The Free City

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. As she peered out into space, she then got up and headed to the bathroom. She placed her wedding ring in the same place she always had for nine years. Collette Kincaid was twenty-seven-years old and possesed features of a woman warrior or a fashion model. It could have been a mixture of the two. Opulent white high cheekbones and a soft jawline completed the symmetry of her face. She employed herself as a cryptocurrency analyst. Upon washing and toweling off her hands, she slid the wedding ring on her finger. She also donned her purple hijab, a must in every part of the state except Newark. This, though, was Wilmington, Delaware, 2057.

Her husband, Barry Kincaid gathered his belongings. He looked like he could play as a quarterback on a football team. He had a sharp, angular face. He was six-feet-five inches in height. Oil-black skin wrapped around his bones. He worked as a sculptor. He smashed all of his unfinished works in the apartment, never to see them again.

They had no children despite marrying rather young. He zipped up medium-sized satchels. He counted out his money like a banker. After stashing the cash in his wallet, he concentrated on getting Collette prepared.

Her mind was screaming with excitement and a mixture of longing and curiosity. In her thoughts, she deduced that the next few moments would alter her life for the better. She had never been out of the apartment since the world changed. When the final edict for women to wear head coverings in the city of Wilmington passed, she decided to protest by rarely coming out of her husband’s room. She had her own room but with no window to gaze at the people on the street.

Kincaid also experienced thoughts that both lifted and grounded him in a full swing of the pendulum in his mind. He felt a cool sensation in his thinking, like the efficiency of getting ready for their trip offered him an ability to plan, to think long-term. A sense of accomplishment unachieved stayed at the forefront of his mind.

“Collette,” he called from the living room.

“Yes?”

“Come here, please.”

She wore a purple head scarf. It was the perfect specification for the law of the land. She also wore a gray loose sweater and a tan Manteau.

Kincaid wore a black and gray tunic and a kufi. In his mind he dreaded the idea of having to wear such garb. His thoughts shredded the clothing to pieces. A sinking feeling came over him. He dreaded seeing his wife forced to wear anything she wished not to put on her head and body. He wanted to tear up her attire as well.

“Are you ready?” Kincaid asked.

“Yes, dear.”

“We should be there in just a few minutes. The train leaves in an hour. It won’t take us that long.”

It didn’t. The station was about a quarter of a mile away from their apartment. Through temperatures in the twenties and steady gusts of snow, they stepped out into the bleeding cold.

They trekked in silence. Their minds replayed just how to present themselves in this novel situation. At the crossing where the street gave way to the station, Kincaid had no trouble carrying Collete and his own bags.

She shuffled along with her arms folded. The precipitation was like powder frosting a concrete cake. Upon arriving at the train station, they immediately headed towards the front desk.

“How much for a one way trip into Newark?”

“That will be sixty dollars,” the teller Stephon Mattingly said. He kept his chin up in the air. Barry used his phone.

“It appears that the payment method has been declined,” Mattingly addressed.

Barry used his other card on his phone.

“That’s been declined as well, sir.”

Barry pulled out a wad of one hundred dollar banknotes. He placed one of them on the counter.

“Keep the change,” he said. Mattingly’s eyebrows raised.

The couple then sat down together. They held hands. Barry kissed Collette’s ring finger.

Their minds performed like smartphones; they processed and calculated and measured the events of the day. Soon, they would breathe freedom in the smaller city.

Barry sat back with an impending sense of satisfaction. Collette felt a bit of anxiety but smoothed it out with some serious self-therapy. Not a prayer, but a mantra streamed through her consciousness: liberty, liberty, liberty.

The time came to board the train. They seated and the thoughts of emancipation bubbled up to the surface of their minds. Collette smiled for the first time in a long time. Barry grinned. He laid back and placed his arm around his wife.

Then, the lights went out completely. In the darkness, a voice rang out and red lights lit up like illuminated stop signs.

“This is the Morality Council. Passengers are disallowed to venture to anywhere outside of the city of Wilmington. You will be prosecuted if….” Kincaid got up, grabbed the bags and Collette followed after him.

“We’re going to have to hail a car,” Collette informed her husband.

“That’s right,” he said, catching his breath. The vapor looked like steam from a kettle.

She ordered a driver to pick them up from the station.

“We can go back in there and wait in the warmth, now,” Collette suggested.

“Of course. We just have to lay low,” Kincaid admonished.

When the driver had arrived, they both piled into the car, bags in hands. The coordinates for the apartment they bought online. The car started. Again, husband and wife just knew in their souls that they were escaping an oppressive regime that was confined just to one city in Delaware. Collette looked out the window at the passing traffic and noticed that the driver had taken a turn off of the exit.

“Wait, wait! Where are we going?” Collette asked, a streak of worry rising up in her voice.

“I’m an officer in the Morality Council. I am returning you two fugitives to....”

Kincaid saw that the doors were unlocked. He held onto Collette and opened the door and kept her and the bags in his embrace. They rolled over to the shoulder and into the snowy brush. Because of the storm, the car was moving slow enough for them to exit without certain death or serious injuries.

“Are you alright?!” Kincaid asked his wife.

“I…I think one of my ribs is broken.” Kincaid pulled out his phone.

“Yes, my wife has potential injuries. We are located at the Delaware House Travel Plaza.” They were about ten minutes from the site on foot. It maybe was a bit longer with Collette’s apparent wounds. They, nonetheless, found it within themselves to challenge the snow. A random car might pick up hitchhikers, Kincaid thought. He made sure Collette and the bags were secure. Next, he flagged down the fifth car driving into Newark.

Sandler Downs stopped his vehicle. He was dressed in similar garb as Kincaid.

“Let me take those bags,” Downs insisted.

Kincaid aided Collette and gently placed her in the car.

“Where are we going?”

“The… Travel Plaza,” Collette said in between breaths.

“I’m headed away from the Wilmington morality laws, too.” Downs put the car in motion.

In the short stretch of time between the place where they were picked up and the Delaware House, Collette’s thoughts were like signals announcing pain. She held in her mind alleviation from her possibly broken rib. A hot, searing sensibility was in her body but also plagued her brain. Was this driver to be trusted? Would they find themselves in the clutches of the Morality Council? She breathed cautiously.

“We’re here. Anything will help,” Downs chimed.

Kincaid paid him two hundred dollars.

“Thanks! Let me get those bags.”

“Thank you,” Kincaid said. “Maybe we’ll meet up in the only fully Free City of Newark.

“Our wives would love each others’ company. Again, I appreciate this gift.”

“Absolutely,” the two men shook hands.

The couple walked into the Travel Plaza. With bags still in tow and an ailing wife, Kincaid ushered Collette to a seat at the coffee shop and ordered two espressos.

Collette nursed her side. Her mind felt the pangs but she mainly focused on the freedom at hand. Kincaid’s thoughts soon registered that he had at least attained one goal of getting to Newark. Now, he just needed to ensure that Collette would be in good health.

Out of the corner of her eye, Collette saw red lights flashing against the walls from the glass doors of the Plaza.

“I think that’s a sign for me to get up,” she said.

“No! Let me help you,” Kincaid said.

“I’ve got this,” Collette said. “Darling, you’ve paid for so much. You saved my life. Things could have been much worse.”

“Alright, don’t go too far,” Kincaid said, running towards the EMS worker.

The professionals strapped her in but not too tightly. They went outside to the ambulance. Kincaid stood over his wife.

“You’re forgetting something….” Kincaid pointed out. The purple hijab still clung to her head. Collette snatched it and flung it to the ground. It twisted around and got caught up in the wind and snow and blew far off into the distance.