Ignacio's Locket

Ignacio’s Locket

A Heartfelt Gateway to Liberation

Zzzzzzhhhh….zzzzzzzhhhh. Wide-eyed, Iggy looked up in confusion. The yellow lights on his metal bracelet were illuminated and flashing quickly.

"Guys, the yellow light has gone off on my wrist device!”

Meghan, Rodney, and Violet stood up in unison from the steel living room couch, a look of absolute terror on their faces.

“What does that mean?!” asked Meghan, the eyelids of her brown doe eyes blinking rapidly.

Iggy shrugged. “I don’t know; they must—”

ZZZZZZHHHH, ZZZZZZHHHH. The yellow light began to flash faster.

Violet and Meghan shuddered as they heard a bionic knock at the door—a certain sign that one of them had done something wrong. Then -- three more bionic knocks:

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!

Stoically, Iggy announced, “I’m going to answer the door.”

“Yeah, Iggy, open the door now!” Rodney pressured.

Iggy cracked open the door. Like a dance of light, two government agents threw a cloth bag over his head, handcuffed him, and tossed him into a nearby “government kidnapper van.” The van sped off, its tires burning rubber with an overwhelming scent of petroleum. Destination unknown. Nonetheless, Iggy felt as if he had been injected with a dose of amnesia-- forgetting any memory of where he was, and why he had been kidnapped..

He had been taught that there was no sun and no moon—yet he would swear he could feel an ethereal Earthly warmth around him. Although he was truly terrified, he also definitely felt a sense of wonder. When the van came to a final stop, Iggy was escorted into a building after the cloth bag was removed from his head.

The building was the type of architectural masterpiece only seen in old, tattered history books. English teachers insisted that these magnificent buildings were only fiction and never existed in real life. And yet, there he was, inside one of them.

“BARCODE!” yelled a frumpy agent who had a furrowed brow, and a barcode stamped on his face.

Bewildered, Iggy showed the agent his bracelet, which contained his barcode. He felt terror as he took notice that he was surrounded by officers who had phones for ears. It was a sight that chilled him to the bone.

Two metal doors suddenly parted. The guards manhandled him into a holding room that had walls that were completely filled with safety deposit boxes. One of the guards’ ears began to ring aloud. He gestured to Iggy, pointing to one of the boxes.

“Your Grandmother Jean has died. Open the deposit box, now!”

Iggy was handed a steel key. When he inserted it into the key slot, the entire box flew out of the metal wall. The contents were ejected, prompting the guards to immediately confiscate currency and diamonds. A rusty, heart-shaped locket was part of the “treasure” in the box as well.

The guard tossed the locket at Iggy. “You can leave now. We have everything we need.”

The guards dumped him back at his home, where Iggy’s friends were waiting for him eagerly. He showed his friends the mysterious locket; they were more than intrigued.

“A locket?! Oh, may I see it, please?” asked Violet, cupping it in her hands. She looked like a child seeing a doll for the first time.

“Give it here!” snapped Rodney, snatching the locket out of her hands.

Meghan rolled her eyes and playfully wrestled with Rodney before grabbing the locket. “It’s a piece of junk metal—nostalgia never existed.”

Iggy was exhausted: “Look, I’m very tired. Good night, all. Make yourselves at home.” He summoned his mechanical dog. “Come on, Nina, time to go to sleep.”

The friends fell asleep on the couch, with the locket between them. They tugged at their metal chain blankets, to keep them warm by the hearth. Their bracelets were beeping grey to monitor any movements during the night.

Zzzzzzzhhhhh. Iggy suddenly woke up. “What now?” he moaned, rubbing his tired eyes. Then he noticed something. The locket was glowing! It was illuminated in a bright pink color, vibrating with what seemed like a heartbeat’s cadence.

Suddenly, a swirl of cotton candy-like ribbons emerged from the locket, which burst open, throwing diamond-encrusted dust into the air.

‘Wake up, ya’ll! LOOK!” exclaimed Iggy loudly to his three friends.

They roused themselves quickly, staring at the clouds in amazement. After the diamond dust settled, the locket remained open. But remaining there was a key and a map.

The friends huddled together reluctantly. Meghan picked up the map and ran her nails over it, tracing over what appeared to be places on Earth that she had never seen, not even in any secretly watched movies or books. In the society they lived in, books were forbidden -- as were movies, unless they were approved by the government.

“Wow! Look at this! Look at these portals marked with elevator symbols,” shouted Meghan.

Violet put on her glasses. “This sounds crazy, but I think I know what the symbols mean. My uncle used to be in the military. He told me once that, in order to divert attention from the enemy, the soldiers would take elevators to underground places that connected to each other, and if someone had the key, they could escape to a different land,” she explained.

Iggy scratched his head. “Well, the locket gave us the key. Now, we need to find an elevator.”

“I think we should all stick together and venture out to find an elevator. Violet, you take the map. Iggy, you carry the locket. And Meghan, you take the key. This way, the guards will have a hard time figuring out who has what.” suggested Rodney confidently.

Together, the four friends moved outside under the starry night, holding hands. When they did that, however, their barcode bracelets started to flash yellow. Zzzzzzhhhh, Zzzzzzhhhh.

Alarmed, Iggy slapped his hand over his mouth. “Too late! They already know.”

“Where is the nearest elevator on the map?!” Violet cried out, her eyes frantic.

“Um, you guys, we better make a move right now,” Iggy said, pointing at a massive group of guards marching toward them, their silhouettes glowing. “The nearest elevator is two streets over, under the sewer manhole.”

The leader of the guards suddenly produced a large megaphone. “Attention! You minions---hand over that locket!”

The friends stared each other for all of two seconds before dashing off together—their bracelets going wild with flashing yellow lights and screeching alarms.

“Run for your lives!” shouted Rodney. “Go! Go! Go!”

With the locket in hand, Iggy took off at a fast pace. Violet was close behind him, holding the map, with Meghan clutching the key close to her heart.

The regimen of guards picked up speed, in hot pursuit of the fleeing friends. “Hand over that locket!” ordered the leader of the guards. In the blink of an eye, the regimen became a group of relentless zombies—their faces distorted. They banded together into one huge, blurry mess of barcodes. “Give us that LOCKET!” they screamed.

Breathless, sweaty, and terrified, the friends ran as if the Earth was crumbling beneath them. They found the manhole, and, counting on their adrenaline, ripped off the manhole lid and descended downward. They could now hear the crescendo of the regimen. And the light emanating from their bracelets was so bright, they could see everything inside the underground tunnel.

Meghan shrieked, “Oh, my Freak! Behold an elevator right there!” Shaking like a leaf on a willow tree, she held out the key. The ground above them began to give way because the weight of the guards’ heavy metal boots stomping around was more intense than an earthquake.

“Get in the elevator NOW!” yelled Iggy, the locket burning brightly in his hand.

Like a stampede of buffalo, the four friends raced toward the elevator and piled in frantically. Meghan shoved the key into the key slot on the panel. Every hand pounded frantically on the elevator floor buttons.

“Give us that LOCKET!” The zombies cried, sprinting toward the underground elevator.

The locket began to glow so intensely that Iggy was forced to drop it. When it hit the floor, the elevator began to shake so hard, the friends braced themselves for a massive impact. The door finally began to shut, but not before the lead guard managed to stick his head into the elevator.

“Give me that LOCKET!” screeched the zombie guard, his entire body now a barcode with flimsy vertical black-and-white stripes that blazed, as he desperately tried to keep the elevator door open.

The locket was now on fire! In one sweeping motion, Iggy grabbed it with all of his power. He struggled with the pain of having been burned by the locket, simultaneously managing to scorch the barcode zombie with it.

Screaming in agony, the zombie flew backwards from the elevator onto the ground. The doors slammed shut, and the elevator jetted off like a rocket, breaking through the underground and catapulting the friends into another dimension.

When the doors finally opened again, the friends collectively gasped. What was before them was amazing: A town unlike anything they had ever seen in person. The air was clean, there were beautiful green trees, many people were riding bicycles, but not one person seemed to have a bracelet or a barcode. One by one, the friends exited the elevator.

“Where are we?” asked Meghan.

“It looks like we may have traveled back in time, you guys,” said Rodney, astonished. “The locket—it brought us here.”

“Oh wow! Look! Is that a---bookstore?!” an amused Violet asked. “And look over there! Is that a movie theater? Holding hands and skipping along, the group joyfully made their way through the town. Meghan gasped. “That store right there looks like a place where we can get some ice cream!”

The situation was perplexing but absolutely delightful, for in their usual world, ice cream was forbidden. In fact, any food was forbidden unless it was shipped in a metal box from the government; ice cream would melt inside the metal. There were no Earthly pleasures allowed, including the right to drive, the right to vote, and the right to get medical help. People were not allowed to listen to music unless the regime approved it, nor could they talk privately on the phone or take a walk without being tracked.

But here, in this alternate universe, anything seemed possible. Iggy scratched his head. “Guys, I don’t want to go back to Dystopia. I mean, things here are just so wonderfully liberating. I mean, maybe we should go back and tell everyone that this place exists,” he said. “We need to tell our loved ones about the incredible power of the locket.”

“I second that notion,” concurred Rodney. “I mean, we need to tell our parents for sure, though.”

Suddenly, a very familiar voice was heard behind them. “Iggy! Iggy!” called the sweet voice. The group spun around and were even more shocked at who it was calling. It was Iggy’s grandmother!

“Grandma?! Granny, is that you?” a dumbfounded Iggy asked, sprinting toward an elderly lady with grey bouffant hair and glasses. “It is you! How can this be?!”

Iggy’s grandmother embraced him with an overwhelming sense of love. “Do you think I would ever truly leave you? I knew when I became sick, that I had to leave you the locket, knowing you could travel to another dimension where no one gets sick, there are no forced vaccines, and we are free,” she gently said. “Now you know how to get here, and I urge you to stay, but first deliver the locket to someone else with the key and the map.”

It was on that day, under the candy-color clouds and the beaming warmth of the sun, that the four friends made a pact to go back to dystopia, two at a time, to warn others of how truly dysfunctional life was for them there. They made a pact to bring others with them, and they eventually followed the pact. And every time the elevator doors closed, they would say aloud, “Pass the locket on.”