BHCS

My feet sink through the crust of the snow and I can feel the ice through the hole in the bottom of my shoe.  Slowly, my jeans absorb the winter as I take deliberate steps towards the swing.  Around me, classmates are applying lipgloss and playing foursquare and talking about kissing in the woods beyond the playground.  I'm thinking about my step, and not falling over, and if I'm going to eat tonight.  I threw my sandwich away in the lunchroom again, I can't remember the last time I ate during the day.  The bread was a week old and hard as a rock, even if I had wanted to eat it to begin with.  I had gazed longingly at the bright pre-packaged food around me at the table, and without thinking had crumpled the whole brown bag up and stuffed it into the can. 

Tonight, maybe, I will eat the green spinach goo that always seemed to be appearing in the toaster oven.  I will make jokes with my little brother about alien food, and maybe he would eat some of his reheated pizza with the fake cheese on top.  If my mother doesn't have another concert.  Or another boyfriend.  Or both.  Last night she didn't come home until two am.  When she did she yelled at me and called me a selfish bitch.  I could smell the wine on her breath, and after she went to bed I had snuck back into brothers room and we had held each other and told stories. 

Today I'm dressed in a over-sized purple sweatshirt.  I'm not allowed to shop for myself, and I am painfully aweare that I am the only one on this playground over the age of ten still wearing clothing from a kids store. I look like an oompa-loompa, I know, but the first day I wore my winter jacket to class they all started calling me marshmallow, and asking me where I parked my spaceship.  So now I brave the snow in my sweatshirt and jeans.

I don't know what they thought, on that first day of school.  They expected someone rich, that I know.  They told me all the NEH kids were rich, and when I didn't have the clothes or the makeup they decided I shouldn't fit in at all.  It took them a day to dislike me, and a week for them to come up with my first nickname.

I remember my old school sometimes.  I remember my best friend Sarah and I lying in a field and picking wild strawberries and telling each other that everything was going to be ok.  Sometimes, I remember- but mostly it's easier to block it out.  That's not me now.  I am quiet.  They said I wanted to have sex with my teacher, but I've never even kissed a boy.  I try to do well in school, but the teachers here only want to talk to the girls with the makeup and the clothes.  They wrote me off the first time they saw my overly long skirts and bushy brown hair. 

Today, I am walking one step at a time.  I make it to the swing and feel the numb as I wrap my hands around the cold metal links.  Pushing off, I close my eyes and begin to dream.  If I close my ears too I can be anyone in the whole world.  Sometimes I am a princess, others I am fighting in the revolution.  Most of the time I am safe and sound on my island, with my little brother.  We eat delicious fattening Italian food and we watch PG13 movies that played in actual theaters.  I am allowed to listen to dance music, and my dad teaches me about blues and rock and roll. 

By the time the bell rings, I almost have a smile on my face. 

Grass

Out in the hot summer sun I can still taste his lips.  They are sour with early morning sleep and perfectly pressed into mine; with my eyes closed I brush my fingers across my mouth begging it to remember the sweet sensation.  Sighing, I roll my body and stretch luxuriously.  Even here in the Summer Gardens where the world should be perfect I ache for the gentle brush of a kiss.

It's been two weeks since he left me; two weeks and as many nights of lonely aching on my pillow.  I vowed I would not forget any part of him, so when sleep eludes me I whisper his features to the night.
Brown eyes, with gold flecks.
Untameable hair that spikes up in the back.
Freckles across his cheeks in the shape of a long forgotten constellation.
He was the first to tell me about the stars.  He began in the way of the old story tellers, which made me giggle.
 "Once upon a time," he said.  "Once upon a time, long ago the land was still covered with green grass like the summer gardens."  I laughed at the absurdity of the statement, but at his stern look I held my tongue. 
"There were stars, then.  Stars beyond belief.  Not the kinds that they put up in the dome to signify night, but great huge balls of fire, a million miles away.  All you had to do to see them was to walk outside.  There were stars that were named, ones that made pretty pictures in the sky- constellations."
He hugged me then, and I pressed my face into his chest, trying to imagine a world without the dome, a world with grass and stars and people that told stories that started "Once upon a time." 

The day he got the message I cried.  We had walked to the borough center, with everyone else for the conscription notices.  Names flashed up on the screen, five out of the twenty thousand of us, being called to serve the "higher purpose."  Most picked for their skills; electricians and butchers- some though were chosen as a form of punishment.  A year without your family and friends, a year of hard labor to remind you not to steal or cheat your neighbors.  Sometimes the Republic sends for someone who is a known deviant.  The rare murderer, traitors to the state- any for whom there is no hope of rehabilitation.  They get sent up to the dome, to make repairs or replace the Watchers who's lifework it is to guard our protection.  Few return, non have within my lifetime. 

When they called his name I stood in shocked silence.  It was unexpected; true he is good at the tannery where he works, but there are many older and more qualified men who should have been called in his place.  He was given a week to say his goodbye's and pack up his small life here.
"It's only a year, I'll be back before you even have a chance to miss me."  I smiled up at him, but we both knew the words we weren't saying.  The ones who returned from their year in Service to The Republic were changed.  The spring was gone from their step; there were sworn to secrecy about their Service, but they exchanged sad glances with others who had been taken from the borough square.

"I do love you."  That was all I could manage, the last day.  My affirmation, my prayer. 
"And I love you too."  He was matter of fact, it was an unchanging truth in his life.  It wasn't until he was about to walk across the threshold that I lost myself.  Tears falling down my face faster than I could wipe them away, I wrapped my arms around his neck and breathed in his wonderful smell.

"Why wasn't it me?  Why can't I go instead?  I don't want you to go without me.  Please."  He held me in long silance, before pulling me away and looking deep into my eyes.
"We both know why they won't take you, why you're always safe here."  I nodded, though the prospect of my own safety brings me little joy.
"Blue eyes, Ana.  You have blue eyes.  One in a million.  One of five in the world.  They never take blue eyes. You're worth holding on to."
"So are you."  In that moment, I held him as my own for the last time. 

The city car that drove him away looked like something out of one of his fairy tales.  Once it was sleek and shiny, but now the paint had turned the same grey-brown as the rest of the world.  I stood, blinking away my tears, trying to remember all of the songs and stories he had ever told me about the Republic Center.  That's when I made my vow not to forget, never to forget.

In the Summer Gardens there is a patch of green to one side.  "Agrostis stolonifera" it reads.  "Creeping Bentgrass." Each day I visit the gardens, and every day before I leave I bend to stroke the long green stems.  Bringing my fingers to my lips, I kiss them.  "Bring him home safe and unchanged.  Bring him home, please."  I'm not sure if I pray to the grass or the summer or the God of old.  Perhaps I pray to the stars themselves, somewhere out beyond the dome.  Stopping, I heave on the door and wait for the familiar pop as the suction breaks free.  Outside is grey and brown, but in my hand today I have a small piece of green.  Hiding it deep within my pocket, I walk towards home.