A Cup Full of Humble Fragrance

Play

She turned her head away from her captors and stared at the porthole. From this window, a large planet appeared as a huge semicircle of shadow resembling a dark hole.

One of the guards announced. “She’s here, Sir.” His accent was something like that of an Aussie back on earth..

“Not that window,” the director boomed. “Bring her to this one.”

Two guards led her ahead. The director waved them off. “This way, Cora. Please,” he said in a gentler voice. When she didn’t comply, he pushed her forward. She would have pushed him back, hit him, scratch him...something, if her hands weren’t tied.

“Watch, Cora. Let’s satisfy your curiosity, since you were so nosy about the experiment. What the heck, you won’t be able to report back what you saw. I respected your father, too, in the same way..”

Although she hated to obey him, she wanted to find out what the project was about. From the one-way window, she gazed at several boys playing with a ball, laughing and splashing about, savage-like.

“They look so happy,” she said.

“They are,” the director said. “You bumped into our happiness experiment. Play is happiness, don’t you think?”

Cora threw him an accusatory look. “You stole these children from their homes, didn’t you?”

“No, my dear, you’re mistaken. We created them in steel wombs. I’d show you the wombs, but they are not on this satellite. Just take my word for it. Then we implemented faster growth without any frustration. That's why they play like this all the time. No fights, no ambition, nothing.”

“You’re immoral,” she hissed. “You’re going to kill them later like you did my father.”

“What a nasty word, kill! I’ll do no such thing. Molecular decomposition is a better way. Don’t you think?”

“Why?” The investigative reporter that she was, she had to know his reasoning behind all this.

“To build a carefree, perfect society. We’re only gathering data now.”

The director grinned at Cora and turned to the guards. “Take her to Decomposition,” he ordered. Then he touched a tiny button on the lapel of his coat. “Get the Decomposition chamber ready. An errand’s on the way.”

How dare he call her an errand! She spun about and spit at him, but her aim was off.

He laughed at her as a voice crackled through the intercom “The sensors went down, sir. We don’t know why. We’re looking into it.”

She smirked. She still had time. The universe was on her side.

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Prompt: Play