eighteenth birthday came with pitiful glances and awkward smiles.
At twenty we get married and it’s at times like this I hate the Virtuous way. Mom won’t be here to help me. She won’t be here to see who will be chosen for me.
I have the same green eyes as Mom and I’m on the shorter side, built small just like her. No amount of growth spurts are going to help with my length, at least, I don’t think so. I wish I had her dark hair it’s the one thing I didn’t get from her. She was beautiful.
I sigh and shove the memories away, tucking them deep in my heart. In just a few more months I’ll be married. I hope that will finally make the people realize I’m not ‘little Jai’ anymore.
I pull at my collar. The fabric is still hard from not being worn. I kept it especially for today, the seventh day of the seventh month, the day the bus comes around to pick up seven of us. It’s time for us to go wait outside like the rest of our neighbors, to wait and see who will be given the honor of becoming a Crusader. They call it an honor to be chosen, but I’m not so sure about that.
Dad is safe from being chosen, and so am I. We know we won’t be chosen. Mom was already chosen from our family. Only one per family, they said.
I get up to leave, taking one last look at my reflection. My eye catches the portrait of Mom, it’s the only one we have of her in the house. She is smiling up at me from where she’s sitting in a rocking chair, holding me as a baby. I take the portrait out and tuck it gently in my shirt’s pocket. At least this way she’ll be close to me today.
On my way out I glance through our living room. We never changed it after Mom was chosen, except for the glofish Dad brought home from work for my nineteenth birthday. They swim around aimlessly in their small tank. Every night I watch them as darkness sets in, their colors shining brilliantly. When they swim together and their colors blur, I can almost imagine that’s what a rainbow would look like. Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to live in their confined world. Then there are nights it feels like I’m on the other side of the tank and they are watching me – I’m the one living in the confined world.
~*~
“Everything will be all right, Jasper.”
Dad is standing by the front door with his back turned to me. We don’t get to talk much, with the late hours he works. But I know he loves me. We have each other to come home to, we are still a family.
“Yes, Dad.” I feel I have to say more to make him feel better, but I have no words of comfort to offer. Instead I take his hand and walk out onto our porch.
Now the waiting starts. Normally I’d be getting breakfast ready for us, before heading to the seminary for my lessons. In just a few minutes everything will go on as normal. I will still be here and Dad will still be here. I’ll go back inside and make us some oats. We’ll eat and I’ll go to my classes, Dad will go to work and everything will be fine. It will be another normal, boring day.
Next week I will write my assessment. It’s where they decide which part of the Ecocity I will be integrated into. If I study hard enough and show I’m worthy, I will get a good position. Maybe I can even become a Curer. I got a good grade for my first aid class.
But, someone else’s life will change, all because the Virtuous feel it’s their duty to send seven Crusaders out each year - into the Dissolutes’ Ecocity - to at least try and see if there are still people worth saving. Thus far none have returned. You’d think after years of no one coming back, they would realize it’s not working. Surely all those people can’t all still be trying to convert the Dissolute?
Our Ecocity abides by way of the seven virtues since the wars have ended. I’d say live, but I wouldn’t go that far. No one is truly alive around here if you ask my opinion, but I wouldn’t dare say that out loud. If someone dares go