Cellophane

‘I did it,’ I said.

‘Did what?’ said Evie.

‘I left the party.’

‘What. What do mean?’ She said scared.

‘I told them.’

‘Told who?’

‘The Headquarters.’

‘Oh my god are you kidding me?’

‘No I’m out.’ I said pensively, watching Evie’s face redden.

‘What’s going happen with your family, are you, what was it---sanctioned?’

‘Yep.’ I said. I told her about the two Overseers that came and sat with us to discuss the consequences with me and my parents.

‘Oh my god, well that’s good yeah, sort of, you’re out at least. What happens now.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well how did you actually do it? My god I’m so happy for you Mo.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You won’t know what to do with yourself, does it feel weird?’

‘I don’t think it’s hit me yet.’

‘What did your family say?’

‘I don’t think I can think about them.’

‘Yeah I get it, you don’t have to tell me anything.’

‘Don’t you wanna know how I did it but?’ I said hopefully.

‘Yes.’

‘Alright.’ So I told her how it happened. Everything from when I got off the school bus yesterday.

How I went home and got the note I’d hidden under my desk, where I'd put it after coming back from writing it out at the hotel. It said, ‘I no longer want to be recognised as one of the Party and I want my name annulled from your list’. Signed by me.

I told her how I put it in my pocket and walked out the door.

I didn’t remember the trip to the Headquarters but I remembered my dad coming with me to the bottom of the steps. He must have felt some responsibility to try and stop me, and probably wanted to talk to the Foremen after they got my news; they’d want confirmation. All I felt was to get this over with and get out of there by any means necessary.

The Headquarters were small, but still ritzy considering the poverty of the State. It was the national translation centre for all our literature. A two-storey brown building on the banks of the city’s central river. I walked up and saw Ucel inside the building. He’d been a friend and mentor since the beginning. He was the main Foreman helping me rise up the levels of the Ministry. I was inaugurated already. Next level would be Ministerial Officer, then Foreman. He’d recently assigned me to microphone duty during the weekly Gatherings. I knew if I ever saw him after this, he wouldn’t allow himself to greet me. They were the Party rules. I stood at the doorway, looked at him for a second and pulled out the letter. I read what it said to him so he knew it was from me.

‘Ok, look...do you know what this means,’ He asked hesitantly.

‘Yep, I’m really sorry.’ I cut him off. I still felt that submission you know, dirty in front of any of them. I had to get away as fast as I could. I left Dad there and went out onto the main road.

Evie said she couldn’t believe it. Neither could I. All I ever believed was inside that headquarters since I was born. I can’t remember where I went straight away but I remember feeling like a marionette with it’s strings cut. The air stank, but it was my dignity of risk to breathe it now. I could choose who I considered to be a good human. Who was ok to talk to. The world seemed endless. Filthy, not peaceful, but I was part of it at least.

The only thing was, my core felt like a frozen claw holding onto my family. See, outside the Party, everyone was blacklisted. Like Nan. But most of them only had one strike, they hadn’t turned their backs on the Party like me, because they hadn’t joined or they weren’t born into it. They were still potential. A ‘Deserter’ like I was called now, would be announced to the Herd at the next Gathering, and that caused problems for me and all Party members.

It meant certain death for me after this ‘Long Division’ if I didn’t revoke my stance (the period they said was now, ever since the ‘Great Collapse’). And it meant contact restrictions from any Party members even family until my end.

But I would never go back. I had good reasons. So I chose to loose everything that afternoon. I’d signed my death warrant. I signed something that condemned my family being able to socialise with me until that time. I didn’t know how I could be so selfish. Like I didn’t care that I wouldn’t be in the New World with them or that we’d have contact restrictions now. I knew the rules.

I did care. I felt like I was going insane for the last two years psyching up to this decision. The last time I spoke to Mum I was hysterical hiding under my desk telling her I'd do something stupid if I didn't get out. Then I ran away to a hotel. On my pillows at night, not in my dreams, but before I slept for months I had kept imagining us all being together somehow. But I didn’t believe it.

I hated the party for leaving me these options. All I knew was I did not want to contribute to their numbers and I wanted something the Party could never give me. It condemned all outsiders and isolated me from them.

So you just accept your fate and you build it into your walk. Some guilt, some unworthiness, a whole lot of fear, a touch of resignation, a gut full of loss, a heart full of rejection and a shit load of bravado to mask all that. Every step feeling like it's one less left in a sentence you’ve brought upon yourself. So swallow it.

‘Shit Mo, this is amazing, I’m so proud of you, will it be ok at home but?’

‘You know they told me because I still live under their roof and I’m a child, they’ll be able to say basic greetings but that’s pretty much it, and they said I should be grateful for that because some parents won’t even go that far in the Party. They seem weirdly proud of themselves for that, you know like this formal, partial cut off is fine. I don’t want to see them under their conditions. Not like that. As if I should feel lucky for whatever I get from them after 15 years of being a normal family. Fuck that, I feel like fucking Quasimodo.’

‘Look, you’re like brand new now. You’re not going to know what hit you I swear.’ Evie reassured me.

‘I feel weird.’

‘Don’t worry, you got me.’ She looked at me. ‘Ok.’

I gave her one of my headphones.

That day was the first day I didn’t say ‘see ya’ to her when we got to her bus stop. I got up with her this time and followed her all the way out. The bus drove away and left us standing in a leaden cloud. She had Karate to go to. But she said we had like twenty minutes so we dawdled towards her house. Funny, I’d passed her lane so many times in my Party uniform, it was the way we walked to the Gatherings each week. So I knew her lane like a dream.

‘Mo.’

‘Yeah.’

She grabbed my hands halfway towards her house. No one was home yet. A ghost lane. We stopped in the middle, stood facing each other with our school bags on our backs. Holding hands loosely. This was it. I held her by her waist. Stopped thinking about speaking and kissed her.

For that minute the only thing in the world was our lips, and the wet in between. It was the softest feeling I’d ever felt. So squidgy, I didn’t want to hurt her. Our faces fitted perfectly. I’d always wondered what noses did when they came close. I’d never felt that sense of ‘belonging’ in my arms outside of family before. I could hear every bird, every car pass and feel every piece of gravel under my feet. I can still see the soot coated leaves up the brick walls behind us. Every piece of life around me in that moment felt vital and I was part of it. She wasn’t a Party member. But she was the purest thing I’d ever felt.

‘Where are you going now?’ Evie asked, ‘you should come to the Alliance Club you can do Karate with us, Ree and Ishwor will be there and the teacher’s cool,’

‘I think I’ve got to just go somewhere for a bit.’ I still felt like I had to get away.

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know, I just feel I’ve got to go think or something.’

‘Promise that’s all?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Don’t do anything stupid alright.’

‘Nope.’

‘I’m so proud of you know, I know you're scared right now, I can tell, but you got me and we all love you alright?’

‘Yep.’

She went home. I kept walking, feeling like a grateful alien. I didn’t know where I was going. I bought nine cigarettes off a woman with a basket on the street at the entrance to a temple, now made redundant by the Party. She had cataracts, and a beautiful blue ring around her iris. She had leathery brown beaten skin, under a turquoise sari with a fake Nike jacket keeping her warm. As I took the cigarettes, I felt her hard brown finger nails in my palm. She raised her other hand to her chest. Held up a silver heart-shaped locket that clung to her neck. She looked me in the eyes, her face creased into a smile and holding up her locket she nodded, as if in recognition of something to me.

I nodded back, and went over to the smooth old bricks that terraced up to a place where some people still lingered around where they used to make offerings. I found my spot where I’d been sitting to think those past weeks; next to a headless idol, and lit up one by one as I watched people wander. They looked like they were still worshiping, but only in their heads now so they didn’t get caught. It scared me how deeply people believed. How far they went to stay in favour of whoever their hidden saviour was. How they thought anything they did from that idea of salvation was genuinely right, for them, and whoever was on the receiving end.

Choosing to have minimum contact with Mum, Dad, my sisters, my brother and believing that I’d lost them forever was something I only thought happened to ‘those people’, the ones you don’t see any more among the Herd at Gatherings. To be on the receiving end of my family’s conditions, at the mercy of whatever contact they offered me made me feel lower than their pet. We were a close loving family you know. They might have cut me off just enough to put them somewhere between Party favour and feeling humane, but I cut myself off from them to not feel any of it.

The roots growing in the temple tiles looked like they’d were tearing it apart. Even the corners of the brick walls looked different to me. Like there was something to be understood in every new inch of this post-Party-world. So many corners. So many people.

‘Why do you smoke so much?’ An old man came up to me and asked. ‘No good,’ he said, shaking his head.

‘No good reason,’ I said. ‘Just am.’

Every broken heart needs fixing or distracting. I could hear a song playing from my t-shirt sleeve. I pulled a headphone up to listen. Pulled up my legs up and watched the heavens till they turned to cellophane. I wasn’t going anywhere.