“And what indeed is the price for something to flourish?” He continued, stepping past chamber after chamber, glass door after glass door. His assistant hurried after him, balancing jars filled with personality in their arms and nodded absent-mindly to his words. “Some people seem to think everyone flourishes in some way. They grow up, therefore they flourish. They develop talent, therefore they flourish. But to flourish, it means they step on others to make it there. They make mistakes, and others suffer in order for them to make the necessary journey. And if everyone is flourishing at the same time, dragging others down in order to step on them at the same time, isn’t that counter-productive?”
The assistant pushed up their glasses, which balanced precariously on the end of their nose. “You should be a philosopher, sir.”
“Indeed, indeed, yet I am only a scientist, and as a man of science I must better the world so the actual philosophers don’t find out what’s bad about it.”
Through the corridors he took a left, a right, a right again, all with the certainty of a man who had lived there his entire life. It was all the same: glass door after glass door, various blank faces staring through, thump thump thumping at the scientists, some yelling, some crying, all ignored. Another left, and then he stopped and turned to look a prisoner in the face.
She was a baby, black hair only just growing over her scalp and uncertain blue eyes staring back at the strangers behind the glass. She didn’t regard the tubes forced down her nose and throat, she simply watched as the scientist gave a satisfied nod and turned to his companion.
“She’s perfect. She barely even knows who she is.” He held out his hands and one by one the assistant passed the jars over. He emptied them into a funnel beside the door, and slowly the mixture travelled up the tubes, making its way to the baby girl. “See, if perfection already belongs to her, there is no need for flourishing. She won’t need to bully her way to the top. She won’t need to trample others. When the world sees how… how revolutionary this idea is, they’ll want this for their children too. We’ll have a world so perfect that the philosophers won’t see the bad in it.”
The assistant only watched thoughtfully. “And until that happens, sir?”
“We will be labelled as inhumane. Monsters. But the day will come where we will be hailed as heroes. The monsters all are.”
The baby girl stared back, with blue eyes filled with personality and knowledge before its time, and began to cry.
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