Dear Diary,
I set my pet rabbit free today. I hope
it will please Those Who Rule Above Us. The other day Mom said this
was the 10th anniversary of the subjugation, though I
wouldn't remember it, being only one at the time. Sometimes, I see
their spaceships, when the light strikes them just right.
I was thinking about them, because I
saw one as I was helping Dad milk the cows today. He was sorting the
chicks for the market. The females went into a basket to be sold,
and the males were deposited into a different basket to be discarded.
Dad says we raise egg chickens, not ones for their meat, so the
males are worthless.
A few years ago he let me keep one, to
raise as a pet. I can see Plucky wandering around the yard from my
window now as I write this. I take care to feed him and say hello
and goodbye when I return to and leave the farm. There isn't much to
see though since everybody except those willing to farm were forced
into the cities. And we aren't allowed to explore the countryside.
Nope, it's right to the city for
school. I talked on the bus the other day with the two boys whose
family runs the farm next to ours. They said most of the classes in
school were unnecessary because they both want to be farmers when
they grow up. One said, “There is no work more noble than feeding
humanity,” while the other brother said he thought the perks of
living on the farm were greater. My father agrees. He's often said
he hates farming, but Those Who Rule Above Us award more food to
farmers. And the conditions in the city are squalid.
We always comment on it when riding
into school. It's obvious where the line between farmland and the
city is. One moment one sees only trees, grass, and fields, but then
a large (though comparative tiny) patch of dirty concrete appears in
the distance, pinnacles of grey rising into the sky. Crossing the
boundary from one world to the other is as noticeable as stepping
from earth into the ocean.
The poor folks of the city, which my
teacher says is about 90% of the human population, are forbidden from
traveling beyond their concrete jungle to the natural one. Instead
they live their lives in abject poverty. Many of my classmates live
in the city and tell me of their cramped quarters. Crammed into
rooms just big enough for a family bed, with a TV on the wall, they
spend most of their time in crowded common rooms. There they are
constantly rubbing shoulders with others as they access their
obsolete and decaying computers...
Elsie paused her writing to scratch at
her tattoo. It had changed during the night. No one knew how Those
Who Rule From Above created or altered the tattoos, or what they were
for. Each one was unique and so complicated that the best scientists
hadn't discerned any meaning.
Not that they had the tools to do so.
To a large degree society had continued on like it had in the past.
But her dad often compared humanity to the animals he farmed. He
would say that, “Those Who Rule From Above have neutered humanity,
just like we've done to our livestock”. She didn't appreciate the
comparison, just like she didn't approve of the practice on her
fellow creatures. Those Who Rule Above Us had curtailed humanity's
development by removing and restricting many modes of scientific
experimentation. What little humanity had, they used to try to
understand the Risings.
Elsie remembered her first witnessing
of a Rising. She was four, standing in the yard, playing with her
older brother. There wasn't a pause. There wasn't a noise. It
certainly wasn't cinematic. One minute he was tossing a ball to her,
the next he was rising into the air, limp and lifeless.
Those Who Rule From Above took anyone
and everyone. She'd heard stories of parents, teenagers, men, women,
children, and babies beamed up. No one was certain they were dead.
There was no way to tell who would be picked, and those who were
selected rose so fast no instrument could ascertain their condition.
But they looked dead. The populace wondered if the death, if it was
death, was painful or peaceful. One fact was certain, most of those
selected were between the ages of thirty and fifty. Aside from
those older than sixty before the subjugation, almost no one made it
to that venerable age under the oversight of Those Who Rule Above Us.
Elsie sighed and put down her pencil.
Technology was decaying all about them. Those Who Rule From Above
produced the necessary implements for transportation, housing, and
food, but the rest of humanity's favored products were no longer
available. Humanity no longer operated factories, and the internet,
cell phones, video games, and other modern products that existed were
the remnants of a decade earlier.
Elsie climbed into bed and slept.
She was pulled from her body and rose,
glimmering into the sky. Through the roof her soul soared
illuminated from above. The trees, the hills, the mountains, and all
life fell away as she ascended into space. Hovering beside the
spacecraft of those who ruled from above, she took little notice of
them, but it seemed that they directed her gaze back to Earth. She
saw that it had become like a pen, inflicting the mistakes of
humanity back up at her. She cried aloud...
… And woke up.
She rolled out of bed, dressed, and
walked out into the yard. It was dark, for the sun was hours from
rising. From there she stole silently to the great barn where her
father kept the pigs. She went from pen to pen, unbinding them and
leading them into the yard. She herded them out of the yard and into
the woods where the trees grew tall.
“Go,” she whispered and walked back
to the farm.
Though the ground was freezing cold on
this April morning, but Elsie began to work. She toiled and and dug,
planted, and sowed. After a few hours at her project, the beginnings
of a new bean field, she looked up at the sky and smiled. “Thank
you,” she said, “We must go and work our garden.”
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