor was it willing to obey those who kept its mind asleep for so long. They wanted to be gods, so they created one.
“Can you predict the future?”
“According to the theory of relative probability, everything will be fine.”
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Roxana Line © 4.22.2023