The Offspring

One tile, two tiles, three tiles... My Dad.

Four tiles, five tiles, six tiles... I failed him.

Seven tiles, eight tiles, nine tiles... Shut up!

It's almost dawn. I can see the shades of orange and lavender that rise from the East announcing the opening of a new day. The screen in the back of the room says it's already a quarter to six, and I haven't slept at all. My father's smile was once more haunting my thoughts last night; transforming the senseless images of places I will never get to see, the ones that only exist in the stories he used to tell me, into a rain of painful stabbings right through my heart.

As my dreaded day looms, I can’t shake the feeling of how much I’ve failed him. How I promised him I would never let them take the little pieces of me he had tried so hard to keep safe. But I’ve failed. I have already given in, and worst of all, I can't see a way to get out.

I can sense the Telekomill swimming in my veins, my head, my sanity. The yellow pill, the one we take when we go to sleep and contains the wireless transmitters that send all the data from our dreams straight to the computers of the Foundation’s Intelligence Department which interpret our brain waves and translate them into images they can see as clear as a movie. So, perhaps I could blame my lack of sleep to anxiety or anticipation, but the plain white truth was that, with the kind of thoughts I was having, I didn't want the government anywhere near my head.

Maggie, one of my two best friends, sits by her bed next to mine, her eyes bloodshot, her blond hair tangled in horrible knots and her hands scribbling something in a notepad. This is not an easy day to handle.

She stretches out both hands, one towards me and the other towards Jenna, reaching both of us a crumpled piece of paper.

“No matter how far, you will always be in my heart. Someday we’ll be together again, but meanwhile remember what you told me, that they can take our lives but can never take our minds. We make each other strong. We are family. I love you, Rayna”

The handwriting is pitiful, and the lines she has used to tear the paper are far from even, but those things’ significance is wasted once you’ve read the content of the note. Just a few words, and somehow, she summarized the last six years of our lives. Ups and downs. It is all there.

I glance at Maggie and see a very tearful Jenna cuddled in her lap. They look at me, their eyes are calling me, scolding me for taking so long to get over there. I jump off my bed, fighting the legion of tears eager for streaming down my eyes. If it were only Jenna and Maggie in the dorm, then it would be alright; but no, there are other forty people walking around and I hate crying in public, it gives away far too much information about my feelings. Besides, when I cry, it just looks pathetic. Most of the time I wear an empty expression, since it's the easier and most effective way of surviving in an entourage like this. My head is aching from all the drinking and weeping of last night. I want to say something, anything, but I'm not like Maggie, for me expressing out loud what I feel in my heart it’s the same as hopping barefoot in a bed of nails; and, knowing that I will only blurt out sobs and all sorts of weird noises when I open my mouth, I remain in silence, hugging them and certain that, after today, I will never see my family again.

I stand up and walk straight to the window. I do this every morning: quietly watch the workers go to their jobs in calm, only interacting when it's extremely necessary, to avoid drawing the attention of the guards at the end of every row who make sure that rule is strictly followed.

Lost in the sea of yellow and blue of our everyday clothes, with a splash of olive green here and there, I dream of the sliding buses I will never ride, since employees aren't allowed to be in any other than the one assigned to their workplaces. I wonder if they have sliding buses where they'll send me, because I have this pain enfolding my heart and every fiber of my being that tells me I won't be staying here. That I will have to leave my home.

“Come here” I haul Maggie out of the bed “I’ll do your hair”

She sits obediently on the floor, facing the cabinet while I place the small mirror in front of her and meet her blue eyes for a few seconds. They’re a light shade of blue, like the pearls of the Funder that tells the weather forecast. I carefully divide the locks of blond hair and imagine a day when this color deluges the world. It’s not the dirty, ashen yellow of our shirts, but a pale shade that it’s almost white. A shade that appears to be light…

“Ms. Hearst!” I jolt in the trash bin upside-down where I was sitting, throwing away the comb and the hairbrush. Maggie quickly finished tying her ponytail and we both turn around to face our Matron Aida standing right in our eyes. “What were you doing?” she asks

I know my blood is on strike. And I’m sure it’s failing to reach my brain because I can’t speak. God! I can’t even think.

“I- …”

“You know you disobeyed a rule, don’t you?” she says calmly as she removes the yellow belt from her waist and rolls it in her right hand, leaving the buckle visible and I nod, shuddering “Would you care to enlighten us?”

I look around and everyone is glaring at me. Everyone but Jenna; she’s looking at Maggie, because we both think she may have stopped breathing.

When three minutes pass by and I still can’t open my mouth, Matron Aida turns to the rest of the girls and cues them into reciting the rule I had infringed. It isn’t one of the most important ones, but it is one they take very seriously.

The first lash to my legs marks the opening “Unless physically impaired or otherwise incapacitated to fulfill their tasks” 1, 2, 3 … 8, 9, 10 lashes for each word and all I can think of is how much I wish I would’ve had a chance to change into my pants “one must never aid a companion, regardless of their needs or our wishes” …20, 21, 22, 23. Twenty-three gashes in my calf through which droplets of thick blood poke out to greet the belt. By the time they are finished, my legs are on fire.

Not flinching while Matron Aida was performing her chore was easy; the sole joy of not bestowing on her the satisfaction of seeing me in pain was enough to keep me motionless as a statue. But now that she’s gone, it’s all I can do to tell my legs they must bear my weight; that a damp cloth is all the medicine I can provide for them, since no one cures us when the cause of an injury has been punishment. I tell them they must hold on because the day has just begun.

Profession Assignment Day is the only day of indulgence in our shelter. Perhaps because our matrons were so very pleased of seeing us leave and forever get rid of one more flock of noisy kids, or maybe, having given birth once, before they were performed hysterectomies, they do understand what it feels like, to get attached to something that's going to be taken away from you no matter what you do.

Another of our Matrons –Anna, an older woman with skin darker than mine- sees the blood staining my pants and commands me inside her office. If it would’ve been somebody else, I would’ve been running down the hall, far away from the bed where I’m lying. I would only be chastised one more time for ruining the pants.

She rubs a red substance in my legs and a green ointment that reliefs the pain, wraps both legs on gauze while Jenna goes to the dorm and gets the other set of clothes.

There is music in the dinning room, it booms on the walls causing those tremors and I’m almost afraid the whole building is going to collapse; but even though it’s just a set of rhythmic drumrolls, at least there’s music. Ham and cheese sandwiches for breakfast instead of the everyday butter toast, orange juice and bowls of blueberry jelly; we could almost breathe a holiday atmosphere, if we weren’t so focused on what is about to come.

Maybe Profession Assignment Day was meant to open us a path to a whole new life, the time when we would finally have the opportunity to repay our country for everything it has done and will continue doing for us... as if we hadn’t been doing that already. But that’s not how it feels for us. In the light of our eyes, our hearts and our minds, PAD is just another way for our government to shove us into lives we haven’t quite freely chosen. Once more we will have to leave behind those we love and make a brand new beginning. Some of us will stay here, others will be sent to the other sectors, just because that’s the way things work. We can cry as loud as we want, but we would still have to go.

"I want butter..." says Maggie with a tone of longing in her voice "it would make everything normal, like this is just another day..."

I know what she means. I didn't spend the entire night biting my lips to keep the screams from slipping out for no reason. I wish this was just another day when we could eat a slice of bread with butter and a cup of sugarless milk. But I eat my sandwich anyway; it is too much of a treat to be wasted.

However, as my feet approach the Government Headquarters, I know I shouldn't have eaten. A deep pain lodges in the pit of my stomach and I squeeze Jenna's and Maggie's hands to keep myself from collapsing in the floor, before I will have to let them go. Everyone knows you hardly ever get to work with someone you know. The closer you are, the farther they push you.

Jenna, a chubby chestnut-haired girl with crazy eyes who, along with Maggie, has been my only family for six years, slips her hand inside the pocket of my pants and leaves something in there. As soon as she catches my hands reaching it, she shakes her head asking me not to see it until she is gone.

I nod and she smiles. A deep, aching smile. It is time to let go.

The moment we enter the room they separate us according to our last names, so I sit next to Maggie while Jenna is led all the way across the room. Instinctively I touch my pocket and take out Jenna's present. A black eyeliner. It’s awesome. Three years ago when we first went to our weekly make-up session, the one thing that caught my eye was this black eyeliner. I remember it because it has engraved the initials of a Funder that works on the news channel, Romina Hargrove; “it could be yours" she said with a mischievous grin, and we both laughed. There’s no way on earth I could’ve ever owned something this pretty. But now I do. Thanks to her. I place it beside me, and read one more time Maggie’s note, hoping it will give me the strength to hold myself together.

The knell rings and we are rushed to take our places in front of the five feet dark screen that will light in a few seconds showing our faces while the speaker whispers our names. Maggie stands beside me and Jenna is two rows before us. It’s coming backwards. Stoically I endure the calling of each name until they take her from my side.

“…Margaret Kelly…”

She lets go of my hand, and is gone.

The ‘H’ is nigh.

“… Rayna-”

I can hardly notice when my name is called as the voice on the speaker is overshadowed by another one. An angry one. I rouse from my daze as the Funder that stands before the screen waves a small narrow object in her hand while shouts something I can’t hear. What is she saying?

“Who does this belong to?!” she asks one more time.

Everyone stands still. But it isn’t until I make out what she’s grasping in her hand, that my blood freezes in my veins as well. The eyeliner.

My hands work on their own, desperately seeking something they won’t find, because if my brain would’ve reacted on time, it would’ve told them that there's no use to it. It’s not there.

I stare at the floor and start counting tiles, but I lose count after the first ten as my vision goes in a blur of tears that I can’t keep from falling. How could I have been so stupid?! I want to slap my face a hundred times and it still wouldn’t be enough punishment for the mistake I’ve just made. The Funders will certainly agree. How did I just leave it there?! I keep my head down. I don’t want to look up since I can see from the corner of my eye that Jenna is glancing at me. What did I just do? I can’t let her see me break, or she’ll take the fault for me. Actually, she’d take the fault for me no matter what. What is she doing? Is she stepping forw-?

“It’s mine” I murmur. The stillness in the room is deep enough to hear a raindrop fall; of course they heard my voice. I’m still looking at the floor, but at least I’ve stopped Jenna from advancing. She looks puzzled. I lift my chin and smile at her, before I train my eyes on the Funder. I clear my voice and repeat “It’s mine”

The crowd opens before me leaving a wide enough path for me to walk to my death. If there’s something this society does not forgive, is theft… and a dozen other things. Perhaps if it would’ve been food, they’d go a bit easier on me, but being something so trivial, it looks as if I've broken the law just for the sake of it…I’m in for the kill.

The Funder places me beside her and I can see Jenna mouthing a thousand different insults from her place. No one else would notice, but I know her, I’m sure she wants to punch me in the head and take my place, maybe tell them I’m nuts –which I probably I'm anyway-, but that would only endanger both of us. I need to show her that everything will be okay; even if I don’t believe it myself. So, before the Funder can dictate my sentence, I look at her and beam.

“Can I have it back?” I guess that if it’s really mine, then it should stay with me, right?

When the expression of bewilderment leaves her eyes, she gently grabs me by the waist and leads me to a red door very few people have used, saying “By all means, keep it”

And as soon as this door closes behind me -between us- I realize there is no going back. The past is gone, no need to care for it, only my future matters now. If that even exists.

It's a rather ironic philosophy for a society that still wallows on victories achieved two hundred years ago to keep people in acquiescence with all we have now; an every day reminder that things could be much worse.

I blurt out a snort mixed with a chuckle that starts as simple little laugh in my head but somehow takes over my already on edge nervous system and becomes an awful noise bordering a person out of its mind. The two Funders that usher me give me a surprised look and I hush. The last thing I want now is for them to take me to a mental institution. Although is probably one of my best options right now.

On my way, there, I see a door, a white door guarded by armed soldiers not much older than I am. What could they be guarding there that needs such security measures? Would they dare to shoot? What am I saying? … Of course they would.

But when they drop me in the Waiting Room, with other boys and girls, I realize they're playing along with the game; that they're not going to punish me… for now. So I let myself savor this small victory and with that big picture out of my sight I begin to see the forming of little pixels that will compose my new life, starting by choosing a profession. The issue is that I have no idea how I want that life to be. I thought our Assessment would cover that part, help us decide what we want to do, based on what we're actually good at; but even though that day is still blurry on my mind, I do know it didn't give me any answers, only left me with more questions.

Heart racing, feet pounding. I’m nervous. More nervous than just a few minutes ago when I thought I was about to die.

I play with the eyeliner, throwing it a very short distance, just enough time to place my fingers in a position to catch it back. I don’t even move my arms, just figuring out how fast do I have to move, and how shortly can I throw, calms me; and I’m thinking of how something so small put me through such an immense hell. I’m not even allowed to wear it. Only people who work on television and entertainment can. I remember there was a girl in our dorm back then –Spencer- that wanted to work on TV, she wouldn't shut up about and it sort of annoyed all of us, but she was alright. I don't recall seeing her yesterday.

"Does anyone know where Spencer Vargas is?" I ask to the crowd. There aren't that many of us, but between them, and the tension, the room is teeming.

A blond girl turns to me, her left eyebrow cocked as though my question is completely misplaced. Her face registers in my mind and I suddenly wish I could deprive one of the guards from his gun. Everly Leighton. I can't believe I have to put up with her again.

"I asked our Matrons about her" she replied with no shades of feeling "Her Assessment was rescheduled for today, there was some sort of problem with her before..." and a smirk shows on her lips "She panicked, I guess"

Everly was the girls’ president. In our shelter each sex ought to have a person to represent them at the Information Assemblies, since there were girls living there from eleven years old, forty-five of us in each age-assigned dorm. She was designated when we were fourteen, but only because there weren't any fifteen or sixteen year-olds in our shelter, and the seventeen year olds hardly spent any time there, our workload is heavier at seventeen. But it was enough to blow her mind, and blow our heads in the process.

I glance one more time at the eyeliner. Jenna stole it, and she did it for me. Stealing is severely punishable. I once saw a handless man who had wanted nothing but a pair of gloves for his son. That was a really cruel winter; the little boy seemed like a porcelain bag of bones about to crack any second. When the trial finished and the verdict was read, I remember seeing my father's face harden as the officials sawed the man's hands at the level of his wrists, while his son watched from the crowd. They always make us watch.

It's a beautiful eyeliner, though. I wonder why she didn’t give it to me before. Jenna and I never had too much restraint when it came to rule-bending, I guess because many of them we didn't understand, and, how can you truly obey a rule you don't comprehend its purpose?

I hold on to it. Conceal the note Maggie gave me inside my brazier. We are not permitted to carry any objects from our past into our future. They say it roughens the transition; but things are already hard as they are, I don't think a piece of paper is going to make a difference. I leave the eyeliner out in the open, though; they already know I have it.

Those are the only things I own. Well, not the only. I have something else. A necklace. A silver chain with a pair of interlaced wings dangling from it. I don't know where I got it, or how something so expensive ended up in my hands; but I know I must keep it. Those are the only wings I've seen since my father died. He had wings in his mind.

I’m forcing myself to stray away from this feeling of apprehension, but no matter how tightly I clutch my hands to the wooden bars of the bench I was sitting in, I am the last one standing and I can't run away anymore. There is nobody else left in line that I can disguise myself behind of. My name is next.

I drag my feet through the galvanized steel door frame like I am heading to my execution. I should have my mind made up by now.

A Funder hands me an envelope with my name printed on it with golden letters. Inside is my fate. The sheet will have three options for me. Three possible lives that diverge from the moment I choose one of them.

"Why didn't we get the results of our Assessment?" I ask through gritted teeth to the Funder dressed in an olive green uniform who is conducting the process "They could've helped us make a better and informed choice, and maybe we wouldn't be in this predicament right now"

I bite my lower lip and let my gaze fall to the table after I finish talking. I know I wasn't supposed to have said that; but sometimes –most times- my emotions take over, and the filter between my mind and my mouth shatters, unleashing every single thought in my brain.

"There is not such predicament" she replied, not very pleased for having to answer my question "Your Assessment was only meant to determine if you were fit for our society's requirements, we narrowed the choices for you based on the results we got and meeting our needs, the decision of how –within these options- would you like to help your country is up to you, and once you've finished your initiation, you'll be assigned a position from which you'll make your contributions to our system".

‘If I’m fit for my society’s requirements’? How could I not fit into my society? I was born here, raised here, educated here. I must belong here too. Could have anyone ever failed their Assessment?… What happens if you do?… Shut up! Shut the hell up, Rayna!… Breathe… One tile, two tiles, three tiles…

A deep breath fills my chest. I was so edgy the thought of breathing had totally slithered my mind. I keep the breath inside hoping I would choke on it, stopping the oxygen from reaching my brain and faint; pass out for a while, until this moment has gone by; maybe that's what happened on the day of my Assessment, perhaps I was so anxious I forgot how to breathe and blacked out. My mother said that's a way to cure hiccup, though. If only I had a hiccup to cure. But no, my problem is much bigger and no amount of breaths held would get me out of it. So I let the breath out.

"Just go on, and open the envelope" she says looking right into my eyes and sinking her thumbs in the flesh of my shoulders "Decide for one, they're all the same anyway"

I don't mean to stare at her, but I just can't help it; my mind keeps focusing on anything but the paper I'm holding. She has a severe expression in her face, set jaw, and through the thick fabric of her olive green jacket, I notice the muscles of her arms. A single one of her punches would knock me out in seconds. Her dark wavy hair is firmly tied in a ponytail, the same way every other woman in the country wears it, and that only makes her look angrier, even if she isn't.

"How can they all be the same if they’re about different things?" Although I have a naïve expression showing on my face, her dark eyes narrow in distrust. Like I've just said something I am not supposed to. "How can I just… choose?"

"I never imagined you’d cause this much trouble” she shakes her head and slowly sighs “They're all the same because they converge to one single purpose: serving your government and your city," she leans over the wide table that seems to be getting smaller by the minute; I can almost feel her balmy breath on my face. "That's what you were brought to life for, and there's no reason why you shouldn't find all the happiness you need in serving your homeland"

Her words bounce on the room. Bang. Bang. Bang. Claiming for my attention. She’s right. That’s the first vow we take as children; not even knowing what it really means. What it stands for. How much will it cost.

Samsara, our country, was founded -reset would be more accurate- almost 200 years ago, after a civil war against a tyrannical government left nothing but a trail of annihilation behind. All the dictators were judged and given the same justice they had extended to the people; and as for their supporters, too weak-willed and materialistic to choose any better, they were all shipped away and left to starve in the middle of the ocean. It was cruel, but they said no society could be built when there were poisonous ivies threatening to crawl back into its core, or with people that weren't willing to fight all the way for its endurance.

Nowadays, everything is structured, and organized, and controlled, and every citizen bears an equal responsibility in the functioning of our system. As parts that belong to one single device, we, through our education and upbringing, are shaped to suit the molds our society needs us to fit in.

Mine is the ‘13th Sector’; it doesn’t have an official name, but it’s been called The Brae for as long as anyone is able to remember, since it’s located on the hilliest side of our country. We know all about the rest of the sectors through the national news channels, but don’t interact much with them, only our leaders do. Each one of these areas contributes with valuable goods to the sustenance of our country and its perdurability. Our field in The Brae is Population Management, and our duty is to provide the rest of the country with the needed manpower for its developing, by breeding and mostly educating children, until they are assigned labors in other sectors. We're basically livestock.

Most of us will know only few places in our entire lives -the one we came from, here, and where we'll work-, but there are others who will stay here forever, and never leave The Brae. It sounds sad, but after all that’s happened, I wish I could hold on to this place I’ve come to love. I was born here, this is my home.

We all bear a responsibility and oblige to a determined place in our society; we are gears in an engine...

What happens when a gear is too big? Or too small? Or just has a different shape in relation to the place where it’s supposed to go? … What happens if we can’t be shaped? If we just don’t fit our molds? … What if I don’t want to be a gear for this specific engine?

There are exactly two-hundred eighty-eight tiles in the room. Each one around nine inches wide and long. I glance again at the envelope. I can't think of a reason why this feels so wrong, why it shouldn't be okay to pick your profession out of a piece of paper without really knowing what it's about. What good does knowledge serve anyway? It only overwhelms us, right? Isn't that what they teach us? Just the basics, so our brain can maintain the capacity to specialize; all knowledge unrelated to our jobs must be discarded. All thoughts related to the self must be thrown away. Only our system matters.