The Glass Dome
People didn’t come here for the sight or the enjoyment of it all. No, then it would be acceptable. The humans let themselves become intoxicated by the sights, pushing their destructive deeds down with the sickly sweet smell of the flowers. People young and old came to the dome; some talked of a time long past, while others asked questions about a world that only existed to them in pictures. The elders talked whimsically about the trees and flowers that used to be abundant, ignoring the destruction they had wrought. The young children pranced about the glass confinement, unaware of what was taken from them. Having never known better, they only saw the glass paradise as an exotic trip.
Like a ziggurat, the dome sat atop a colossal hill, promising guests the chance to let the plants trapped inside cleanse them. The dome embraced people in her glass body, allowing them to feel less guilty, less desperate as they tried to mask the resulting damage from permitting themselves the luxury of ignorance. It was the church where they went to submerge in the divine power of the trees and leave feeling free. Shame had built up over time, disregarded as they entered the confines of the building, allowing the people to continue on just as they were before they walked into the dome. The humans who had destroyed their own world and lived in blissful ignorance of their deeds would drive up to the glass dome they had built to keep themselves content by numbing the misery of the outside world.
The glistening green of the trees appeared almost artificial, too bright, too pleasant, but effective in keeping people sedated, content with the hellscape of their degeneration. In the dome they could live the lie of “success” they created, where all that mattered was the progress outside of the dome and the ability to lose themselves in the greenery. The people let the dome act as their bar, and the sights around them the drinks they repeatedly drowned themselves. They could let the birds singing above lull them into a stupor.
There was no escape.
The dome was a cage built upon the fears and guilt of the humans who visited. It was a place where the plants choked down their guilts, their uncertainty, enabling the people to enjoy the sights unburdened by what they had done.
Outside the dome lay a barren land; the dusty desert of progress. No trees were there, only land to be developed. No flowers grew out of the earth; nothing grew. The only thing left was the lifeless sand that picked up with each gust of wind. No animals scampered about, because they had nowhere to stay, nothing to eat. All wildlife had been destroyed in the fierce massacre of human progress, leveling the Earth from what was once a paradise of life and greenery to the bleak purgatory that they wrought upon themselves.
People could walk through the wasteland, living day by day in the world that was only fit for their dust-covered shells, in their cold, lifeless buildings. They could move about and view the progress, gaze up at the buildings made at the expense of the trees, wear the clothing made at the expense of the flowers, consume the food made at the expense of the animals. The only thing that could live in the desert were the people who created it, drifting through their crafted world like zombies as they justified their murderous deeds with one word: progress.
The humans had nothing to worry about; they had a safe house. They could always go back to the glass dome. Underneath the glass mausoleum people were safe. They were safe from reality.
Safe from themselves.
It was not an escape from the truth, only a storage for the lies.
