The park was as beautiful as always. Kids playing, adults chatting. Life had become so easy. Tanya was sitting on the bench watching actors doing a play. Real art, art created for the art itself, not to survive, not to make money. Her teddy was lying on the bench beside her. She was laughing, applauding.
….
Malak got up between the assembly lines. Gunshots. He ran, stepping on toys and things going down the line. Drones were coming after him. At the end of the line there was an opening. He could see the dark sky. He ran towards the edge.
In a distance he could see the cotton fields. Where there once had been people living, cultivating food for their families, now there was cotton as far as the eye could see. Enormous machines were harvesting. Any living creature entering would be killed.
Far underneath he saw robots working. Transport vehicles going out through the highly guarded gate. The fall was too high. He turned, wanting to run back, but the drones were coming. A machine gun pointed right at him.
He fell over the edge.
….
I forgot my teddy bear!
We can’t go back now, there’s no time. Grandma’s waiting.
But I really liked him…
Don’t worry, sweetheart. We can always buy you a new one.
…..
Mika’s mother was standing by her kitchen. Tears were running down her cheeks. If the poor child wasn’t back by now, he probably wouldn’t be. How could she send a child on such a dangerous mission? Regrets. Shame. She heard the hatch open.
Malak. He had fallen in the transport vehicle, the toys had reduced his fall. The drones had not been able to detect him underneath them. He had scratches and wounds all over, and his clothes were even worse than when he left, but he was whole and alive.
He had a metal lever in one hand, the broken piece to the electricity generator. In the other he held a teddy bear.
A brown one with a red band around it’s neck.
http://www.globalissues.org/issue/235/consumption-and-consumerism
https://www.becomingminimalist.com/escaping-excessive-consumerism/
Fictionspawn 
Imagine me giving you a standing ovation.
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Thank you very much! I’m honoured.
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The teddy bear is great juxtaposition to the deadly harvesting machines that would destroy him. In one hand, the metal lever…in the other, the teddy bear. Almost as if he had a choice to make. Great story!
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Thank you George! He had to go through quite a bit to get both of them, and even in the face of death he brought the teddy… Which to Tanya was just a matter of buying another.
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Dang. Both of them are just kids. That’s the common thread. Seriously, if I had a flag I’d hoist it in your honour.
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Thank you Jac! Don’t worry about the flag, knowing that you read and enjoyed it is all I need:)
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That I can do.
Although… now I like the idea of having a flag. It’s pretty apocalyptical out there in the world, perhaps a white one?
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Nooo!! Never surrender! I need you by my side:)
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Then it shall be written out in golden standards and sent into heaven. I’ll speak to Elon Musk.
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Great ending for the story.
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Thank you.
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Rowan Atkinson’s Mr. Bean would wholeheartedly approve of Malak’s heroic sacrificial action in saving the teddy bear.
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Haha, haha! He sure would. We must not forget that teddy bears are people too.
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Indeed we mustn’t. 😀
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Love it. One should always go back for one’s teddy, red neck ribbon and all.
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Thanks! Ribbon would probably be a better word than band, I guess. I was asking myself that. I play with a mix of two possible futures here, in this case mixed, the rich world as a perfect utopia at the expence of horrible suffering in the third world. A bit like now, only worse.
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I just love how there was a twist in the end. You’re an amazing story teller. (:
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Thank you! That feels good:)
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Both the art and story were superb! Unfortunately, for many kids, their childhood often ends much too soon.
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Sadly that is true. Thank you very much, I’m very happy you liked it.
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Great story- I love the way yiu juxtaposed the idyllic and the nighmarish childhoods. I have to think a little bit now about hiw the two worlds are connected. Is Malak going in the truck to the otherside? (Don’t tell me!). Great illustrations too…are they water colours or done digitally?
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Thank you! It’s the same world;) The drawings are pigment ink and water on watercolour paper, and lately I’ve been taking a photo and then adjusting the contrast in Gimp before I publish. I have an instagram-account, which is linked in a widget here on the blog if you’re interested.
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I’m not on IG so I can’t connect, but I’ll take a look 😊
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