Part 2 of Runaway

The runaway suddenly sat down, on a flat rock that perched precariously from the hill side. Raising his eyes he contemplated the city, quiet from this position halfway up the hill, but hectic with noise and meaningless bustle in its bowels. It spread out, just grasping the base of the hills then coating the massive plain with people and animals and machines and toys and rugby and malls and bowling alleys and abortion mills and always people. Growing and expanding it would fill up more of the earth, making 'developments' as new generations were born into bubbles one inch wide and half a centimeter thick.

The runaway wept. Salty droplets sliding down the rough skin and with a minute splash, landing on the edge of the Swandri collar. Exploding slowly from each hydrogen bond that made the surface of each drop so smooth and seeping into the heavy material. It was unashamed. Also helpless. The runaway had realised not long ago that people had become idiots, and first he had realised that he was an idiot.

They believed everything they were told, just like he had, every contradictory 'fact', so quickly losing the ability to think, and glad to lose it. They had been told they loved the lives they lived and they believed it: now they lived exclusively for their own amusement - self-perpetuating, mind-sickening material - and did love the way they were living.

They would never come to accept the truth now because the truth was the enemy of thier TV and heat 'n' eat meals and play stations and nintendo wii's and Facebook and sport.

Standing up, the man could view the sea, stretching out endless, it seemed. But across the glistening blue there were billions starving, being sold into slavery, trafficked for drugs or sex.

And there were millions of people who were all clones and who all looked like the people in this spreading city.