Leland: A Short Story

“Okay, point taken,” Phillip retorted as Leland pushed open the lid to a trash receptacle allowing Phillip to dispose of his waste. “But next time I’m about to do something in your world that will hurt me, why don’t you just warn me first, I promise I will listen?” “That’s a deal,” Leland agreed. “But, for now why don’t you sit back down and listen to what we all have to tell you about your world, you really need to hear this?” Phillip did just that. It was about time he got some answers and he was more than eager to hear what Leland and the others had to say about the volunteers’ world—the real world—and his own. His desperation to know why the volunteers had kept his kind locked away in the tubes was finally going to be satiated, he only wished Cassidy and Inez where there with him to hear it. He also found himself more than eager to have himself another doughnut, but resisted the urge knowing what the outcome would be. But, Leland, having known that Phillip should still eat something, then placed an order with Peggy for a large orange juice after she’d come back around with a sealable bag
But, once Phillip seemed to be alright in handling the fluid Leland began again with his explaining of things in great detail. “Alright, Phillip, in your history, what you’ve been taught growing up and in school, from teachers and adults, your parents, from anyone and everyone… was that the world around the first quarter of the twenty-first century had faced several great conflicts—The Great Wars—is that true?” Phillip nodded in agreement while sucking on the containers straw. “Okay, during these great wars the planet was said to have been virtually destroyed, bombed and polluted, the animal and human populations practically exterminated, correct?” Phillip