Heart of Art

Cate tried to rid her mind of what she imagined. Imagination was not allowed.

Anything that did not feed the population or kept them in line had been outlawed since her mother was a baby.

When you grow up in the SSA, you have two options for your career: Farmer or LawMaker. Nothing else is needed, therefore nothing else is available.

After the great flood of ’58 that left three quarters of the world completely immersed in water, food was heavily rationed to feed the remaining population. Farming land was divided across the 50 small islands that made up the SSA; all that was left of a sprawling continent that was once known as America. Large iron tugboats hauled the harvest from one island to another, trying to find their way through the centuries-old debris that littered the ocean. Cate liked the sound of the water but rarely went near it, since it wasn’t uncommon for the waves to belch up putrified bodies of people and animals who were lost in the flood decades ago. The breezes whipping around her island, Island 23, always carried the scent of salt and decay, like rotting seaweed. She wondered what their names were, these bloated and disfigured buoys that were once alive. Where they came from, if they had family, if they were allowed to shop in stores and sing songs out loud. Unlike her.

The Farm-work on the islands was backbreaking and the days were long. LawMakers were strict and even the slightest toe out of line would lead to a whipping. And a whipping could easily lead to a death. She saw it happen before. The LawMakers were very public about it.

There were no changes to be made to this world. If humans were to survive, they had to sacrifice. It was ‘our debt to the next generation’. The slogan was proudly printed on the national flag in bold letters. As if people could forget. LawMakers reminded you of this mantra with every news-broadcast, every start of every school day, every call to work in the fields at 4AM.

But changes were all that Cate saw. Her mind seemed to morph reality into colorful possibilities. When she noticed the clouds, she wondered what they would look like if they were immersed in the ocean, floating near the surface all seaweed-green and turquoise blue, turning the breezes to a sweet rose-scented perfume. And that made her think of what they would look like if they were filled with fish, and how these fish would swim around in the sky as if they lived in giant floating fishbowls.

Cate had thoughts like that all the time. She knew better than to express them. When she was about 9 years old she had made up a little dance, and as she was skipping along the sidewalk, her mother had yanked her aside, slapped her hard, once across her thighs, once across her shoulder, and told her to ‘stop wasting time and energy’. But made-up dances and colorful clouds lived in her head, and they made reappearances no matter how sharply those slaps had stung. Secretly, Cate didn’t mind those thoughts. They distracted her from the life she was living.

Her training as a Green LawMaker (Green: the Order and Safe Streets Department, the only LawMaking level Cate could sign up for as the daughter of Farmers) was brutal and gave her no hope for the next generation at all. If only she could find a way to become a Blue General! She would find her way to the ear of the president, and convince her to change the constitution. Convince her to have it include art and imagination. Perhaps even to convince her to include other professions, and not base the whole society on rigor and law. “What is a life if we cannot live it?” Cate would say. Now, she just felt like the cog of a monstrous machine.

Sometimes her dream of changing the world distracted Cate so much that she failed every test in her training. In these moments she tried to dispel her musings with her mantra: ‘imagination is just combined data collected from opposite sides of my brain’. But Cate could repeat it in her head a thousand times; it didn’t alter the fact that she didn’t believe it. Imagination was magical. Imagination was the bridge between what wasn’t yet possible, to what is.

But today is different. Today had no magical edge to it, today was a totally impossible day. Today was her mother’s funeral.

Because funerals are costly and kept people from their work, two Red LawMakers (Red: the CleanSweep Department) would come and pick the corpse up to burn it in the communal Oven of the Deceased. They would give you a small golden plaque to commemorate the passing of the person, and hand over any artifacts they might have passed on to you. Not many people had any artifacts: starving had the mightiest purging effect on people. Yard sales where pretty much everything in a household was sold, down to their toilet paper, were not uncommon; a meal was much more valued than a clean behind.

But one of the two Red LawMakers gave Cate a small package along with the little plaque that stated her mother’s name and her date of death. The package held a heart-shaped locket. Cate remembered seeing it dangling around her mother’s neck years and years ago, but she thought it had been sold for sure. For grain, for tools, for a pot to cook in. But it must have been concealed beneath her mother’s clothing all this time. It was such an extravagant thing to have - a real treasure.

Gingerly, Cate opened the locket, thinking it would hold a picture of her father, who died before she was born.

But inside was - color. Cate didn’t understand. What was it? She picked the tiny piece of paper out of the locket with the edge of her fingernail, holding it up to the light. Bright hues of ocean blue, gold, crimson and succulent green were streaked across the small surface. It didn’t represent anything. It was just color.

Her mother had kept art close to her heart her entire life. And Cate never knew.

It took Cate a while to find out how, but she managed it. Red earth, oil run-off (stolen during the dead of night) from the mills, bunches of blue flowers, yellow pollen, grey lime stone. Cate ground everything up and made a paste to - what did they call it again? - paint with.

On the side of her mother’s farmhouse, she started to create. Giant green clouds filled with fish. Trees with leaves made out of birds. Her mother’s face with flowers flowing out of her face. As she painted a great sunflower on her mother’s left eye, a rough hand suddenly yanked her of the apple-crate she was perilously perched on. It was done with such force, that Cate flew off her feet and landed with a smack on her back on the hard grey earth. All of the air was knocked out of her lungs, and she swore she felt a rib snap. Hovering above her, upside down, was the tell-tale helmet of a Blue Lawmaker (Blue: the Department of Unforgivable Offenses), Cate’s face mirrored in the gleaming black vizor. In a moment of madness, she reached her make-shift grass brush up and daubed a bright yellow streak across the helmet, before she felt the taser gun set every muscle in her body on red-hot fire.

When the taser gun was released, and Cate’s muscles had gone to jelly, two Blue LawMakers grasped her arms in iron grips and hauled her off to their armored truck. As they threw her in the back - her broken rib screaming, bruises blooming a Dalmatian pattern all over her body - she caught a last glance of her painting. Bright, defiant. Reminding the world of what was possible. And through the blood pounding in her ears and the fear tearing through her heart - she smiled.