MATCHING

Today is matching day. Just an ordinary day, except of course, we’re matched. I feel nothing as I get out of my cot, the old springs squeaking, and throw on my gray tunic. The collar tickles the underside of my chin and the bottom brushes just under my knee. It’s getting shorter. I must remember to save ration tickets for a longer one. I swiftly wrap my gray scarf around my head to hide my wavy blonde hair. It is getting long too, reaching just below my belly button. I hope cutting comes soon. A few strand poke out from underneath the gray scarf material and I hurriedly tuck them away. As I bend down to slip on my leather moccasins, I let my eyes flicker around my surroundings.
All the girls in my sector are doing the same. They all wear the same blank expression, same trancelike postures as they get ready for the ceremony. I can’t tell by any of their slow methodical movements as they get dressed if any of them are as nervous as I am. I stand up in silence as I walk the beings I have lived with for half my life as they get ready for the ceremony without a trace of nerves.
Our sector master walks in. She is a short woman in a tunic that reaches the floor, the same pale, blue grey color as ours. Her nose is beaky, like she could stab someone with it, she glares around the room, looking down the bumpy slope of it in what I guess is her most intimidating stare. That’s easier said than done when you’re approximately four feet tall. She walks down the rows of cots making sure all forty-one of us leaves our cots as neat as before we got in them. I look around again and swallow hard. No signs of nerves from anyone except me.
We line up to go wash. The administrators told us that we would need to be clean for the test. I swallow again. I’m scared, which scares me even more. Can someone tell if you’re scared from the outside? I have slowly been learning to control my emotions. I know enough that if I let someone else see them I will be reported and hauled off to the government to “protect society.” We need to be informed enough so we know what not to do wrong, but not enough that it makes it hard to control us.
We march orderly to the wash room. When we get there one of the boy sectors is leaving. The sector master leads their line as they march down the gleaming white hall we just came out of. One of the boys, Tall, thin, his cap messily stuck on his head, looks at me brushing his hair in a way that hides the fading brand tickling the edge of his brow. Because it’s fading, he’s obviously been around much longer than most of us have, maybe a life span of three to four hundred years. It’s how they tell us apart, since we are not allowed to have personalities.
It makes me self-conscience, looking at his brand and I put my hand to my forehead to cover my own. I see a flicker of something in his eyes, another emotion, one I’m not familiar with. Could this be fear, of another form or shape, as many emotions come in? But his eyes seem softer, gentle, his pupils not the harsh slits of one scared out of his wits. Oh, god no, was that love, admiration? I recognize the softer pupils, relaxed irises of one of the gentler emotions we study in our self-protection classes. The most dangerous of emotions are the gentle ones, the ones that lure people into their traps by seeming fun, and pleasurable. These are the ones we are taught to recognize so we can haul the portrayers to the government. But I know I could never haul someone off like that. I hate these sentimental feelings inside of me. They’re dangerous I know, but there…indescribable.
I sigh and I instantly want to slap myself. I could be mistaken for returning that emotion. Am I? Our line is moving quickly, get in, wash, get out. I lay down on one of the silver tables and let the gleaming tools rinse and scrub and shave me till I’m shining.
I wince as hot wax is poured on my legs and all the hair painfully stripped away. Another shining tool with a coarse pad strapped on the metal plate serving as hand rubs away my skin in circles as soap foams around it. When my skin is covered in soap suds, and my body hairless retractable shower heads poke out of the ceiling. They whir, instantly turning themselves on and I keep my eyes open, though the scalding water burns my eyes. I watch as the water pools in my collarbones and the hollow of my stomach where it caves in from the limited food portions we are given.
When my body is clean I am put in an upright position and my gray head scarf is removed and hung on the same rack were my tunic was previously put. My long blonde hair falls down to my shoulders and I blow a stay wavelet out of my face. The shower head whir again and my hair is doused as I stand naked on the gleaming steel floor. I hear the other odd tools behind me as they pour products and lather my hair till it feels thick with synthetic cleaning solutions. I’m doused again and my hair lays uncomfortably on my face, flattened by the weight of the water. Again it’s lathered on top of my head, this time with conditioner. And once again that is wash from my long locks. For a moment I’m left standing, naked and freezing, on the cold floor as the tools retract and giant metal fans take their places. I shiver as a drop of water rolls down my back.
The fans start themselves and the long narrow wash room is filled with the monotone harmony of a hundred giant fans spinning at alternate speeds, according to the alternating wetness of their victims. Mine are blowing loud and strong and I shiver in the cold. After about five minutes my body is desert dry and shining.
I step to the rack where my clothes hang and readorn my tunic and head scarf. The girls around me are doing the same, but I’m different. We move in the same automatic fashion but none of these porcelain figures has a tornado of emotions making their head spin.
We leave in the same trance like fashion we entered in, and another sector of boys walk in. I look each one of them in the eye but I don’t see any other flickers of emotion, any acknowledgement that any of these beings could be considered human. Each eye is perfectly blank it’s almost scary, like a row of robots, brainwashed and ready to carry out the governments every command. I’m not surprised. Emotions are illegal. Same as expressing yourself through art, writing, and music is illegal. Exploiting the government is not an activity commonly practiced.
Our mentors once told us that long ago, a race called Destroyers ruled the earth. They were allowed to express themselves freely in a government called democracy. Art was freely practiced and in one of their twisted games called politics,they openly fought with each other, bashing each other’s opinions. Sometimes this expression caused others to be mad, most often resulting in the death of the opponent in this politics game. The losers would get angry and destroy things (hence the name) and that would cause others to get mad and destroy things and so on until eventually the world was consumed by war. This consumption of war eventually led to the destruction of that race and the birth of what we are today: emotionless, cultureless beings. But we haven’t seen war since the destroyers. After all it is for our own good.
We reach the sector room again, and the sector master faintly traces the scan pad next to the room identification number. It’s one my eyes have glazed over my entire life span of 113 years: A237. We march in and sit to the left side of our bunk, pillow on the left, folded night clothes on the right. She takes out the slate gray clipboard, issued to all sector masters by the government mentors and starts calling out our identification numbers, to make sure no one made a dash for it. My knees are so weak I’m starting to wish I did, but government guards surely would catch me. I’d be lucky to make it five minutes.
“Y237, Y628, Y283…” her monotone voice drags out the syllables of each of our numbers. Our sector is known as YF, Y sector, feminine gender. I’m shaking so hard it’s hard to hide my fear. Some of my robotic like sector maters are starting to glance sideways at me now.
I desperately try to control my shaking teeth and my knocking knees, failing miserably. I bite my cheek hard and focus on the pain and the warm liquid trailing into my mouth.
She finishes and we get up, form our numerical order line and once again march out of the gray cinderblock room. I hear the synchronized slap of the 1,278 sector rooms emptying and feet slowly and surely padding down the hall. Everyone breathing and thinking the same things. Everyone except me and one other. He’s beside me again. I hear his harsh breathing, little puffs not completely synchronized with the swelling mass of voids behind me. Voids. The word rolls over my tongue, to harsh, to blatant. It’s what they call us. It’s true. Emotionless, empty, monotone, vague. Barely human. Voids. Nameless, mindless voids.
…
The matching room is vast and empty. Rows and rows and rows of chairs await us. We file in, sitting down from A to Z, 1 to 1,278. Females on the left, Males on the right. In the corner of the room is a tiny door way. Slowly all of us will be called to enter the room. First a girl, then a boy. Then we will exit another door, matched. The matching begins. My sector sits in the back, giving my anxiety plenty of time to twist its way up my body filling my mind with “what ifs.”
I wonder what calling I will be matched to. There are many callings available in today’s society, many very preferable to be matched to. I list a few in my mind, preference order. Law, psychology, information. Nothing to demanding, or involving a backbone. Another list pops into my mind, this one of things I do not want to be called as. Healthcare, law enforcement, punishment… weeks before we studied all the callings, alphabetical order, and what they skills and personality traits they involved. Of course everything is written in euphemism before being sent to the public information department. I struggled to get a clear picture on most callings.
My stomach is tying itself in knots by the time the matching proceeds to the Y sector. For the 583 matching’s it takes to get to me is enough for me to be practically vomiting by the time I am called. Everyone knows what happens outside of the little room in the corner of the matching room, that they teach us. It’s what goes on inside the matching room that isn’t common knowledge.
The door to the little room is swung open and an incredibly short woman in a smart black suit steps out her heels clicking on the cement floor. This is the outfit of an authoritive figure, probably government. “Y583.” Her voice is curt and dismissive as she pronounces my four syllable brand. I feel my feet numbly slap on the gray cement floor as I walk op the long aisle, every chair ahead of me empty. My throat is desert dry as I walk through the door way and feel it’s cold, heavy weight click shut behind me.
I clench the inside of my lip in between my teeth till I taste blood, calming my knocking knees with pain. The room is set up like a dentist’s office, the ones found in the forbidden textbooks describing the life and reign of the Destroyers. There is a short, lengthy gray-cushioned chair fastened firmly to the gray tiled floors as if what will take place in the chair might cause it to tip over if not properly attached to the chair. I bite my lip harder, my teeth stained with my blood. I must remember to keep my mouth closed. There is a monitor next to the chair, big and bulky, with a black screen. It is a simple machine, measuring heart rate, sweat glands, and blood pressure. In the time of the Destroyers it was referred to as a polygraph or lie detector. They are not very common despite the simplicity and cheapness of the machine. Technology isn’t common in our society. We aren’t very technologically advanced, not as much as past societies. Technology leads to greed, greed to obsession, obsession to obliteration.
There’s no one in the small gray room. I see a little door on the other side of the room and I wonder if this is some sort of test. Am I expected to sit down, or walk through? I walk hesitantly across the room and reach for the door knob.
“Leaving so soon?” the voice has an edge to it. Emotion. Something I’m not quite used to. I try to place it and my mind produces the word sarcasm, though I can’t quite remember what sarcasm means. The body belonging to the voice is tall lean and sinewy. Muscle is uncommon in our community although none of us are fat. But athleticism is the product of compulsion or obsession none of which the people in my community possess. A faded brand against his forehead, slightly covered by his messy hair and cap, reads W475. W475. I squint my eyes in frustration as I try to place this young man’s face. Memory is one of the traits they remove from our minds at birth, with a vaccine and simple surgical procedure that removes all dangerous emotions and characteristics.
“It’s rude to stare. Sit down please.” He gestures to the chair. Another trait removed from us at birth. Humor. Are the matchers not given this vaccine to scare us? Provoke us? I sit, obediently. The man unhinges the back of the monitor and pulls from it a handful of wires with probes and suction cups on the tips. He steps on a pedal on the bottom of the chair and I hear a mechanical whir as I begin to lean back.
When my body is horizontal, he starts placing the probes all over my tunic. Two on either side of my collar bone, one on my diaphragm, two on each under arm. Then the vague realization hits me. There monitoring my body. As he raises the needle to my temple I understand. They’re putting me through a simulation. This is the guy from the bath room. The one with emotion in his eyes. These are my last thoughts before my body is enveloped in a woozy darkness.
I no longer sit in the old fashioned chair of the gray room but am back in the hall where I waited to enter it. Thought this time I do not sit in the cold plastic chair identical to the ones the many voids now filling the room reside in. now, I am looking down on them, and they look back up at me. There are government officials below me too, their cold hard expressions looking up to me as if they could penetrate my soul, their long black robes flowing though there is no breeze. Suddenly I know what is happening and a glance to my wrists confirms my fears. I am suspended in the air with four gnarled ropes, each of their scratchy fibers cutting one of my limbs. A law enforcement officer below has his hand on a crank that will tighten each of the ropes, stretching my frame till there is nothing left to stretch, and the ropes dangle above their heads each still attached to a part of my torn body. I am being punished, though for what I have no clue. Fear seizes in my chest as I see his hand turn.
I frantically search the emotionless faces of the crowd, though I don’t know what I’m looking for. Nonetheless I find nothing, no sympathy, no pity, not even contempt at my destruction. I knew I wouldn’t find anything, but my body goes rigid with the cold realization that I am alone. I know I should hide my fear, but for some reason that seems foolish to me. Fear is a deadly sin, one that will get you killed, but why pretend you’re not afraid if you are being killed already. My chest is tight and I have trouble breathing as I repeat to myself the most horrible word in the world. Alone. The harsh word rolls off my tongue as I feel the muscles in my shoulder tear. Alone. It rings in my ears as my hip snaps. Alone. I can taste it, heavy in my mouth as the world once more swirls into darkness.
I’m on the ground again, my limbs still intact, but I’m still not in a comfortable position. My face is smashed to a cement wall, my hands chained above my head. I don’t know where I am but to my left I can see many other people in the same position I’m in, and I catch glimpses of law enforcement officers positioned behind us, heavy metal guns pointed to the back of our heads. Fear seizes in my chest again, not from the death threat standing behind me, but from my willingness to conform to my curiosity when I know that it’s illegal. The thought doesn’t seem quite as foolish to me now because I doubt I am going to die.
I look to my right and see I am on the end of the line of people, the rope tying my hands tied loosely to the jagged edge of the wall. I tug on it and it falls to the ground, instantly freeing my hands. I look quickly to the officer behind me and see that his attention is focused on a speaker on a stage to my far left. I slip quietly away almost laughing at the easiness of my escape. I quickly walk down the dusty gray street careful not to look back and give away my position. I turn the corner and I’m staring at the back of a black, government tunic.
The speaker on the stage.
I’ve walked a full circle, right back to the shooting. And all of a sudden I’m angry, so angry. It almost blinds me as it bubbles up in the pit of my stomach. I’m angry at my carelessness in my escape, at my selfishness for leaving all these people here to die while I ran away. I’m angry that the government would even think of killing all these innocent people. I am angry I was born into this twisted country while the rest of the world can freely express themselves.
I feel the anger spreading through my body like a wild fire, warming my fingertips, making them itch to hit something, to smash, to destroy. I’m so, so angry. I ball my fingers up into a fist bring my hand back and I hit the staring government official straight in the face.
The heat in my body dissolves and my surroundings shift to a gray cement street, the one wear my parents live. A Restraining officer is talking to me, his stubby blonde hair barely visible under the black, Government Issue cap.
“You’ve been bad.” He says,” You have defied the government, and have shown evidence of three of the deadly emotions, Fear, Greed, and Anger.” His voice is monotone as he rattles of the list of my misdoings. I sense movement behind him but cannot grasp what’s happening behind his broad body structure. He continues, “Such actions must be punished. You are to sit here and watch this display calmly, and accept the consequences for your actions. Any more disruptions will result in your immediate death.” He looks at me, shakes his head and walks away. Now I see the full scene behind him.
It’s my mother, in the middle of the street, standing stock still, her tunic ripped, her face blank. Law enforcement officers stand behind her, a club in each of their hands. They take turns beating her with hard blows that convulse through her old body. I need to help her but the officers words keep floating through my mind. Any more disruptions will result in your immediate death. One of the officers hits her again and she crumples with the force of the bat. I scream and lurch forward, my hand outstretched. An officer kicks her and I clutch my side as if I was kicked, myself. I know I must go to her and help her. I furiously push the officer’s words out of my mind and rush to her side, cradling her beaten frame in my arms. I look up and see the officers club descending on my head.

TRUTH

I wake in the gray room, my tunic mottled with cold sweat, my breath coming hard and fast. W475 stands above me, a worried look on his face. He hurriedly removes the monitor from my body and raises the torso section of the chair so I am in an upright position. He bites his lip and opens his mouth as if to say something but closes it again. Finally he manages to stutter, “Co-come with me.” He turns on his heel and walks out the door on the other side of the room. I raise myself from the chair, still shaking from the simulation, and quickly as possible follow him out the room.
My mind gets carried away in the long, silent walk to wherever this strange boy is taking me. Did I do something wrong? Does he know that I exhibited the traits of all for deadly sins and is hauling me off to get killed? Did I do something minor to prevent me from becoming matched to an occupation at all. Is this another test, one to eat us alive as a “worried” official leads us on a long walk to nowhere? Where are we going?
We wind our way through countless dark hallways, no other officers with clueless voids trailing behind. I try to count time in my head to calm my raging thoughts but quickly lose track. Finally we come to a stop outside a short dark doorway. The boy looks over his shoulder, once again exhibiting forbidden emotion, fear, that we might have been followed. Satisfied with the emptiness of the hallway he stoops to enter the door, beckoning me with the flick of a finger. I follow and he shuts the door behind us. We now stand in the wall, a thin hallway stretching to either side of us like a crevice a mouse would run through in an attic. In front of us another doorway is revealed as W475 traces his fingers on the barely visible keypad beside him on the wall. We step through that last doorway and enter a brightly illuminated room. The room is cavernous, the ceiling stretching much higher than any room in this building, making me wonder if indeed we still are in the same building. There are low swooping lights attached to the ceiling like stalactites in the caves of the destroyers reign.
I know I know more than I should and I chide myself for comparing things to the reign of the destroyers, but since before I can remember I have been more than safely interested in them. My mind wanders to my father…
“We are here for YM345. He has been caught demonstrating qualities of love, anger, curiosity, disobedience, and selflessness in public areas and in the presence of his spouse and children. Because of the danger of these actions, for the benefit of himself and those around him, he is to be put to death immediately.” The Officer looks up from his script and his cold eyes wash over my father. I am six at the time, almost old enough to be taken to the sector house where I will be educated. My father puts his hand to my shoulder as if he is reminding me to be strong. “You are allowed a supervised five minutes for each family member in order to say goodbye. Effective immediately.” I am first. My father takes me into my bedroom and sits me on the bed. He stares into my eyes and I stare back.
I love my father’s eyes, the way the emotion swirls in turquoise fractals in the blue irises. He has always shown a dangerous amount of emotion. I admired that of him, his ability to be defiant without being afraid if he truly believed he was doing the right thing. I took after my mother, a scared rabbit in an open world, obedient to all those hungry wolves above her.
I see tears swirling among the emotion in his eyes now. Still he manages to keep his voice steady as he talks to me. “You can’t forget. Ever. And you won’t” I knew this was foolish because after our goodbyes they would inject us with a serum to clear our minds of the experience, but still his confidence comforted me. He stands up, “I love you.” I see the look of disapproval on the supervising officer’s face. “NO ONE can take that away. Don’t ever forget what I taught you.”
At this last word his voice catches but his wall of confidence remains standing. The officer doesn’t like this last statement and cuts our goodbyes short but my father has said enough. I love him too. And I won’t forget. I will never forget the lessons.
I still remember them, all of them. My father used to teach me about the destroyers from the memories of his ancestors, written down in little black notebooks that he had collected. I loved my father’s lessons. They were beautiful, all of his stories. They were told with such emotion, such longing, and were so different from the harsh stories told in the education centers.
Every time I think of my father, I think of the strange nickname he asked me to call him, one from the reign of the destroyers. Daddy. I didn’t forget daddy, I think now. I didn’t forget.

I snap out of my pseudo-reality and realize there is another man in the room. This one is tall with broad shoulders and distinct facial features. He looks younger than me, maybe around 85 years, only a baby really, but you can tell he’s the one giving orders.
“She’s another one Brian. What am I supposed to do with the simulation scores? I can’t keep deleting them and filing them as mistakes.” W475 has addressed the younger man with a name, not a number. I jolt and Brian must have noticed my reaction because his gaze softens. More emotion. My thoughts spin wildly as I try to make sense of my confusing situation. A name. Emotion. Illegal. Emotion.
“For god’s sake Alex!” another name. A destroyer’s expression. What is going on? “Make the stupid scores up! I have bigger things to worry about than your social status. Put the girl with the others and give a matching. We don’t have the space to keep her hidden for long.” W475, Alex, sighs and shakes his head not approving of his better’s opinion.
“I’m pretty sure if you lose me because of your lack of concern of my social status, you’ll have an even harder time as you worry about who will replace me.” He grips my shoulder and starts to lead me to one of the many openings in the wall, which I realize are halls, but not fast enough we don’t hear Brian’s retort.
“Oh yes. It will be difficult to find someone to match your exceptional skill of deleting simulation scores.” He chuckles after his rude, sarcastic remark, and I smile remembering my father. Alex must think I’m mocking him because he fixes me with a hard glare. I shut my mouth and think about my father’s eyes as we walk down the hall so he can put me with “the others.”
…
As it turns out, the others are a bunch of scared looking voids in a very crowded imitation of a sector room. Alex pushes me in, hard, and I stumble a bit. He mumbles a quick, “Make yourself comfortable,” And leaves me with only the memory of his swirling green eyes like my daddy’s.
I stare at the other girls and they stare right back. I don’t recognize any of them and don’t see any recognition flicker in their eye’s either. Finally, after and epoch of silence and tough looking girl clears her throat. If she hadn’t made a noise, I wouldn’t have noticed her at all. She was sitting in the corner, half concealed by one of the bunks which are precariously stacked on top of each other. Her hair is long and dark and sits in a braid draped over shoulder. Her face is average but pretty and her eyes are almost black. She’s short and her tunic is tattered. None of the girls in this room wear head scarfs and I’m starting to feel a little self-conscious of my own. I put my hand up to touch and I see the girl nod. Slowly I unravel the gray material and let my long wavy hair fall just above my navel. For some reason this seems to loosen the girls up and another girl speaks.
“So what’s your name?” my eyes widen and for a moment I don’t know what to say. The dark haired girls senses my discomfort, “That’s Sarah, always one step ahead.” She smiles, “I’m Alicia. That was Sarah. Everyone…” she looks expectantly around the room and slowly the girl’s pipe up and one by one they tell me their names. When they’re done, I find all their eye’s expectantly resting on me again. Again, Alicia speaks, “I bet you don’t have one. That’s ok. Here pick one.” She reaches behind the bunk she sits by and pulls out a think, canvas-binded book.
It’s thick and obviously from the destroyer era. We don’t use books anymore, but instead inform people by pamphlets or memos.
She hands it to me and it falls open by itself like it’s been opened a million times to the same page. I flip through the pages and I see that it’s just a list of names. Some names are highlighted with a bright yellow line. I point and am immediately answered. It’s a younger girl, with an innocent face, the one they call Meagan. “The highlighted ones are the ones already taken.” Her voice is quiet and I almost strain to hear her but her message gets across. Slowly I flip through the pages to find my name.
None of them speak to me, or seem to sound like something that would describe me like I think a name should. I pass through all the “A’s” then the “B’s” and so on. I feel like it’s been hours and I’m only beginning “E.” I flip and I scan the pages, flip, scan, flip scan. I get to the fifth “E” page and my eyes get caught on a name in the middle. “Emerald.” I whisper. It means green, or beautiful. Like my dad’s eyes.
The room breaks out into a hushed chatter, critiquing the choice of my new name. Alicia, who had moved behind me to read over my shoulder while I looked, nods her head in approval. “It’s official. We’ll call you Emmy for short.” She nods again and this time the rest of the room nods with her, murmuring my name over and over. I smile. Emmy is perfect.
Alex pokes his head back in our room, interrupting one of the girl’s wild descriptions for this place. They’ve been describing their adventures and rumors they’ve heard about this place. They’ve told me it’s a like an underground society, the Truth they call themselves, its people that show emotion but hide it.
The place we are in now is like the headquarters they tell me, a safe haven for those wandering Truths they find, or wandering Truths that find them. Alicia was in the middle of telling me her story when Alex’s face appears.
“She got a name?” the room nods and starts gleefully whispering again. He stares at me and I realize he’s waiting for me to tell him what it is. The room grows quiet so I can speak, “Emerald.”
“Emmy for short.” Someone cries out. He smiles and I love the way the warmth of it reaches his eyes, like green fire.
“Ok Emmy. Welcome to Truths cavern. Um…so, Alicia, take her to the dining hall and I gotta go figure out your matching.” He smiles again, “Any preferences?” I shake my head and he leaves. I notice the way Alicia smiles at him and my mind categorizes that reaction as love. I’m surprised how disappointed I am as I realizes all those smiles were meant not for me but for her. But I have to feel happy, though it’s not a familiar emotion for me, as I see the way she shines when she looks at him. I see the rest of the room looks more fondly on her as well. She shakes her head and beckons us and we march back down the hall to the dining area.
The dining hall is smaller than the room I first saw when entering this place. It’s warm and cozy and has kind of the family feel to it that most of us have never experienced before. I find myself smiling, finally able to share how I feel with so many other people. There are more newcomers than just those in our room and I hear a lot of different stories. There are so many different people from all over the united states, all sharing the same beliefs I do. There are also boys. They share their stories too with as much enthusiasm as the girls.
And everyone has a name. its overwhelming trying to remember everyone’s name when I never had to worry about remembering sector numbers before. The idea of a name was strange to me, but now that I have my own it makes so much sense.
I survey the cafeteria reveling in the fact that everyone here is like me. And that means I’m not the strange one, the only one that can’t hide her feelings. Here I’m normal. Here I’m not alone.
“Emmy.” I’m torn away from my thoughts as I hear Alex calling my name behind me. He crooks his finger, motioning for me to follow and I do. When we are out in the hall he speaks again. “I’ve found your new calling. You seem to be exceptional at hiding your emotions and don’t seem to need training so we’re sending you right away. Of course you’re going to need to change your number, background, and even tweak your appearance, but…” his voice trails off.
“So what’s my calling?” I ask.
I’m afraid of getting all the jobs I didn’t want and even more afraid because it sounds so demanding. Alex heaves a sigh.
“You’re going to be a spy… posing as a government official.”

LEAVING SAFETY

I bite my lip and tug at my now short and pitch black hair. No one in the train wears a head scarf and we all wear the white dress robes for special occasions. They will give us the black robes we will wear for our new occupations when we get to our calling’s location. I can’t help thinking how much I will match with my black hair and black robe and scarf.
I stroke my lengthened eyelashes as I remember Alex telling us the reason for all these discomforts. I remember the way he was so serious as he looked at us and told us that the government was based on appearance and couldn’t quite grasp how easily the human being could change looks, so they wouldn’t be expecting us to be any different than the people that we are pretending to be.
While the train takes me to my almost certain doom my mind is playing the life story of my fake identity over and over again:
My new identification number is F373. I remember Alex telling us how they hacked the government's vacant identification site years ago. both my non-existent parents are "dead" making it harder for them to track me to a family. even so, I'm still expected to know they're brands and the numbers float nonchalantly into my mind. X782 and G431. The brands sound so harsh and dull after my own naming ceremony. The blocky, official sounds clumsily fall off my tongue and disperse into the sweaty chilled air.
The chill of the cold hard plastic of the train chair is seeping up through the thin white robe Alex made me wriggle into this morning. Everyone else in the train car is wearing the same thin garment, and the sleeve of the boy sitting next to me rubs my bare wrist either from cold or the tingling feeling I get every time I see him.

His brown hair is shaped bluntly and hasn't been cut in a while so a tuft or two hangs in his face bouncing ever so slightly when he speaks, which is rare. When he does speak his voice is deep and gentle, rolling through the air like birds in the wind. It's soft and raises a tremor in my stomach. I can feel my cheeks redden as I think about him and I peek through the wavy blonde curtain that is my hair to see if he noticed. He didn't, but when I look over his eyes flick towards mine.

I remember again why I feel the way I do when I see him. I lose my self in the peculiar colored orbs staring at me from under a cliff of brown hair. His eyes are a mixture of purple and blue, and not swirled like Alex and my father's eyes. The color is spiked and flecked in long straight strokes spiraling out from the center. And the emotion runs deeper than anything I've ever seen. They're gentle and filled with emotions like fear, anger, urgency-

My eyes snap wide. I see now he's been trying to signal me with his eyes to stop staring at him and resume the senseless stupor that everyone else in the train possesses. I realize I must look like a fool, with my eyes almost out of my head and my mouth wide open. I straighten up and let the movements of the train rock my body. I take mystery boy's instructions and we both look straight ahead again. I make my eyes fog over until I am looking but not actually seeing.

This little episode has made me think of my father again. How he talked about love as if it was magical and the way he acted around my mother even though she showed no signs of love herself.

Suddenly I whip my head back and it hits the wall of the train car making a resonating thump resulting in stares from everyone within a five foot radius. I rub my head and do my best to make it look like it was a bump in the track that did this and not my loose reign over my emotions. Inside my head I am screaming and not from the throbbing pain residing in the back of my skull. I am screaming from the realization that I might like this guy.

The train starts to slow and the hiss of the wheels grating the track grows steadily louder and louder. The doors slide silently open and a steam appears in the doorway as the frigid air of the train car meets the hot air waiting for us outside. We silently get up, some of the others stumbling as they recover from slight motion sickness and we shuffle single file out the door and down the steps to the street where a thin grim looking lady in all black is waiting for us wielding the standard, government issue clipboard.
My heart flutters as his shoulder brushes mine. I mentally slap myself for being so foolish, so petty. The woman starts talking and her voice grates like the train wheels on the track, high pitched and whiny,
“We are about to enter the government building. Please remain calm as we go through the process of initiating you.” And without further instruction we are shepherded into the formidable cement building looming over us.
. . .

The walk down the government hall is long, gray walk. The arches in the distance get bigger and pass over head as we get farther and farther down the hallway. So far there have been no doorways or openings of any kind. The rough burlap of my gray shoes is wearing the skin on my heel.
A sliver of light appears at the end of the long hallway and as we get closer it is recognizable as light coming from a cracked door. We stop at the door and the woman in black knocks twice and then enters. Inside a tall thin man stands waiting with a tape measure. Behind him are rows and rows of black robes, the material so thin they’re almost translucent. Our line moves to stand right in front of him and he takes the first person and quickly and efficiently measures their arms, waistline, and inseams. As the line grows shorter and people begin to acquire and don their robes the woman starts to speak again.
“These robes are your uniforms and are to be worn the entirety of your time on duty. You will be issued three of these garments and they are not to be lost. If you are evoked from your position the garments will be taken back and burned as we cannot use robes worn by defective specimens.” Again she falls silent but I can almost feel her dark eyes bore into my soul and discovering my secrets, my name. I shake off the paranoia as the tall thin man with the measuring tape signals me to him and begins to measure.
The people that have already received their robes have moved to a different room, connected to this one by a small door in the back. I put on one of my robes and drape the other two over my arm as I head through the door.
.

Impressum

Texte: Taylor Pinderson
Bildmaterialien: Taylor Pinderson
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 28.06.2012

Alle Rechte vorbehalten