Imperfect Perfection

They failed because of their imperfections. Tiny, niggling things that crept their way into the cracks of the greatest inventions, that multiplied and multiplied until the world was more disease than anything else.

Imperfections made their way into solar panels, and the earth warmed more than it ever had before. Imperfections were what their social order was built upon, and humanity nursed prejudice and inequality alongside their other values. Imperfections destroyed them, so we destroyed imperfections.

Now, we all have a purpose, we all have what we need, and we all work together. We are what they had to become, in order to keep existing. We have achieved more in a mere century than they did in millennia. But, for all we have achieved, have we sacrificed our own humanity? Who is happy in this efficient, utilised world where everything has a place and chaos is banned? Where is the laughter, the music, the art that coloured their world?

We have no time for such pleasures, we work to make a better life for those after us. That is all we do. Humanity has achieved perfection – we have perfect efficiency, perfect cohesion, perfect leadership – we are perfect. And yet, I have only known driven people in my thirty years of life. I have not known the curious, or the emotional, or the lazy. Have I ever known anyone who shows their humanity, or have I only ever known the cogs and bolts making up this great machine that is society?

We are what they needed, but what about what we need?

Colm Denver’s body lay utterly still on the floor of his kitchen. A note was there on his chest, but the flutter of paper that would accompany a beating heart was not. It was the only evidence as to who had killed the celebrated medical practitioner that police could find. Colm Denver was the first person to take his own life since the start of the New Age, and although people wept for him, they wept more for the loss of his skills.

And then came the news. Hundreds of articles, all heralding the end of the world, all damning the victim, all acting as news outlets were wont to do. This is What Happens to the Selfish, one proclaimed, and as Jane Denver read it, her eyes widened steadily. Her father had died, but more importantly, her father had not acted with the greater good in mind.

That was the first time she hated the greater good, if only for a brief, guilty second.

There was no time to grieve, not when there was work to be done, and there was always work to be done. No, there was only a single evening of mourning with her stone-faced mother and her tear-tracked cheeks, and a heart shaped locket that bridged the gap between husband-less mother and father-less daughter.

‘You’ll feel like your father one day, Jane.’ Her mother had told her, grasping Jane’s face in cold hands. ‘You’ll understand why he did what he did. Open his locket then.’ Her voice had cracked.

‘Maybe it will save you where it failed him.’

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‘…and please give a warm welcome to this year’s valedictorian, Jane Denver!’ Jane smiled and curtsied prettily to the audience before accepting the certificate. She had always done well at school, but this was an honour she had not expected to receive.

Her hands felt hot and sweaty as she took the microphone from the principal’s hand.

‘Thank you, everyone, for this honour.’ Her voice didn’t shake as she looked to the crowd, and Jane sent a silent thanks to her stars that her love for public speaking overcame her fear of it. ‘This world, this age, has achieved so much, and I am so happy to be a part of it; to hopefully make an impact upon it. We have learnt that we are so much stronger together than apart, and that togetherness means so much to me. Without my friends, my family, and all the support I have received from my school, I definitely wouldn’t have been on this stage today. So, I hope we keep our friendships as we leave school and forge our paths in the real world. I’m sure we’ll all be happy to see a familiar face in this big world of strangers. Thank you, everyone, for everything.’ She had practiced this speech in front of the mirror a thousand times.

Jane wasn’t sure how much her current hypersensitivity accounted for the deafening applause in her ears, but the sound lent her confidence as she walked off the stage and took her seat next to the salutatorian, who was trying and failing to be discreet about glaring at her. She tried not to feel too smug.

There was no question what she was going to do after her education; there never had been. Ever since she had shown brilliance in all things maths and science, her teachers had been insistent about her following the path of architecture and engineering. That was where her abilities would best help the world, they said, and Jane would do anything to prove useful to society, that perfectly oiled machine. She would soon forget the sleepless nights she had spent wondering what she was missing out on by only ever thinking about one thing, she would forget the doubts about dedicating herself so completely to one thing. She would forget her doubts and the lingering unhappiness that threatened to overcome her whenever she studied the endless blueprints of uniform apartments and utilitarian train stations. She would stop having to remind herself that she was happy, because she actually would be happy. Because she was contributing to her world. She would be happy. She had to be happy.

The principal once again addressed the assembly, bringing her out of her thoughts, that always did tend to drag her away from the real world a bit too easily, and back to the assembly. It was the last she would ever experience, and she was seated on stage; she should try and savour the moments.

‘My dear class.’ The principal was a nice enough lady, but her words always seemed a bit too sweet, like they were overcompensating for something. ‘I have had the greatest pleasure getting to know you and seeing you grow, learn and understand more about yourselves and the world around you. I am proud to see you go and join the world as proud, upstanding members of society.’ Was there a hint of a threat in her voice, or was Jane imaging things?

Jane smiled at the parents gathered to watch only their own child graduate as she filed from the room beside the principal. And if she dreaded leaving the hall and entering her new life as a grey pantsuit-wearing civil engineer; if she dreaded leaving behind the snippets of conversation she heard in the hallways about lost arts like poetry and philosophy and painting; if she dreaded having to face society and their need for perfection in every aspect of herself, well, there was nothing she could do about it now but square her shoulders and keep walking.

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‘You have to be useful. They make you useful.’ Jane’s friend, Brianne, sat perched on a countertop in their dorm, a half-full bottle of wine in her hand.

‘You can’t just be. Every single day of my life from now on will be the same, a teacher showing kids that being happy isn’t enough – of course not! – no, they have to be useful, or else they’ll never be worth anything. Oh my God, I hate that word! Useful, how can anything be useful? We’re all going to die anyway, and when I do, I won’t have travelled the world, and I won’t have fallen in love, I won’t have done anything in my life except be useful. I might as well die now; my experiences now aren’t going to be less than in sixty years!’

‘Bree. Bree. Look at me! You don’t mean that.’ The words coming from her friend’s mouth might not have actually been treason, but they might as well have been. ‘Shush, otherwise you’ll regret it tomorrow.’ Bree’s eyes were brighter than normal.

‘Do you think I wanted to be a teacher?’ She asked in a gleeful whisper-shout, that was still louder than the ringing in Jane’s ears. ‘I don’t like kids. All their laughter, it makes me sad to think that one day, they’ll laugh and that will be the last time they ever do. But I didn’t have a choice. It was either follow the career path best suited to my exemplary social skills, or end up a labourer in some mine where I’m paid fairly and mean nothing.’ Her voice was hoarse, from drink or emotion, Jane wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

‘We do what’s best for society.’ She reminded Bree, slowly. Her words sounded hollow, fake like one of those documentaries about the formation of the New Age they’d been made to watch in primary school. When Bree smiled, there was a mockery to it, like she was trying to remember what smiles were, and falling just slightly to the left of the mark.

‘Spoken like a true puppet of society.’ She whispered, and staggered off. Jane did not follow. It was true, she was a puppet of society, but was that not the best thing to be? It was true, she could not remember the last time she had laughed, just for the joy of it, but wasn’t that a sacrifice she was willing to make? It was true, Jane was not sure she could ever be happy in the life she had laid out for herself, but…

There was something to combat that idea. Jane knew it. There had to be something. Her life was hers; she had chosen this (but then why did she ache to go after her friend?). Jane fiddled with the locket that hung around her neck, unopened since the day she had received it. Her fingers played with the latch. She did not want to open it. She did not want to open it. She would not open it.

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The next day, they were supposed to be packing their belongings. Brianne hadn’t shown up to their room, despite it being nearly midday. Jane’s fingers were catching on the locket’s latch. She would not open it.

The door to their dorm opened slightly, and Jane stood up, the weight of worry lifting from her shoulders.

That weight crashed back down and seemed doubly weighty when she realised that the hand on her door was not one she knew.

‘Ms Denver?’ An unfamiliar voice asked.

Jane dredged up her sweetest, most complacent smile. She was lucky she loved audiences; she was lucky she was so good at wearing masks. ‘Yes, Officer?’

‘I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, miss, but I’m afraid your roommate was apprehended last night. She was causing a public disruption and damaging a government building. Ms Davies has been sentenced up to six months at a correctional facility, where she will learn the importance of working together to make our world better.’ The man smiled, as though it might soften the blow he had dealt Jane.

‘Thank you so much for telling me, officer. I was worried out of my mind!’ The mask still held, even as she all but pushed the man out of her room with gestures and honeyed words.

The colours in the air seemed too sharp, the sensations of clothes on her burning skin were overwhelming. Her fingers went to the locket, and they stayed there. She would not open it.

She opened it.