Iris's World

Iris

'Iris had always been the perfect girl. She used her emotions wisely, and did not force her mother to spend extra money on the bottled feelings. Whenever an undesirable went past Iris they would extend their arms to her. Attempting to steal, perhaps just a smidgen, of her long golden blonde hair or the way she held herself. All the citizens Xishly The Stone-Faced City bowed when they glimpsed Iris, showing their respect for the hazel eyed girl. Everyone could clearly see that Iris was indeed the epitome of perfection.

Iris awoke one day feeling hungry. That might not seem strange to anyone but a citizen of Xishly The Stone-Faced City, but this was in fact, the worst of the things that could happen to a girl when waking up. Feelings meant, well, feeling, and feeling meant you were becoming one of the Undesirables. When Iris had fully contemplated the gravity of her situation she slowly rose out of her bed. The only solution to this grave problem was to ignore it. There was no way Iris could eat. Eating was reserved for Birthdays and Deathdays only. No. Like most people in the world Iris would fight her problems by subtly ignoring them.

As Iris emerged from bed she glanced at the neat arrangement of bottles on her nightstand. Blue for sadness, yellow for happiness, purple for fear, and red for anger. Iris quickly ran her fingers through her hair while deciding whether or not to waste a full bottle of emotion on such an arbitrary day. Ultimately her common sense instructed her to not use a bottle and Iris, like all smart girls, knew that common sense was always right except in the romance novels and the couples in those never lasted anyway. Iris slipped on her padded shoes, as to not make noise and not distract her mother, and walked downstairs slowly, twisting her long hair.

"Hello Iris," Marilyn Mackermoore, Iris's mother, said. Standing at the stove and completing her daily puzzle to enter to win a trip to the town council. She never won, but she seemed to like the routine.

"Good morning mother," Iris said, taking the only other seat at the dining room table right next to her mother.

"I'm on the word of the day," Marilyn said, staring intensely at her government regulated tablet. "Do you possibly know an eight letter word for feeling artistic?"

Iris looked up from her own tablet. "Did you know that they used to call these crosswords?" She asked her mother. Marilyn stared at her daughter for a second then switched her dull grey eyes' view back to her tablet.

"I'm going with original," She stated and typed in her final answer. A huge ugly sound came out of the small machine. Iris's mother had lost. Again.

"I think it was inspired," Iris said to nobody in particular, typing in her answer. A dinging sound came from her technology. She had won.

"Good job Iris." Marilyn said, making it clear that she was not going to congratulate her daughter any further. Iris would have felt sad if she was able to, but she understood, this had been her mother's dream for years.

"I guess I have to head over now," Iris said, staring at her mother. She placed her tablet onto the table gently and walked over the one of the many bars around her. She started banging on it. She felt the cold air on her face as her hand struck the metal pole, and felt a rush of... relief? Nobody had decided to come and watch her and her mother this morning, usually they were one of the biggest exhibits. No Iris not relief. Stop feeling.

"I won today. Let me out." Iris yelled and a Thing came over to talk to her. Iris instinctively shied from the bars. The Things were grotesque, with pinkish skin and chubby limbs and long triangles extending from their faces.

"Are you sure?" The thing asked. Iris nodded. Her blonde hair bouncing off of her shoulders.

"Come with me," The Thing said, letting out a ghastly sound. Like air being released from its body. Iris willingly took the thing's hand and they walked over to the council slowly, so that the Thing wouldn't trip.

"This is the council," The Thing deadpanned. Iris felt a shot of. Annoyance? No Iris. No feelings today. She just wanted a better tour. For information purposes. Yes! That's what it was. Information purposes.

"Could I go any closer?" Iris inquired? If this was the place that her mother had been yearning to go to for years she was going to get her mother the facts.

"You may not," The Thing said. Iris almost felt disappointed. Almost. Here she was standing outside of her exhibit for the first time since her grandfather's death when she was seven, eight years ago, and she had the audacity to feel sad. To feel at all?

"You may not enter, but you can have this glass of wine," The Thing said, handing Iris the tall glass. Iris nodded slowly. Being offered wine as a reward was frequent. Iris distinctly remembered her mother getting a glass when she reported their neighbor as an undesirable a couple of months ago, but her mother had turned the glass down. Iris wouldn't make the same mistake. Iris wrapped her fingers around the glass and drank it quickly, not bothering to savor the sweet taste.

The glass slipped out of Iris's hand and shattered. Iris dropped to the floor. Her insides felt like the broken cup all over the floor. Ripples of things crossed over her insides and sparred each other. Were these true feelings? Iris felt her stomach clench and a million butterflies all trapped on top of each other flutter through her body. Then Iris fell to the floor, dead.

The audience around the pair cheered, all happy that they had gotten their money's worth. As The Thing took a bow it spoke.

"Thank you for visiting Xishly The Stone-Faced City aka the world's first ever robot zoo. Today you all saw what happens when a robot is given the ability to feel. Give a hand for Iris, named for the poisonous flower. Every day she dies again and again and every day she thinks it's a brand new day. As you know all of our robots are in a very controlled environment. They are raised to think that they are normal, we added in the concept of being undesirable as a dystopian factor. Now let's move on to the robot duel simulation," The Thing said. Clearly very pleased with himself, but, there was one thing he didn't know. Iris had been listening.