The Little Girl in the Blue Dress

“Rubbish.”

The man shook his head at the little girl in the blue dress. His dirty hands pushed back the various collected objects with disgust. He turned back to his workbench in the tiny shed, and continued to sort metal shards into cracked coffee cups.

“Not even one credit?” the little girl in the blue dress replied, holding back her tears. She tried as hard as she could to look strong and not show emotion.

The little girl had spent all morning in the wastelands collecting anything she could carry in her bag to be sold. The new currency was metal, in almost any form. Her small hands could reach into machines and pull out the wiring others could not. And many of these wires held treasure greater than the many mechanical beasts that lay slain across the land.

All afternoon, the little girl in the blue dress painstakingly stripped off the wire plastic coatings using her teeth. Being young had other advantages than just her size – for her lost teeth would soon be replaced. But not all wires were worth the same, and some cut away at her gums leaving a taste of metal and blood in her mouth. One time, the cut from a wire went deep, and for a week she laid in bed with a fever, being fed a musty orange drink and bread that would otherwise have gone straight to waste.

And other than the risks of returning empty handed or falling sick, each outing to the wastelands carried great risks, and eventual consequences. The little girl in the blue dress knew this well. Though the fighting was now far away, most of the people she had known in her short life scavenging had fallen. Mostly from an exploding mine, or at times impaled by an improvised trap.

Like her mother.

Today, though, all the little girl had suffered was more rips to her blue dress. Almost in tatters now, it was still her favourite dress. A shade of blue different to the rest of the world.

“You got gold? Copper?” the man barked at the little girl in the blue dress.

The man shook his head again at the little girl in the blue dress, then bent towards her, opening his mouth as far as he could.

“See that?” he spat in her face, “That tooth there is gold – find something that looks like that, and you can have more than enough credits for you and your family.”

He flicked away the metal pieces before him, “This junk is not even worth the trouble of melting down. Sorry my lass, but energy ain’t cheap no more since the flares!”

Devastated, the little girl in the blue dress shook slightly, keeping her face as emotionless as possible. She slowly walked towards the window and looked out at the changing sky. It would soon be dark, but perhaps she still had time for another wasteland run. Without these credits, there will not be enough energy for the night. And this time of the year was the coldest. Although it was a small building the little girl in the blue dress dwelled in, most of its inhabitants were old and frail - unable to fight, work the fields or scavenge. Every credit mattered.

The little girl in the blue dress turned and bowed her head in practiced false respect and turned to walk away. The low sun beamed in through the shed’s windows and shone off her neck, a golden shine that contrasted heavily against the dull blue glow of the room.

The little girl in the blue dress did not notice this strange glow as the old folk in her building did. She would sit late at night listening to their stories of the old days, where the blue was in the sky and seas alone. Before the flares from the sun that flooded the planet. That, in their wake, changed the world forever, and as a parting gift left all with a subtle shade of blue. Like the world suddenly wore tinted glasses they refused to take off.

A firm hand gripped the shoulder of the little girl with the blue dress.

“Hey now!” his eyes shone with greed, “That there on your neck. That looks like it would be worth quite a few credits!”

The little girl in the blue dress, no longer able to hide her emotions, clutched at the necklace around her neck.

“No! You cannot have this!” she cried out, “I will be back with better treasure than this for you, just wait!”

The little girl in the blue dress tried to break free of the man’s hold, but he was too strong. The man laughed and ripped the necklace from the girl’s neck. The gold chain whipped away from the neck of the little girl with the blue dress - a golden locket falling to the stone floor.

"Well, what do we have here?” the man smirked, pushing back the girl. He bent down to pick up the fallen prize, seemingly oblivious to the shouting and swift movements from the little girl in the blue dress. Oblivious to the metal bar she swung wildly in the air.

As the man fell, memories flashed before the little girl’s eyes. So close to losing her most prized possession. More valuable than a hundred blue dresses. It was the last thing her mother gave her before she passed.

To remember what was.

The mother told her child with her last breath. The little girl with the blue dress kept that heart-shaped locket hidden, but against her skin, and close to her own heart always. She dared not open it, for she did not wish its precious contents to be lost.

Horrified, the girl saw the locket had broken open on its fall.

The man, lying prone on the ground on his stomach, opened his eyes. Still stunned by the blow to the back of his head, his eyes were fixated on the open locket.

The heart-shaped locket gleamed in a beam of sunlight; a neat V engraved onto the front. Inside the locket were the preserved remains of a flower. One the man recalled instantly. The tear that ran down his face may have been due to both memory and pain, but he looked up at the girl with a renewed sense of loss.

“That… that flower. I used to have a garden full of them.”

He began to cry, “But to see it now, like this, is too much.”

The man just laid there and sobbed. The girl, shocked for a moment by the display of emotion, grabbed the necklace chain from the dusty stone floor, and carefully picked up the heart-shaped locket and the escaped petal pieces, holding them close to her chest.

“I… I am so sorry. Who… who are you girl?” the man asked. Through the sobbing, his voice had noticeably changed, to a tone much like the old folk back in the little girl’s house. Defiantly, the little girl in the blue dress took a step towards the door and glared back at the man who tried to steal her prize.

“My name…” the girl began. She cleared her throat. It seemed so long since she uttered her name. The name her mother gave to her. Named after the flowers that grew across the countryside. The flowers that painted the landscape in her mother’s favourite colour.

The same vibrant colour as her dress and the delicate dried petals she held in her hand.

“My name is Violet.”