Flawless

It was a Friday; time was standing still, and I held my breath as I waited for my final moments. The clock ticked down, every second felt like an eternity, every movement of the second hand felt like a dagger swiping away the last of my life. I was told that at our final moments we experience our lives flash before our eyes.

I imagined the filth-stained corridors, pipes and conduits stretching for miles, the stench of death and decay. Looking up to the sky to see bars serrated with rust and glinting the skyscrapers with their majestic flawless forms. Stretching upwards into the clouds without an end in sight.

Looking down onto the streets, the officials, eternally corrupt gawked at our plight. Akin to vultures they watch the filth, vermin and lowlifes work to keep the cities alive. Enjoying lavish parties, engaging in sex with whoever they want, whenever they want. Always watching us, and never giving.

I was born of an official unbeknownst to them, they threw away my mother after having their way with her. They injected her with a drug that was supposed to terminate the pregnancy and tossed her in the garbage chute. A man found my mother amongst the trash, he took her to safety and treated the wounds.

The man was registered as a doctor and was aloud to preform surgery, otherwise he would have been unable to touch my mother due to laws and restrictions placed by the officials. No one is aloud to touch someone of the opposite sex or be within proximity of them, to do so would be an offense punishable by death.

He noticed that my mother was pregnant, “Do you want to keep the child?” He asked her. My mother was in and out of consciousness, she spoke to him “please do what you can to save the child.” Knowing where she came from, he administered a drug to counteract the injection. “The child will hate you, knowing where it came from.” She sighed “at least it will be able to choose to hate me.”

With only a year left to live she carried me to term and brought me into the world. From the moment I began to breath, my moments were numbered. Born to a low-class woman I was only given twenty years to live, determined by an intentional flaw in our DNA structure. We are set to expire when our time runs out, leaving a cold lifeless corpse in the wake of an unforgiving world.

The doctor told me, in her last minutes, she knew only love towards me and sorrow that she could not watch me grow up and stand on my own. He took care of me after she passed away, he incinerated her remains with the rest of the garbage. I grew and learned from him, in ways that no one my age could.

He trained me to take after him when he passed away, being a different class, he was able to live twice as long but that did not mean much given his degree took him half his life span to obtain. He knew I could not preform the same work since I was an unregistered birth, and if I were found out I would have been immediately terminated. However, having the knowledge would help me tend wounds and perhaps save someone as he did for my mother.

I learned how to read and write from him, and I was able to use those skills to procure my own identification card through illegal trading, giving me the ability to traverse the city. The system is governed by the officials, but they take little care into the infrastructure or maintenance of the identification system. People slip through the cracks every day; some die early, and their names and IDs are taken and sold.

The doctor was nearing his final days and he spent his time watching the clock, waiting for the final moment. He dwelled over his past and how many poor mothers he had to sterilize “I am glad that your mother made her decision.” He sighed “you have turned out to be a fine subject, don’t forget the life that was given to you and how precious it is.” The second hand ticked down, the doctor’s expression faded, and a final hiss of air escaped his body along with the life that carried me this far.

I was now 15 years old, and the fear of death was unknown to me. I never experienced loss like this, I picked up his body and brought it to the incinerator, taking his ID tag as a memento. “May you finally rest, thank you for your years.” The door slammed shut and the fire engulfed their remains.

A knock on the door, no one was due to come since today was the doctor’s final day. I got up to check the peephole, but I did not have a chance. Keys came to the door, and it opened slowly. A girl, no older than I was standing at the door clad in a doctor’s gown. “Oh, I am sorry did I get the wrong house? These keys will open any door in an emergency.” She eyed me up and down “You are not Doctor Fredrickson, are you?”

“No, he just passed away I moved his body into the incinerator.” I sighed “Oh, I am his replacement, I was due to come dispose of his body and take his job after his passing. Thank you for taking care of that for me, I doubt that I could have done it myself.” No remorse, no change in emotion, like it was a job and he only retired. She proceeded to move through the apartment eyeing all his equipment and personal belongings.

“Where is the trash bin? I need to get rid of his stuff too.” She looked at me and took a moment “Who exactly are you? And who were you to Doctor Fredrickson?” I never thought of it, but I could not tell her the truth, that he was like a father to me, and he saved my life. “I am just a passerby; I was injured in the factory, and he took me in to heal me.”

“You are lucky then.” She spoke. “Most injuries are fatal due to the size and nature of the machinery.” “Do you mind if I start cleaning? “No, not at all.” I averted my gaze and took myself away from the moment, the doctor, everything he owned, taken away in an instant. None of this is right, but no one is going to stop it.

Stopping what she was doing, she sat across from me “You look troubled, do you need any anti-depressants? I can prescribe you some to assist you with your recovery.” “No thanks, I don’t like how they make me feel.” Her expression turned to concern for the first time since she had arrived. “There should not be any side effects. Here I take these all of the time.” Reaching into her pocket she took out an orange pill bottle with round green pills shaking around inside of it.

“It is not that it is a side effect, I like to be able to feel other emotions besides glee, those take away my choice.” I stopped and realized what I had just said, we are not supposed to have choice and it is against the law to question it. She stood sharply and walked towards me grabbing me by the chin she eyed me up and down. “You must have had a concussion or something, you don’t speak like any of the workers that I trained with. How many fingers and I holding up?” She held her hand up and showed only two fingers, her middle and pointer.

“Two, and what happened to your middle finger?” I was taken aback as I realized that she had a black band around her finger that looked like a barcode. “Oh, you probably have never seen this before, I was selected at random to be aloud to give birth once in my lifetime. This is a license for it, and it shows others that have the same license that I can have intercourse.” She sat back down. “I probably wont though, the process of giving birth is so painful and it is hardly worth it.” “What if you don’t have a choice?” I asked sharply, the notion touched a nerve. She was stunned for a moment “I don’t know what you mean.”

“What if an official decides that they want to have a child with you and they don’t give you a choice.” Slinking back into her chair. “I suppose I would feel grateful that an immortal one chose me to have a child with them, it is their world after all, we just live in it.” Looking up to the ceiling she sighed “Maybe my child would have a chance at becoming an official someday, that would be wonderful.”

The thought of someone willingly allowing themselves to be treated as my mother had sent me into a spiral of emotions. Tears welled in my eyes, and I had to sit down. “What is wrong, is your injury acting up?” she stood up and walked over “I can put you out of your misery if the pain gets too great, that is what we are supposed to do.” Stopping before me she looked down onto me, emotionless and without pity. “You are only fodder for the great ones, and to die in service is to die with honor, you must feel so sad.”

She reached her hand towards my head, and I stopped her. Gripping her hand, I looked up at her, “Do not touch me, I don’t want you near me.” Her face now contorted with fear and disgust. “Keep your filthy hands off me! Don’t you know? I am aloud to touch you; you are not aloud to touch me! That is the law!”

“I am going to take what is mine and go, you will never see me again.” I stood to my feet and went to my hovel in the back of his shop. I had a few knickknacks from scavenging and an old memento that was passed on to me by my mother. A small golden heart-shaped locket, I was never able to open it since I do not have the key. Centered in the middle of the locket was a blood red stone and if I stared at it long enough it looked like there was something moving inside of it.

I packed what I could, but I needed to hurry, in the other room I could hear her talking on the intercom, she was reporting the crime and they would be here any moment to put me to death. I stood to my feet and began towards the door making my escape. “Hey, you can’t leave! You need to answer for your crimes!”

“I don’t need to answer for anything, maybe you should start thinking for yourself for once and grow a heart.” The look of bewilderment in her eyes and the twisted contortion of her lips drew me to be live that she was disgusted by the idea. I turned away, and never looked back. Running into the night where the rain engulfed my tracks and left me to the cold, unforgiving shadows cast by the skyscrapers under the moonlight.

I look back now and imagine what would have happened if they did catch me, I have seen public executions preformed on the spot before. The second hand moved closer; I closed my eyes listening to the clock.

Tick… tick…. tick….

The sound sent me to slumber, and I drifted away into a dream, I met a woman who had a warm smile and dirty blond hair. “It is not your time yet my son”

Gasping for air, I awoke to the warm sun.