The Brilliance of Pearls

You are my sunshine,

My only sunshine,

Now you're gone dear,

But I'm still here.

There is a moment when you first wake up when you have some peace. You mistakenly believe the world is still the same. That moment doesn’t last long. Your eyes open, the peaceful moment passes, then grief falls on you like a monster. It settles over every part of you, smothering you, choking the life out of you, weighing you down, crushing your heart again. You can’t breathe. Tears begin to sneak out of your eyes, despite the fact you were only able to fall asleep because you had finally cried all your tears. Somehow the morning always brings more tears. The peace you felt for two seconds was brutally ripped away again. Day after day after day you wake up, wishing you hadn’t.

I used to have a peaceful life. I was good at my job. I helped people. I had a precious little family complete with an adoring husband, supportive mom and dad, but most of all, the most spectacular daughter. Sometimes I lay in bed at night and pretend that I am back in my condo on a Saturday morning, lying next to the strong man I called mine, waiting for the moment our daughter bounced down the hall to come climb in our bed. My husband would wrap his arms around her, growling as he pulled her up. “Wake up mommy”, he would coax. Then she would place her tiny hands on either side of my face, loudly whispering in her tiny voice, “you ’wake mommy?”

That was before the Reform. That was before the Party wrecked the world. When they rose to power, they destroyed nearly everything in their wake. It started as a political move. They were elected to positions legally. They took over very quickly. No one can figure out how it all shifted so fast. One year life was perfect. The next year everything had been crushed. We had a log cabin on some family land in Tennessee. Before, we had used the cabin to get away for a week here and there. My husband was in finances. I used to be a doctor. In the end, the cabin kept us sheltered from the turmoil for a while. It did not last. It did not last and my life was destroyed.

Most of humanity now lives in chaos. They scrape together an existence from what is left. Entire parts of the country are nothing but rubble. If you live in these areas, if you stay hidden from the roaming drones, and don’t look like you are forming any sort of banding together to survive, they might not kill you. Farming is difficult. The workable land has all been claimed by the Party. It is heavily patrolled. Safe water is scarce. People who choose not to come under the control of the Party are constantly starving, sick, weak, and die at alarming rates.

Before the Party was responsible for my family’s death, I had heard of the five stages of grief. Let me just say they are true, but not the way you are led to believe they are true. Sure, you are raging with anger today; however, tomorrow you may be crippled with depression. The five stages of grief want you to believe one day you will come to a place of acceptance. Healing. What they fail to mention is that you bounce around from stage to stage like a freaking pinball in a machine. You are here one week, there another. It isn’t a straight road where you go from one to another. The path is not:

1. Denial

2. Anger

3. Bargaining

4. Depression

5. Acceptance

Wouldn’t that be nice? That assumes at some point I could come to a place where I can accept my loss. That is a steaming pile of shit. I think one day I will be able to breathe again. One day the pain will lessen to a dull hum. The weeping will dry up, replaced with a tear of loneliness or the swell of sadness, longing for moments missed. I doubt it ever turns into actual acceptance. How could anyone ever be ok with something so gut-wrenching? How could anyone be ok with having so much stolen from them? I never will. My daughter was innocent. She was ripped from my arms, brutally killed in front of my eyes while I screamed in a voice that came from some other place.

All I have now to remember my precious baby is her heart-shaped locket. My mom gave it to her the day she was born. I keep it in my pocket. This is one of the only things I own that was mine before the Party destroyed our lives. Throughout the day, I reach in and touch it. I run the smooth, cold metal between my fingers. I trace my fingers along the heart shape, rounding the corners, digging the pointy end into the tip of my finger. I wind and unwind the chain around my index finger. I picture her tiny, chubby face. I remember her captivating smell. I think about all the happy moments I had with my family.

Usually, this brings on the burning, hot pain in my chest. Remembering what I lost, what they took from me, is the only thing that keeps me going. I have a plan. I am going to destroy them. I no longer care about anything else. They took my baby from me. They took her smile. They took her happy dance. They took the funny songs she made up and sang for me. They took her messes and her snuggles. I plan to take everything from them. I have been working to put this plan together for the last three years. My plan and the locket. That is what I have now.

These past three years I have put twelve members of the Party to death. Always meticulous about how it is done, never using the same method, I never leave a calling card or any other identifier. Those are games I cannot afford to play. Crimes are not dealt with the way they were before the Party. There is no Constitution. There are no real laws. The only people who still live in homes that resemble the old days are Party members or their servants. I hope to destroy the entire Party.

Of course, there are men and women working to fight against these insurgents in more traditional ways. There is the war. There is the civil unrest. They win a few battles here and there, but they are also found and killed by the hundreds far too often. They have banded together to fight back. I applaud them, I really do. I hope they ultimately succeed. I feel I can reach higher in the circle on my own. They fight the Party’s armies. I assassinate Party members. My methods are far more effective. It does bring me solace to know there is a rather large group out there fighting back. Good for them. Given the opportunity to feed them information, I make sure I do. Since our reasons for rebellion are quite different, I won’t join them. They want to save the world. I want to burn it all down.

The man I plan to kill next is the first member of the Inner Party that I will have successfully reached. Fourteen careful months I have been diligently laboring for this moment. Standing directly in front of his doorway, I slow my breathing, stop my hands from shaking, smooth my hair down, and close my eyes for just a moment before I proceed with asking to be allowed to step into this man’s home. Inhale. Exhale. My hand instinctively reaches for the locket tucked away in the pocket of the black dress I am wearing today. The dress hugs my tall curvy frame perfectly. The hem stops mid-thigh and when paired with the low heels I managed to find, it made my legs look sensual without being over the top. Flawless. I complimented the dress with a single strand of pearls, a reminder of the pre-Party days.

The pearls are something Circle Members would own. Only the elite would wear something so rare. Finding them was quite a treat. Little details like these can really solidify a plan. I was simply giddy a year ago when I removed them from the delicate neck I had just slit. She was another member I had killed. The pearls did not get terribly messy somehow, even though the rest of the room, including myself, had been wrecked with the spurting, sliced artery. I could still see her eyes, wide with fear and the knowledge of impending death. She surprised me when shad grabbed onto me while the blood fled from her body. It made me really watch the results of what I had done to her. I stared heartlessly when her mouth opened as though she might ask me a question. There was no time to ask. No breath in her lungs. Her body began to slump at my feet almost as soon as she had become cognizant of what had happened to her.

I cannot stand in this doorway forever. I must move forward. Mr. Beaumont was waiting for me. There were so many more members to deal with and I was excited to finish this step. My slender, graceful arm reached out to press the bell. Once again, I nearly smoothed down my hair. Catching myself, I took a deep breath instead. I must not appear to be scared. No fiddling. There could be no outward signs of nervousness. To pull off this particular assassination, I had to utterly become the character I was pretending to be right now. So, refraining from touching my light brown hair that was put up in a low ballerina bun, I allowed confidence to fill my frame and forced boldness to show in my eyes.

A swift opening of the door and there he was.

"Ms. Winter, I presume?” His eyes grazed over my body. The ensemble was working. It had drummed up the feelings of excitement and arousal I was hoping for. His eye settled on the strand of pearls that draped around my long neck. He noticed. The sight of them calmed him. He would be delightfully distracted just long enough. This was already going so well. A coy smile spread across my lips. I allowed him to guide me inside his home with his hand on the small of my back. As I stepped over the threshold I knew, this man had just sealed his fate and my revenge. Winter had come indeed Mr. Beaumont.