All that Glitters is not Gold

The year was 2085. A once fruitful Earth engulfed by a loveless culture; meaning there was no love of self, love of others, or love for the environment. The lack of love caused the population to wither away. First, it started with the spirit, then followed the mind, and lastly the physical body, leaving humans, not like the fictional zombies we read about in science fiction novels, but empty shells of humanity. Eventually, those empty shells disintegrated, returning to the barren earth.

Right before the world went barren, life was less than ideal. The destination to death was a slow journey. In-person interactions were scarce, replaced by text messages with emojis-filled sentences. If you were lucky enough to verbally interact with another human, the topic of conversation was no longer the content of one’s character but how many likes a person received on social media. Families no longer ate together and wordless individuals attended social gatherings focused only on smartphones. If your smartphone was outdated you weren’t invited to begin with.

One of the only remaining mentally conscious survivors was an elderly man, a scientist, an aristocrat who spent the entirety of his adult life seeking to gain control of the world even if it meant losing his soul. The elderly scientist grew up in a household where he was made a pariah for his choice to engage in science as a child rather than post content on social media. The scientist evolved into a bitter old man and his need for validation was so strong that it fueled his will to live while everyone else around him died. Therefore, he worked tirelessly to save the world for his own selfish gain. Thus his ego pushed him to patent artificial love housed in a heart-shaped locket necklace. The locket was shiny with a translucent gold-plated exterior and misty red interior;almost vapor-like. The chemical vapor inside of the locket absorbed into the person's skin and caused an energy transfer that mimicked the chemical releases of love. Immediately, the lockets were mass-produced then distributed as quickly as possible country by country to each person. Consequently, what was left of the world rewarded him with the recognition he yearned for with likes, comments, and hashtags naming him a hero for his discovery. The world had something new to cling to and of course humans love putting their value in shiny objects.

After two years from the first distribution of lockets, the grass sprouted again seeing that people were tending to the earth. The energy from the locket began to reawaken people's minds creating a feeling of security and false confidence not based on reality. Furthermore, their eyes saw delusions of utopia. The sky appeared a brighter shade of baby blue. The sun shone like it was so close one could reach up and grab it and the skin felt warm like being coddled by a cashmere blanket. The air smelled of crisp pine trees and people procreated . In addition to procreation, conversations flowed at the dinner table once more. The dullness of the world vanished as the light reflected from the lockets brightening the eyes of its beholder. Ultimately, The world felt restored and people were high off life, ignoring the behaviors that caused the masses to die in the first place.

With the passing generations, people further engulfed themselves in the locket's artificial love generating the same aggrandizing behaviors. Roughly a century later the locket malfunctioned and before the scientist died he burned all his findings so no one would ever be as great as him. There was no man-made solution this time and the false sense of love began to fade revealing the truth. As the last generation of youth grew into adults the energy from the locket transformed into hallucinations of their inner conscience. The inner conscious exposed every deed, every choice, and every forgotten memory playing in their eyes like a broken record on repeat. Hence, people were stuck for days sitting in cold corners rocking trying to find counsel but oddly kept clinging to the locket. The tighter they held the more their inner truth spilled over like a cup with too much water. The body stayed alive starving in a vegetative state, the mind plagued with distress, and the soul desolate like the dry soil beneath their beings. The only way to find release from the intrinsic replay was to face the truth, acknowledge oneself, and profess accountability for their mistakes. Not a single soul wanted to do that, choosing to live in darkness because the light exposed humanity for what it was. Eventually, the hallucinations overpowered all the utopian delusions, the earth went barren again so much so it rejected people’s toxic bodies. In the end, everyone remained immobile sitting in an earthly hell, rocking in dark corners, grasping to the locket for dear life, all because they valued everything but the truth.