Red Sand

I can’t remember much before that day. Many times, I've sat in the darkness, trying. Always, the images rush before my eyes like a speeding train. The lights of the carriage flicker through the scratched-plastic windows, revealing unfamiliar faces that I almost recognise the feeling of. They faces stare back, and I feel like I might remember. Then the lights go out and I am left alone coated in the silent, sweaty darkness.

I remember that day though. I remember almost everything. The red, sticky sand still coats my skin, the dust still chokes me, and I am still left alone.

It is a perfectly cruel trick of the mind to remember the most painful moments of our lives as clearly as possible. Our mind is a hunter of hurt. It will seek misfortune and display its traumas proudly on the centre wall. Eventually they are all you can see. Their ugly broken heads stare back at you with ghostly eyes and broken limbs. The joyful memories are treated like treasure and rightfully buried beneath an unmarked grave.

13th of July, 134th year

I am seven. Woken early by my mother, I stand, upset. She is short with me and tells me to hurry up and get ready. I don’t like it. She warned me this would happen one morning this week, but I don’t care. I am sleepy-eyed and defiant. I shield my eyes from the fluorescent blue glow of the Day Lights that run in flawless, flowing veins through the perfect white walls. My mother rips around the room like an angry wind. She is stuffing canned food into a bag. Why is she ignoring me? I try not to cry. Finished with the food, she turns to the cupboard I'm not allowed to touch. Unlocking it, she pulls out a full duffel bag. Slinging it over her shoulder, she turns around.

“Where’s your bag?” she asks urgently, “It’s still packed like I told you right?”

I gesture beneath my bed.

“Grab it,” she says quickly.

I won’t cry, I tell myself. I grab my little bright green backpack and shoulder it. She grabs my hand, and we walk out of our home. I look behind me as the door closes, as though I knew it was for the last time.

Suddenly, we were pacing down the empty startling white halls of the corridors. We turn left, right, right. Plastic white doors stood at attention on either side of every hall endlessly. Each was marked with a bold grey number. I read them out to myself as we walked, “3421,” 3422,” “3423…”

My mother turns around and shushes me. She continues to tug me along. My resolve not to cry was getting closer to breaking. My lip quivers.

Then we reach The Lifts. A white Peacekeeper stands guard at the mouth of the small barricade set up around the two sets of huge shiny-grey doors. My mother nods at the Peacekeeper, quickly flashing her grey pass card at him from its lanyard. The Peacekeeper gives it a quick glance before nodding in return. The Peacekeeper then gestures silently past herself. We walk through the barricade entrance and wait. I look at the big clock with its bold amber letters. A couple of other people are waiting inside the barricade with us. A man in a large brown coat stares furiously at his watch. Suddenly, a bell dings and the left set of lift doors open. In three long, urgent strides, the brown-coated man boards the lift. Behind him follows the rest of the crowd. I start forward.

“Not us,” my mother says distractedly, as she reaches out her arm to block me.

I was confused – the other set of lifts went down. Why would we be going down? I say nothing though. With a bing, the shiny-grey doors close, and the lift whirs itself away. Then we wait. My mother clenches and unclenches her hands and anxiously taps her foot. Finally, the right set of doors open. Before we can board, a blonde woman steps out. The woman goes to walk forward through the barricade and then pauses. She looks curiously at my mother and me, as though she almost recognises us. My mother smiles at her quickly. Then, grabbing my hand again, she rushes us past her. The woman is still looking at us when the lift doors close. I hear my mother sigh in relief as she loosens her painful grip on my hand. The huge white grey interior shudders before lurching its way down.

“That hurt,” I complain angrily as I rub my hand. I cross my arms sulkily.

My mother turns, startled. She looks at me blanky for a second, before smiling weakly. Here, I think I remember her - black flowing hair and light freckles are set in an angular face. Light green and brown-flecked eyes look out at me gently. Is it real though?

“Sorry honey,” she says as wraps me up in a tight bear hug. I melt into the hug, feeling reassured. “I love you,” she whispers. Her rosy lips gently graze my cheek.

I wish now I could remember how she smelled. It would make it feel more real.

The doors bing open. Suddenly we are on The Ground. She quickly releases the hug. Grabbing my hand once again, we set off. We make for the exit of this floors barricade. The three Peacekeepers guarding its entrance are looking outwards, and don’t even bother turning around to check my mother’s pass card as we walk by. Grey concrete paths spew out from the edge of the barricade like a spider’s web. My mother chooses one decisively and we walk furiously down its length.

I have rarely been on the ground before and everything I see feels unfamiliar. Identical brick buildings with patterned plastic roof tiles blanket the mysterious horizon. I look back and see the two steel tubes of The Lifts rise from the ground endlessly and melt into the blue concrete sky far, far above. In the distance, I can hear a thousand different sounds. Clanging, banging, sizzling, singing, shouting, and whirring. I look up for the source of a steady shooping sound. Set into the blue concrete sky far above are giant pieces of twisted metal. They spin urgently and unsteadily on knobby axes, guarded by rusting webbed grates. Behind them, lay circles of perfect black darkness.

These machines dot the skyline, and as I survey them I spot one that’s not spinning. The grate is swung open to the ground, and something as small as an ant moves around its mouth, suspended by a tiny rope that reaches endlessly across the sky. I realise that it’s a person and my mouth gapes in awe. The spinning metal things must be huge!

My mother turns back to me as she walks. “Stay close to me,” she whispers urgently. I can hear the strain in her voice. I stop looking at the sky and walk closer to her, gripping her sweaty hand tightly. We continue along the grey concrete path. Some people walk past us. Most ignore us, but some stare. My mother steams straight ahead, never giving them a glance.

Without warning the last concrete slab of the path ends, and falls away into a road of rough, packed brown dirt. I look around. The buildings have changed. Instead of the perfect, endless sea of brick, they are ramshackle and patternless. Rough concrete blocks, plastic bricks, and hardened mud. Some of these creatures are more dishevelled than others, made of confusing blends of materials. Metal and plastic sheets and tarps are spun together in small precarious domes.

Eventually I became aware of a sound. It had hummed in the background without me noticing it, but now it was slowly rising in volume. We were moving hastily towards it. Angry, raised voices revealed themselves. The trickle of people moving around us begun to thicken into a stream, and then a river. Suddenly we were at the back of a huge crowd.

I was afraid. The huge bodies of the people of the crowd towered above me. The buzzed and swarmed, like an angry nest of insects dressed in rough coats and worn boots. A pungent smell penetrated the atmosphere. Piss, sweat, and fumes.

My mother bent down to me. She looked urgently into my eyes.

“You have to stay close to me now Ari, nod if you understand,” she says grabbing my shoulders tightly.

I nod immediately. I won’t cry.

She pulls out the heart-shaped silver locket that always hangs gracefully around her neck.

She pauses, looking distractedly past the locket. “Your father gave this to me,” she says in a distant voice. I tug at her hand. She startles and looks back at me. She gives me a weak smile.

She quickly places the light chain over my head and tucks the locket into my shirt. “This will keep you safe,” she promises in a husky voice. Lightly, she touches her forehead to mine, and I see tracks of wet water running down her fair skin. Then she wraps me up in another bear hug. I grab her tightly in response. Don’t cry. Tears are already rolling down my cheek. I snuffle into the shoulder of her coat. Don’t cry.

The world rocks.

I’m on the ground and I can feel the dust and smoke in the air. My ears are ringing angrily. I cover them and feel a sticky wetness. Where’s mum? I blink open my eyes. There’s broken rubble everywhere. People are screaming.

I see her laying on the ground. Her arms and legs splay out in tangled knots. I start crawling towards her. The world shakes again. I see a column of fire from in front of me and bits of concrete and people spin in the distance. I keep crawling. I take my mother’s hand. I yell and scream at her. I shake her shoulders violently as my tears drip onto her face. Slowly, she blinks her eyes open.

“Ari?” she says, confusedly.

I hug her, screaming.

Then the ground explodes and turns upside down. Billowing blankets of fire fill my eyes. My head moves back towards the broken ground.

Blackness.