musing way week 7: Freedom

[locked, quite firmly, from notmonica, and any and all Centre IPs.]

Every hour he spends without cameras, Sweepers, guards, glass, concrete walls... is an hour he cherishes, even after the time he's had outside. A couple of years, after all, have a long way to go before they catch up with most of his life.

The ability to breathe air that hadn't been filtered and recycled and pumped down stories of sublevel ducts, to watch the play of clouds on the grass, feel the radiant heat of the sun -- or the cold of rain and snow -- against his skin is a gift he clings to every moment of. Now that he's learned how to deal with the incessantly loud world around him, he's come to cherish that as well, all of the noises of people and the things they create, despite the headache he had had the first weeks of his freedom until he became used to it.

Then there're the boats, trains, planes, space shuttles, cars... all of these things he had only technical knowledge of before. Nothing had ever told him that the speed of them feels like that first taste of freedom every time he's behind the wheel or the tiller or his hand's wrapped around the throttle.

All kinds of freedom, and he's not giving any of it up. Ever.