{"sf1_id":885898,"sf2_id":null,"title":"The System","author":"Simmer","words":1272,"posted_at":"2015-07-13T16:26:00.000Z","tags":["Death","Drama","Foodchain","Philosophy"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/885898-the-system","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/view/885898","image_url":"https://www.sofurryfiles.com/std/thumb?page=885898\u0026ext=.jpg","description":"Hello everyone, I have an unusually shorter-than-short short story coming out today. I hope you like it! I'm trying to get out of the abstract-super highbrow semi-hipster philosophical vibe a little. I'd like to make something a little more action-focused soon, but I'm lacking a little inspiration now... If you have any ideas you would like me to steal, let me know :)","content":"Once upon a time, there was a rock,\nindiscernible from millions of other rocks in the world, with approximately two\nhundred woodlice living underneath it. Woodlice that don't live in wood (as\ntheir name would suggest) sound interesting. They are not. They sat there,\ndoing whatever it is that woodlice do before their rock is lifted by a curious\npasser-by. Most of them were perfectly content. One was not. \n \nMe, he thought one day.\nI'm thinking, he thought immediately\nafterwards.    \n \nSomething had changed. It could not be seen by an outside observer, even if\nthere had been light underneath the rock, and it could not be felt, not even by\nthe other woodlouse sitting right on top of him at that very moment to conserve\nheat. But if this little louse had had adrenal glands, his body temperature\nmight have risen a tiny bit at that particular moment.\n \nSheer terror set in as he realized that although\nhe could move across the ground for as far and long as he wanted (he could not\npossibly imagine the scale of the rock), there was a surface above him that he\nwould never be able to penetrate and he suddenly felt what we would call\ntrapped.\n \nHow wonderful it would be if the rock would\ndisappear, he thought, and he imagined the beauty of the world\nabove as he cursed and raged at his misfortune, the injustice of being born and\nhaving to live his life in this two-dimensional cage. He thought and wept about\nit every minute of every day. No wonder he felt it was all somehow his fault\nwhen one day, the rock did disappear at the hands of a bored toddler. One by\none, the insects dried up in the sun, and peacefully departed the world without\nhaving ever seen it. The little thinking louse was, as he felt death approach,\none day lifted from the ground by an incredible force.\nEither I have been sufficiently punished for my\narrogance, and this is what dying is like, he thought, or\nthis is only the beginning of my atonement. In fact neither was true.\nHe became lunch for a young sparrow, that lived in an oak with his two\nsiblings. \n \nHis favorite part of the day was not when his parents came home to feed\nthem, but when they left. He never missed an opportunity  to admire their\npowerful backs, their smooth wings that curved so subtly to provide optimal\nlift. The sparrow liked to look up at the sky and watch the grown birds dancing\nthrough the treetops. They were weightless, free to come and go as they\npleased, while he was bound to the nest by his big, clumsy body. \n There's no way, he thought, I can ever be like them. I will\nnever be so light and yet so strong, so elegant and so fast. I'll have to leave\nhere soon, to hunt and hide and nest myself. But how? His siblings never doubted. They had full confidence in their DNA.\nEventually, they would be able to do all that, and more, no matter how bald and\nhelpless they were now. Chicks became birds, whether they wanted to or not.\nThat was the way it had always been, and it would always be. His parents\ntold him the stories of their own youth, that he was too young to be\nworrying and how everything was going to be all right, wait and see. The\nyoung sparrow stopped trying to explain why he was different from all the other\nnervous little birds throughout history that had all turned out all right in\nthe end. He waited, but never saw.  \n \nFluffy was old, but not completely off his game yet. Sparrows can give one\nsome trouble, so he waited for about fifteen minutes until the parents were\nboth gone before raiding the nest. Maybe he'd come back some time later and try\nhis luck with the adults. In the past, he would have immediately gone for it\nwithout hesitation, but time had made his joints creaky and his teeth blunt.\nOld men must learn to be patient if they want to become even older. These\nlittle excursions in the yard were the favorite part of his otherwise boring\nday. \n \nFluffy yawned and turned his head to the sunset.\nHe lay on the porch every evening, wondering how many suns he had outlived\nalready and how many he had left. Old cats don't constantly feel the need to\nremind the rest of the world of their age like old people do. They just assess\nthe damage now and then. Fluffy knew he was lucky in that regard. Most of his\ninterior still worked fine, of the majority of embarrassing problems that\ntomcats his age could suffer from he had been spared. No bowel-related\nunpleasantness, no prostate trouble. Yet. He gave so much attention to himself\nnowadays, as if he was any more important than that of the hatchling he had\nmurdered. Or that of the Rottweiler from across the street who had been hit by\na semi last week. The big picture had outgrown him, in a sense. He was too\ntired to consider himself with the world at large. \n \nFluffy was in good health, but not immune to the bane of pets that was feared\nequally by all. Lice. On the back of his neck, Fluffy had taken on a stowaway\nduring a stroll in the bushes. The insect had managed to attach itself in the\nunluckiest of places. the back of the neck is one of the rare spots where even\ncats can't scratch. Frolicking in gravel might help sometimes, but never\nfor long. If a louse clings on to where he wants to stay, they're harder to get\nrid of than most brain parasites.\n \nChugga-chugga, the jackpot had been won from the\nopposite perspective. The louse had drank two times his bodyweight in blood\nalready and was just working on his third. That was his life. Here and now. He\ndidn't have the brainpower to visualize a future, all he knew was sparsity and\nplenty, interchangeable at a moment's notice. \n\n\nAnd there was now plenty, so he gorged himself and gorged himself and the louse\nwas happy in the warm and clammy darkness. His body began to swell, so weighed\ndown by blood and joy he couldn't have moved if he wanted to. \n \nBut was this the only way it had ever been? Had he not once been small, and\nlight, and free, and hungry? Compared to anything else he had ever experienced,\nthis thought was so fascinating he stopped sucking for a fraction of a second.\nThat young louse waiting for his big break was not someone else, it was him.\nAnd yet here he was, round and content. \nApparently, staying in one place took a lot more effort than he thought, (what\nan informative day!) because the next moment, he wasn't there anymore. The\nblades of grass rose up to the sky. The thumping footsteps of his former host\nmoved farther and farther away. So that's\nlife, he thought. One moment you're\nin paradise, then you accidentally let go of a hair and you're back to zero.  \n \nIt was getting dark now. The louse considered climbing up a blade of grass\nto look around. How much energy would that take? He had a stomach full of blood\nthat would last him... weeks? Longer? Maybe tomorrow. Night gathered around him,\nbut he wasn't scared. In fact, if he had been anatomically able to smile, he\nmight have. He'd be all right. Hadn't he been right before?\n "}