The Wallflower: A Short Story

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If you are reading this, consider it your warning. Lesser words by lesser beings have the tinge of madness to them. That said, I cannot force you to set this down and keep your ignorance. The decision is yours, as it is for every person on this Earth. Very well. This is not my story. This is the story of the end of the world and its’ deliverer. It never begins when you think it does. Allow me. The blinding light was cold and unnatural. It never seemed to flicker, but that only built the ambience around it. Icy tile repeated the same dull, monotonous, safe pattern over and over, despite spanning hundreds of feet. Distantly the intercom would go off, signaling some unknown disaster around the isle. This Wallflower was driving him crazy.…show more content…
He kept his beams on low, eyes focused forward. The world before him felt unreal, but perhaps that was because he’d been kept in such an unreal place from the start. He did spend more time in the Wallflower than out in the world. He mused with the idea for a moment. The town was warm, dark, and moving ever-forward where Wallflower was stationary. It was to make people lose their sense of reality, of course, but it was too successful. It felt like another world. A world of white. “Stupid subconscious marketing.” People were getting too good at their jobs. If they wanted to sell you something, you’d buy it and think it was your idea on top of it. It seemed there were an influx in those jobs. Everyone wanting to know what you’re thinking, how you’re thinking, why you’re thinking, so they can best figure out how to rob you blind while you beg for them…show more content…
The sign was a light pink that made it difficult to read in simple traffic light, but Seth was pretty sure the word ‘confectionary’ was in there somewhere. Alison’s mother’s pride and joy. Now that he was thinking about it, she didn’t go to college either. Maybe she was working there. An empty, boarded up building framed the edge of the three, with a realty sign in the long, rectangular glass windows. His eyes followed along to the next stretch. The Seven-and-Twentieth was a bar. He’d never been to it, personally, but there were a lot of old winos that liked hanging around. The occasional teenage party was held there, with fake IDs and the like. Those and the true twenty-first birthday celebrations, but the kids whose parents had money went to Richmond. He had no clue about the name, though. Was twenty-seven taken? It had its own parking lot, though. It must have some
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