Wednesday's Words on a Friday

 

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles. Sadly, Delores has now closed her blog forever due to other problems.

The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along to read it and add a few encouraging words.

This month the words/prompts are supplied by Sean Jeating and can be found here

This week's words/prompts are: 

1. art 2. awe 3. dreamscape 4. face 5. moonlit 

and/or: 

1. breathless 2. me 3. oxygen 4. tanka 5. you

Also including Charlotte's colour of the month: dahlia yellow

Here is my story:

The year was 2323. The people leaving the new “art” exhibition had faces filled with awe and wonder. Janet nudged Nathan, “look how happy they seem, we have to see what’s in there!”

Nathan grudgingly paid for the tickets and they entered the building to the soothing sounds of lullaby music. Nathan snorted, “hmmpf” and Janet elbowed him to “be quiet and give it a chance.”

The walls were hung with “photos” of “children” at various ages, available for purchase for those who wanted a family, with a notice stating that you could start with a “baby” and exchange it year by year (for a small fee) until you had a school age youngster.

With the world being so over crowded, for ten years now real babies were no longer allowed to be born, people were routinely injected with contraceptives, and companies such as this one were springing up in every country. Nathan looked at Janet, “remember what we agreed. Fake babies are just no substitute for the real thing, we agreed, no children and that includes fake ones, no matter how lifelike.”

Janet nodded, stating that she would still like to see the Dreamscape exhibition. They entered the room and Nathan said “Oh I’m breathless! Find me an oxygen tank!”  “Be serious!! Janet hissed. “You have to admit it is nicely presented.” And it was. The walls were lined with cots, each holding a peacefully slumbering baby with a pale spotlight giving a moonlit look to each tiny face. Above the cots the walls were painted in different shades of blues, with wisps of clouds scattered here and there, tiny dahlia yellow spots from the ceiling indicating the stars of night time.

“Haven’t seen stars in a long time,” said Nathan, “there’s so much pollution and smog these days.” “I remember stars,” said Janet. “But look at the babies, they look so real, it’s hard to believe they are robots.” “They do look real,” said Nathan. ‘but remember, they are programmed and will sleep, cry and do regular baby things on a set schedule, not at all like a real child who will grow without a yearly replacement.”

“And a real baby would be more like us, these replicas would all look similar. Now that I have seen them, I can see why those others felt the awe, these are babies and most women want one at some point.” Nathan looked at her as she continued. “Lucky for you, I’m not most women,” she said and he let out a sigh of relief.