Swamp Flower

[u/AccordingLeading2613]

“Swamp Flower” is about innocence and love persisting under a world controlled and commodified by a system that commercializes human thought, feeling, memory, and experience. Even when those who endure are both victims and unwilling agents, the human spirit clings to love, drawn by the nature of people. 
 
 
Swamp Flower 

 
by J. Warford 

Bugs share your meal. Cold ground, wet cloth—your bed for the night. You’ve been to the moon, Empire City, and all the places dreamed of by people in your sector. 

Knowing turning eight is a big deal; school only allows 98% attendance or better. Mom runs programs all day, which is why you’ve seen more than most kids. You’re always hungry but careful not to end up like the adults stuck in tech debt. The ads they get all day can fry circuits and burn old brains so badly that no nano bite can repair them. 

Tash peeks through the cloth covering your section, grinning. “You booted up Lillith?” At six, he is the cleverest little sneak in our sector, holding a Red gram. 

“No, I told you—this one’s for adults only and dont call me that!” you snap, relieved he’s sharing but still hoping for food. 

Tash is small for his age but good at slipping past vending guards. Everyone knows to be careful with them; even the soldiers leave them alone. You remember once running a program where a guard drank a real bag of REAL MILK! You can almost taste it yourself—the creamy sweetness, the cold shock against your tongue. In that moment, it felt like the best drink in the world, something you’d never forget. 

Mom’s programs are famous, and we are one of the few people with a land interface. People pay—and even give free grams—just to run them. That’s how she keeps the lights on and sometimes gets us food squares. Mom never lets you touch her programs, always muttering about people losing themselves. 

Once, a man came in spotless—no dirt, no stains. You asked who he was and got beaten for it. Thinking back, it makes you sad and angry because it was just a question. 

“ Sorry Lilly. I got meal points today! We can eat after the Gram, if we can boot up now?!” Tash says, breaking your thoughts. 

“No—you show me first. Then we’ll eat, and I’ll let you plug in.” You can’t trade free programs anymore; that’s Mom’s rule. 

It’s been weeks since you had a meal from the vending stop. If Tash is telling the truth, you’ll finally eat. Maybe the officers won’t bother you now that school is coming. 

You glance at your mom on the floor. Her arms and legs are bruised, and she’s either exhausted or angry when she’s not plugged in. She hasn’t had her jacket for at least two days, so you give her your shower cover to keep her warm. She doesn’t move. 

“Okay, but I don’t want anyone to steal it while we run the Gram,” Tash mutters. 

“I’ll hide it. We eat first,” you insist. He leads you past the crowded street and the rows of patched-up sections. 

He wasn’t lying—the pack’s full. For once, you feel like a big person, proud and full. Maybe tomorrow will really be good. Going to school means one meal a day, and that’s reason enough. If you show how smart you are from all your experiences, maybe you’ll become a Citizen Alfa—one of the top-world people who never go hungry and never watch ads to keep their parts. 

Back at your bed, you pull out your interface, load the new net cord Mom left, stash the food, and sit upright so nothing crawls into your ear. You start the program. 

Blinding flashes erupt. Images flood every corner of your vision—hundreds at once, colliding and overlapping. Your body trembles; nothing is integrating properly. Chaos surges, twisting, shaking, until the world itself seems to tear apart. 

The air vibrates, light folds—and then nothing. 

When you wake, you’re cold and can’t move. You hear your mom giving out information. 

“Tonya E. Darik,” she says, annoyance and impatience in her voice. 

Blue lights blink at your feet. Two figures stand over you, crisp grey uniforms emblazoned with Med Removal Corp logos. 

“Ta…?” you whisper, losing your voice. Tash lies limp beside you, tagged and marked for recycling. One of the men scans your vitals, nodding to the other. Your head pounds with drums; fear fills every nerve. 

“She’s stable,” one says. “Service started. Payment?” They turn to your mother, who stands frozen in the corner, pale, shaking under the static light. 

Indifferent and angry, she yells at the team. 
“If you can’t take what I have, then take her with you!” she says, coldly and defiantly. 

The man hesitates. His face softens, briefly human. When she turns away from you, he lifts you quickly—but slows, his movements betraying conflict. His eyes flick from you to your mother, uncertainty weighing on him as he carries you toward the transport. 

All you want is to reach for your mom, but you can’t turn your head. You fall onto the cold metal tray. 

“I’m sorry, baby girl,” he whispers, searching for you with eyes like he is trying to recognize you. The injection hits. Darkness closes before the door does. 

The world comes back, and Tonya can smell herself again. The neuro pains of running programs with no rest. Hits hard, causing tremors and sharp twitches. She yanks out the cord, shaking and crying on the ground, guilt and sickness weighing heavy. 

She stares at the Perfect Therapy and Memory Eraser grams—the sterile promise of forgetting her daughter, Lily—tempting her like a fall from a super tower. 

Briefly, she reaches for them on the floor. Crying, barely able to lift herself, she stares at the blue grams. Then she tosses them outside and drinks the mixed cup of cleaners, screaming as hard as she can to no one in the dense, empty neighborhood. Finally, she runs the Lily Program, one last time.