The woman hummed a tuneless song as she trimmed a cluster of purple flowers, some of which hung like shrunken lungs from the winding vine. In several places the berries were already beginning to ripen. In time they would glare out through the leaves and she would collect them by careful handfuls. Even then the fragile skins would often break, sending the dark juice winding down her skin and into her frayed apron. At day’s end, she would hold her arm under very hot water — until the steam filled her vision and her skin began to blister. She would watch as the pinkish water found its way down the drain, staining the sides and bottom.
Now, she rose from her pruning and stretched, gazing out over the tangled green fields. Far in the distance a glistening dome arced up across the horizon, shining out like a fallen moon.
She had lived there once. In among Seraph’s scoured streets and tightly woven lawns. She had been a gardener there too, of sorts. In a tall, white building filled with humming machines and floors that squeaked no matter how careful your tread. She had monitored the feeding tubes that delivered nourishment to the thousands of tiny bodies, whose identical hands waved and whispered like pink fronds. She remembered the soft taste of powder coating her tongue and the puffs of warm breath that emanated from the fetal pods.
Then one day her sleeve had gotten snagged in the feed pulverizer. She remembered the white-hot pain, like a blinding noise, and the peel of an alarm, and the feeling of so many metal teeth sunk deep in her skin. There had been many forms to sign before she could leave; many quiet conversations as she breathed in and out of consciousness.
She remembered the officer showing up to her house that evening, with gleaming boots and a clipboard and a silver wire of mustache. He had been friendly, of course. And very professional.
“Sarah?” he said. “Sarah Moore?”
She nodded, clutching at the bandaged stump of her arm.
“Sorry to hear about the accident, dear girl. S’a shame you didn’t pay more attention to the safety procedures.” Glancing at the bandage, he clicked his tongue and made several ticks on his clipboard.
“Th-the blades. They were moving so fast.” There had been others too — Anne, Grace, Marion . . .. “But I should still be able t–”
He held up a hand and she could already feel herself fading into a small memory. In an instant, she had become a loose thread in a tight weave of armor. He would not linger long.
“I can’t stay,” he said quickly. He had not even bothered to bring any support with him. After all, how hard could it be to pull a thread?
Clearing his throat, he continued, “I am obliged to present your options as outlined under Section 3.2 of the Clean Communities Act: ‘All citizens not conforming to the standards of decorum as set out in 3.1 shall, 1: Self-terminate in accordance with the standardized dosage of Atropa Belladonna. OR 2. Undertake in the production and/or processing of the cleansing agent A-1.’”
As she looked at his outstretched hand, a deep plum capsule peered up at her. She had already known the choice before he’d even said anything, but to see it now in front of her was a different matter altogether.
She paused.
She remembered leaving with others in a large truck. Past the streets and lawns. Past the gates and razor wire. Past the ditches and heaving mounds. Past the clouds of buzzing flies. Out to the tangled fields far beyond the city; fields full of black, glistening eyes and the twisted forms that groomed them. The A.G.C. prided itself on never having to hire out its pure citizens as gardeners. They had, long ago, discovered some reliable flaw in human nature.
That had all been two years ago. Long enough for the juices to sponge into her marrow and run into the blood. In a few months, she too would have eyes. She too would flourish as an eternal witness, nodding her head at the steady parade of trucks. Even in death, she would go on to nourish Seraph’s pristine community. For this is how they planned it — there would be no waste. Even of the scoured.
Great metaphors and analogies (loose threads, black glistening eyes, fruit and poison and food). I enjoyed this.