Special Effects: Unseen Flowers

this year."

'That's amazing!" I said, "Then what?"

"Uni."

"I thought you hated school?"

"I do, but I figured something out. If I work from outside the system, I'll never win. It's too big. I'd be crushed and chewed up and spat out. Creative people like me don't stand a chance. So I'm pretending to be one of them. This way I can get inside the machine and pull a few levers!"

That's when I finally realized what was going on. Joshua was never told why he didn't fit in. All those years he was crushed and squashed by the system, and he never knew why he was unhappy. I and most of the other kids didn't worry about it happening to us. We were used to being pushed and pulled around. We weren't like Joshua.

But somewhere along the way he must have realized. And instead of being a casualty, or a drop-out, or a rebel outside the gates, he decided to put on a disguise and play along. He was like a double-agent. A spy. A cell-mate who worked for the people on the outside. One day, if he kept himself intact and unharmed, he would be too powerful to stop. Then he would take his disguise off and be himself.

But for now he was a flower, in a valley where no human has ever been. That's the way it is with people like him.