Rebels

  Chapter 5

  I arrive at home to find all windows and doors open to their maximum capacity. I walk inside only to be greeted by an even larger onslaught of heat, as once again, my mother is cooking beans. Her face is red from the heat and exertion of having to constantly stir the boiling beans. I have often wondered how anyone survives today under such conditions. Once, people were able to live till their late eighties and some even to a hundred years old! On average, people today died in their sixties, if not earlier, due to the harsh conditions and expectations of the State.

  People are given life credits, and if one runs out of them, then their usefulness to the State is gone. If one even so much as breaks a leg without a credit, there is nothing anyone can do about it. Children born with mental or physical handicaps are given no credits at all. The moment something happens to them, they are done. For me, this is the norm but something my parents dreaded, for they saw many suffer and receive no help because of the State’s regulations.

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “Working,” my mother says, stirring the pot.

  “Overtime pay?” I ask, leaning over to smell the pot of beans. Mmm, I can tell mom still had a little bit of ham left over for these beans, as well.

  “No, of course not, there’s never enough money for overtime pay. I’m glad we have a job.” She says, looking up from her pot of beans. I nod in agreement, thinking about Mark and Stephanie’s dad. “Your father said that when you got home today, if you don’t have any homework, you are to go out to the backyard and meditate.”

  “Okay, Mom, I’ll do just that,” I say, kissing her cheek. I open the back screen door, dropping my backpack by the frame, hitting the floor just inside as I step out in our small, fenced backyard. Gardens are illegal, unless one has a special license. Before I joined the Young Army, we had a secret garden of this or that, hidden around the yard. That is why our front lawn is full of dandelions. People think they are weeds, but we know better. Dandelion greens are very tasty and very good for you. The State made gardens illegal, saying people might make themselves sick from the food they grow. I know people are much more likely to become ill when they don’t have enough to eat.

  Now I’m in the Young Army, we have a permit to have a garden and Mother has greatly expanded; every inch of the backyard is now full of green, growing food. My mother even hung containers full of berry bushes from the fence to the back porch. Barrels of tomato plants adorn the walkway. There is only enough room for one person to carefully walk to the meditation circle, which my father had insisted my mother leave fruitless.

  It is one of those liquid hot days, the kind that melts you from the inside out. On days like this, my father would talk about air-conditioning, a thing that made whole houses cool so you could stay inside all day. Back then, old people lived longer because air-conditioning kept them out of the heat. I can’t imagine such a thing. He tells me the President still has air-conditioning in the White House, but he’s a hypocrite for telling people to do without something he is not willing to give up.

  I start on the meditation exercises my father has taught me. I know it must be sweltering for my mother to be standing over the pot of beans trying to get them soft enough to eat on a day such as this. I am grateful my mother sent me outside to meditate, but my heart reaches out to her because even with the door open, it is unbearably hot. It is no wonder so many people are lost throughout the year. Either we are freezing or baking to death, and if one is thought to have no more life value, the State would simply not give them needed care or attention, feeling that would be wasted resources.

  To think I live in a time where people are actually measured. They are given a life value. And each year it is revalued, based on one’s standing in life. That value is what the State is willing to invest in them—food, clothing, medical care, and other things. Of course, we are told this is the most efficient way of distributing our valuable resources. I may still be young, but I have learned such propaganda is full of lies, otherwise why value one human over another? I was taught God equally values all His creations, that we will all be judged based on our works and not our earthly wealth. I focus on my meditation again. Despite all I see every day I am hopeful; I am a free man, despite appearances otherwise.

  I start to run through the first ten amendments of the Constitution of the United States of America, an extraordinary country based on freedom and faith. My father explained and re-explained, drilling into me, the ideas of the forefathers and their contributions when establishing America as a republic.

  What’s the difference between a republic and democracy? In a democracy, everyone votes for everything; a new road is needed, the people have to vote on it. In a republic, the people elect officials who then make the decisions. One of the reasons the United States of America fell was because they moved from a democratic republic to a pure democracy.

  There is one fact above all others my father has made sure I know: George Washington’s birthday was February 22, 1732.

  I continue to meditate on George Washington and how I wish I could be like him. In Valley Forge, when his men had no housing except tents, George Washington was offered a comfortable house to live in, but he declined, saying if his men slept in tents, so would he. Having such courage during such a time of disparity gives me hope that someday another will rise up just like George Washington. Someone who will value his people more than his very life. Someone who will again bring to light life and liberty. I cannot help but start to feel excitement and renewed hope, knowing someday such a thing could happen again. I am pondering this when the smell of the beans hit my nose and I remember the plight of my mother. I stand up, stepping back over pots full of vegetation, and open the screen door. I walk up to my mother and take the spoon from her hand.

  Smiling up at me, she says, “Thank you, John.” She heads towards the back of the house, I assume to lie down. If we had air-conditioning, then I wouldn’t have to worry about my mother or the need to stir beans on a hot day, but complaints about things like that don’t change anything. I finish the beans to a soft creamy perfection, and I awake my mother and we eat a fantastic meal made all the better by my mother’s smile. My watch starts to beep at me and I look down at it.