Chapter
5
Desires
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The double doors slid open and a high-pitched ding left my heartbeat thumping.
“You ok sweetie?” Ms. William asked, her hand massaging my shoulder.
After finally reconnecting with myself I glared into her eyes and nodded.
“I’m fine Ms. William.” I replied.
She smiled. “Well come on now, our purchases aren’t going to buy themselves.”
A big warehouse sized space stood before me, the roof as high as the sky, and dozens upon dozens of lights hanging from the roof, stretching from one side to the other. People, real people, walked around with other kids that seemed around my age.
One stood out from the other, a little girl, blonde curly hair, eyes as bright as the sky, and a smile as beautiful as the dirt-ridden daisy stuffed in my pocket. She turned and stared right back at me; my heart sunk as her crippling glare caused my mouth to drop.
My heartbeat banged against my chest and my face felt hotter than normal.
“Sam you ok? You seem flustered!” Ms. William yelped.
She pinched my cheek and forcefully averted my attention away from the angel.
“I’m fine Ms. William.” I said as I tried to connect eyes with that girl again.
I heard Ms. William continue to yap away endlessly about this place, honestly I could care less.
Ms. William’s annoying giggle took my attention away, “It’s one gigantic fishbowl of goods”
“Oh my gosh, Elizabeth, Elizabeth William is that you!” A strange voice called out, “Oh my gosh! It is you, Elizabeth hey!”
I turned around and a beautiful woman, blond shoulder-length hair, blue eyes, and ivory skin came and hugged Ms. William; next to the woman, that girl!
“Amber Johnson!” Ms. William exclaimed.
“And who is this handsome young man there,” Amber said, she shuffled my hair and then pinched my cheek, I guess to see if I was noticing her, “Hi there, I’m Amber,” she reached out her other hand towards me.
“Go on Sam, shake her hand sweetheart she’s an old friend of mine,” Ms. William said.
Did I really want to shake hands with this woman who abruptly pinched my cheek? I had to be polite so I shook her hand and tried to force a smile from my aggravation. If one more person tried to pinch my cheek … I’ll pinch them right back.
“Hello Ma`am.” I said.
“And proper manners too,” Amber said delighted, “By the way let me introduce you to Amy, my little princess!”
So this beautiful angel is named Amy.
“Shucks mom, stop embarrassing me!” Amy said as she blushed.
“Amy here is in her second year Sam, she can tell you all about her experiences, here Elizabeth,” Amber, from her bag, pulled out a square sized yellow sticky, pulled a pen out and wrote something on the piece of paper, “This is her CIM (Contact Instant Messaging) code number so you can just type to each other via the Monitor System.”
Their voices faded into the back of my mind; my eyes remained glued to Amy’s, what did I feel towards her? Was it affection, attraction? I couldn’t quite put my finger on it yet. It did however feel overwhelming, like something was choking me from saying anything to her.
Without thought or reason I reached into my pocket and pulled out that, wrinkled, and almost due fall apart daisy, and handed it to her.
“You can have this.” I said.
“Aw!” Amy yelped, “Thank you Sam!” She took the daisy and smiled, “It’s beautiful… my favorite color too!”
Her gratitude and warm smile brought my shacking numbness to disappear, and this strange wave of confidence washed over me, relaxing every part of my body.
Amy turned to Amber who was standing and staring jaw-dropped, the groceries bags in her possession somehow made their way to the floor.
“Mom look, look, Sam gave me a flower!”
“That’s so sweet of you Sam,” Amber yanked me from my perfectly comfortable position and dragged me into her arms. As she hugged me, I wondered if she was actually trying to strangle me.
“Mom, mom, the dentist appointment is in ten minutes shouldn’t we get going!”
“Of course, of course,” Amber said, “Well we’ll see you two later, and we have our park time scheduled at four PM tomorrow Elizabeth so you know”
Amber gave Ms. William one last hug and kiss on the cheek, and she gave me a final handshake and a kiss on my forehead, thank goodness it wasn’t a pinch on the cheek, and then they sped off.
Amy gave me one last smile and then waved at me as she went past the door.
“Who was she Ms. William?”
“An old friend of mine… a long time friend…” she replied with a tone so low I had trouble deciphering her lip movement.
“What?”
“Ask me when we get home sweetie, we need to grab some food and apparel.” Ms. William said.
“Alright.”
The place felt chilly now; I guess now that all my thumping blood settled I finally caught a tang of this unusually cold place. Amy’s face was still amidst the taint of black spanning the back of my eyelids, I couldn’t help but to linger on about what I felt, it was this perpetual feeling, good and bad all at the same time smothered with Amy’s face all over.
This warehouse was filled with isles from one corner to the other; each had signs on each end; Breads, Pastas, the lists went on and on. On the end-cap boxes and boxes of randomly named items, from snacks to cereals, and all sorts of other random stuff loafed in their perfectly aligned positions.
Ms. William took a tiny basket, grabbed my hand, and began my adventure of strolling about aimlessly searching for arbitrary stuff.
“Sam you ok… has your medicine wore off or something,” Ms. William lodged her cold fingers against my forehead, “A bit warm.”
“I’m fine Ms. William.” I assured her.
“You sure, look… I know we’ve only known ourselves for less than a day but we’ll grow with each other, learn of ourselves and such.” Ms. William said.
“I know Ms. William I’m fine… all this is new to me but I feel safe with you.”
“That’s always good to know, you walk with me and I’ll teach you meaning, misconceptions, and if you ever have any questions feel free to ask me ok, anything, but… only when we’re in the house,” she got closer to my ear and whispered, “My perspective of things are a bit different then other Caretakers.”
As soon as she finished with her little speech Ms. William past through a metal-detector type archway that led to the main shopping area.
I hesitated to follow. I had this unusual pretense about this archway, as though I’ve witnessed something like this before. It felt familiar to me; it hummed this surreal melody into the bases of my subconscious it spoke to me: yet the words were a mere whisper like the wind hissing past my ears.
I closed my eyes, and a blurred face spoke to me, it said:
“As quiet as the stone that lays beneath your feet…”
The voice became recognizable: it was him, Dr. Harris.
“It’s safe Sam, just pass through!” Ms. William said.
I shook my head and briefly glared behind me with the corner of my eye. Nothing, his voice came from my own conscious somehow. I turned back to Ms. William.
“What is this thing?”
“It just keeps track of the people that come in and out… security purposes… j-just come on through!” Ms. William persisted.
I steadily tip-toed pass the archway; it beeped green-a robotic voice said, “Welcome to Choalstar Sam!”
Spooked, I leaped forward into Ms. William’s arms.
“Relax Sam, relax,” Ms. William said as she grasp hold of me, “It’s just the Welcoming message for first-timers, nothing more.” Ms. William said.
It was something else, that wasn’t the voice I heard. I played oblivious to the voice I actually heard and what Ms. William heard, so I played
along as believably as possible.
I winced, “Oh, oh ok!” I lied.
My eyes shifted left and right, noticing the other people staring at me a bit awkwardly, most were awe-goggled. I also noticed that there were only women and young girls around me, I turned to the workers, yellow and green dressed middle aged women with long skirt-length aprons, every other individual woman had the same small basket held in their possession; it all looked the same, they all seemed identical, almost like cloned copies of one another. The only different was their height and skin tone, other than that, the same features, blond hair and blue eyes.
I didn’t delve much into the state of things and tried to redirect my interest to the many goods stacked on one another.
After a seeming endless series of roaming about this warehouse, Ms. William said the words I longed to hear since all these random women started staring at me.
“That’s that,” Ms. William said.
Finally! I had this urge to just break into a sprint and run out of here.
“Let’s go check out, this will be your first experience doing so, and after this you should be a master at doing so!” Ms. William said overly energetic.
Ms. William set her groceries on a spinning table that lead to a cashier; a young woman stood there waiting with a crooked smile.
“Hi there!” She wailed as she scanned each item.
Ms. William went into her bag, pulled out her card, and swiped it on the card reader. Red flashed on the display.
“Ma`am it’s saying your card has expired… well honestly it has happened to like every other person.” The young woman explained.
Ms. William groaned, “Why wasn’t I informed of this?” She said annoyed as she stuffed the card inside her purse.
“Ma`am we’re not authorize to-to,” before she could finish, the card reader began to speak.
“Ms. Elizabeth William our apologies on our behalf for not informing you about the unexpected I.P Electronic Security Serial change; please come to the I.P Facility, room B01 tomorrow to receive your new DIA I.P Electronic Security Card.” A whirring hum began and then clicked off.
Ms. William gave a tiresome sigh, “Sam, sweetie, please come here.” She said.
I wonder what she was expecting me to do. I hurried next to her and waited.
“Yes Ms. William?”
“Pull out your hand and use your DIA Encoding number to pay.”
The Cashier lady gave me this suspicious stare.
At the bottom of the card reader a scanner beamed its red light, I scanned my barcode and immediately payment options typed themselves on the card reader screen:
Total: *309.65
Do You Accept or Decline?
---Yes-- ---No---
Elizabeth pressed yes. Not a second later the receipt printed and a robotic Thank You spoke out of the card reader speaker.
“Thanks for shopping we’ll see you again.” Said the Cashier with an arid voice.
“Thanks!” Ms. William said, with her face a bit rosier than usual.
“Bye,” I said to the lady whose face became ogled after I said that… apparently bye doesn’t cope well here. Or could it be the fact that every single female I slipped by stared at me with that same completely mystified expression?
Ms. William grinned, grabbed the four grocery bags, and sped off towards the exit. I followed behind her speedy stride.
I tugged on her skirt as soon as the double doors slid open, “Hey Ms. William what was that number for?”
“Here take a bag and I’ll explain it to you outside.” Ms. William said.
She handed me one of the lighter bags and I kindly accepted it.
Ms. William and I stepped out of Coalstar into a jaded orange sunset sky accompanied by a cool breeze that left a swarm of goose bumps to ride up my arms, followed by a cold chill. We made our way down the vacant sidewalk towards the residential area.
“Anyways,” Ms. William said, finally speaking after what felt like ages of wandering about, “The number on the screen was the total cost of the products we purchased, err… well you did since my card didn’t work; trade here is dealt with currency, or money; we use the AUP Dollar.” She explained and then handed Sam the receipt, “AUP is basically virtual money stored in a computerized system.”
I took the recipe and briefly glanced at it, nothing but the big total number, so I just stuffed it in my pocket.
“If its virtual money where do we get it from?” I said.
“Labor.”
“Labor?” I repeated, “Like work?”
“Yeah, we have to work for it, like that cashier girl, that’s her job and she gets paid money to do it each individual is entitled to their own job depending on… well what the Council entitles that individual person to do.”
“So what do I do?” I said.
I paid for those things without me doing any form of work to acquire this so called AUP dollar… at least to my knowledge, unless they pay me to go to class.
“Nothing, when you become of legal age the Council will assign you a career plan, your first three years will be study, and when you become fifteen your LCP document, Life Career Placement, will reach our living quarters, and we’ll send you off to whichever facility you were put in.” Ms. William explained, “However there are those rare times when your LCP document arrives a couple of days after your fourteenth birthday… but none of my previous Adoptole’s had that occur.”
“So what’s your job?” I said.
Ms. William smirked, “Well, my main job is Caretaker, which means I take care of you! And my other job eh, I can’t say!”
I didn’t request an answer to Ms. William’s neglect.
“Oh my! It’s almost dusk! We have to hurry home honey! Come, come let’s go!” She sped her stride through the sidewalk yanking me along with her.
I helped Ms. William put the groceries on the table.
“Thanks sweetie!” Ms. William said as she grabbed the can of hand-sanitizer, “Time for your medicine Sam, give me your hands.” Ms. William said.
She sprayed her hands and then sprayed my hands. Ms. William opened the capsule and gave me those three red pills again; this little routine had me gritting my teeth with annoyance.
She poured water into a cup and handed it to me, “Drink up,” Ms. William said.
I gulped them down with the water and placed the cup inside the sink.
“Here are your clothes dear,” Ms. William said as she handed me the large rectangular paper bag, “Go ahead and get comfortable, I’m going to begin making dinner.”
I made my way to my room. I again stopped and caught another glimpse of the majestic sunset embracing the ocean tide.
I kept on pondering what I saw in that dream and about that letter Mary gave me.
I put the bag on the bed and then pulled the envelope Mary gave me out of my back pocket. I remained dazed by it, I had an urge to open it, but I knew, I just knew it was only my own curiosity wanting to, so I allowed this other strange feeling to hold me back. I took it and stuffed the envelope between the bed mattresses in order to keep it hidden away until I know it was the right time.
But then again, when was the right time? Perhaps as my time here progresses and I grow, maybe mature more, I’ll find the inexplicable content in there more desiring than I would now.
“Good Evening Sam,” Jane said, “Mr. Cove, EM sent me a list of vocabulary words you’ll need to know for tomorrow,” the monitor screen went black, Loading… on the bottom right, without long a list of words typed themselves on the screen:
Ace
Color
Calendar
History
Mistake
Fantasy
Nightmare
Dream