The Struggle Itself

The bell continued its shrill call for a full 180 seconds and just like that, the office that only moments before had been alive with the rhythm of determined fingers pressing identical buttons, lay abandoned and silent. During work hours there was a predictable shuffle of diligent workers, in corresponding grays, each bearing the embroidered symbol of the Bureau. Yet for all their careful synchronicity, they rarely spoke with one another. The purity of true silence was a welcome rest for this literary factory that otherwise bore the noise of carefully enforced speechlessness.

MX swiftly made her way out of the building, passing the austere windowpanes that were the façade of the Department of Archival Mediation. Just like the other dull buildings in that sector of the city, the windows weren’t connected to the rooms inside. That would detract from the intended productivity of the workers.

If her neatly laced Municipal-issued Nubuck shoes were to leave a trail, footprint-by-footprint, of how MX made her journey, they would show that she followed the same route every day nearly matching her own footsteps. The line would see her rounding the corner, away from the Department, and down the long avenue that led to Residential Area 89 where she spent each night.

Each evening at 17:15, her course took her to the Area 89 café. She scanned her consumption card at the door and sat down at the counter waiting barely a minute before the Tender set her carefully prearranged dinner in front of her. He had dark hair, neatly parted, and he rarely lifted his constantly shifting eyes above the level of the countertop, as though always searching for a spot to polish away.

“The struggle itself is enough to fill a man’s heart”

The words of the day’s assignment wandered through her brain as she watched the Tender rubbing fiercely at a smudge that she couldn’t see. She’d read that phrase many times in her texts; something could ‘fill your heart’ or an encounter would ‘leave one’s heart full.’ She wondered longingly what that felt like, whether her heart had ever been ‘full,’ whether she’d know if it had.

MX snapped out of her musings and remembered that she felt content to fill her quota and that must be a comparable sensation. Anyway, it was enough. It was wrong to expect anything more.

At the same counter, three chairs down, sat an older woman; her shoulders turning inward with years and a shock of white hair in a tight bun on the back of her head.

MX had seen her many times, but this time instead of her usual concentration on the tan, textured wall in front of her, there was a small paperback book between her fingers that held her attention as she chewed absent-mindedly. MX glanced at the title: The Man of Monte Cristo, and a quiet gasp escaped her lips. The book was one she herself had re-imagined and worked at for weeks.

It wasn’t her place to feel gratification for something that was an accomplishment of the Bureau, but she couldn’t help glancing over as the woman read, trying to distinguish whether she was enjoying it, whether she appreciated all of the careful substitutions that had been made to render the story what it was always meant to be.

MX started at the sound of the 17:45 bell that indicated her time to be finished. She was so focused on the lady, (who now seemed somehow elegant and full of good taste) that she’d neglected to eat most of her meal. She felt a twinge of regret at leaving it behind, but the bell would not be ignored, so she stood and joined the stream of diners exiting the café.

She didn’t remember ever being told that she was to arrive at the Area 89 café at precisely 17:15 and leave at precisely 17:45, but she’d been doing it as long as she could remember. They all had.

She saw the tall man in his worn cap reach up and touch the awning with his right hand as he passed under it, just as he always did. That woman with her tight curls had already rushed ahead of the others, per her usual. MX didn’t know their letters, but she was accustomed to their faces and their habits in a way that reminded her of something she’d read about in her assignments: family. She’d read about families eating together. There was something warm and pleasant about the thought, though she understood clearly why she was never to include references to such in her completed texts.

Family meant that sometimes people would leave the task at hand for the sake of somebody else. There was no consistency, no efficiency in that. Besides, sometimes fathers weren’t there or mothers failed to raise obedient children. Family meant disappointed expectations and conflict. No, the Bureau was the best caretaker. With the Bureau as both mother and father, there would be no distress, no poverty.

The alarm came sooner than she wanted the next morning. She sat up, switching off the buzzer that had no need of a clock face. If you heard the signal, you already knew the time. She was surprised then, as she walked out on the landing, that the door across from hers was closed. The letters ‘KR’ were painted in neat gold letters on the door just as “MX” was painted on her own door. KR was a woman perhaps ten years older than MX, who generally came out of her room just as MX did at the start of each day.

MX thought KR’s absence curious, but it wouldn’t do to delay her own routine.

But KR’s was not the only face missing from her day. Her walk down the avenue, usually so alive with other workers, was completely vacant. It was a new kind of silence to see Area 89 so unoccupied. And a new kind of disquiet rose inside her as the streets continued to gape wide open and empty. She passed through intersections and by side streets and began to wonder if they were all wrong, or if she was.

Just as she thought she might go back, hoping to return to the expected, she saw something out of the corner of her eye. She turned and was shocked to find a dog on the sidewalk ahead, staring back at her. She’d seen dogs before, the Patrol used them, but this one was different. It was small and tawny instead of black and threatening. Inexplicably, this one’s look felt somehow comforting.

They stared at each other for a moment. But then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the dog turned and began to trot away. Her feet were moving after it before she realized how much she needed to know more. It turned and weaved down unfamiliar streets, and she turned and weaved straight after, ready to follow it anywhere. She had nearly caught up to it when it veered around the edge of a building, and she rounded the corner and lost sight of it. Her eyes darted about, searching for the animal, but somehow it had gone.

She leaned on the wall suddenly dumbfounded as to why she’d indulged such an irrational behavior to begin with. She found herself in a long alleyway between two large, cold buildings with three steel doors on each side of her. She glanced up at a clock above the doors on her left; the numbers glowing green, the digits indicating seconds moved in their constant rhythm. It took a moment to realize that the readout was 6:29. No wonder she did not travel in her usual current of commuters. She wasn’t meant to be in transit until 8:15. Why had the alarm in her room sounded? She’d never been outdoors at this hour and indeed shouldn’t be.

Just as she determined to trace her steps straight back to her quarters, the doors opened on both sides of her and people came pouring out, barely acknowledging her unusual presence there. None of them were in uniform, and something felt muddled and crowded about the way they shoved past in their collage of surprising color. She turned this way and that, trying to find a way out of the current when all at once she felt a large, calloused hand grasp hers. She felt a rush of warmth at that touch from a stranger. It felt different than the accidental brushes she’d been feeling continuously since the doors had opened.

“Only for you,” a male voice close to her ear whispered.

She turned stunned, looking for the face belonging to the voice, but whoever it was had already released her hand and been swallowed up in the crowd.

In the deafening silence the last of the strangers left behind, MX opened her hand to look at what had been deposited there. It was a small, heart-shaped trinket on a chain; a “locket”. It was a word she’d only read; never heard in practical use and she’d certainly never seen one. If this really was like the lockets in the stories that she corrected, it should open. She glanced around before sliding her thumb nail into the tiny crack. Inside was not a picture or a lock of hair, but a small rectangular drive—the kind she used in her work from the audio archive. Their drives were pristine and sleek. This one seemed older and was a vibrant blue rather than the standard-issue gray.

She felt sure this must be some sort of error.

She wasn’t meant to be awake at all, let alone out of the house, let alone someplace where this outsider, who was clearly not a citizen of the Middle City, could find her. He must have mistaken her for someone else. This little gift must have been intended ‘only for’ some other ‘you.’

Turning it in to the proper authorities was the only suitable course of action. The problem was explaining how she’d come by it. They could perhaps excuse her alarm for sending her off at such an early hour, but it was humiliating to imagine describing to an Overseer how she’d gone off course to follow the morning stroll of a stray animal. Not to mention that it would savor strongly of criticism to admit to such an animal in a city that guaranteed occupation and accommodation for every inhabitant including those on four legs.

She determined that she would at least listen to the drive before submitting it through the proper channels of report and disposal. She didn’t want it to implicate her in some way that she wasn’t prepared for.

She arrived at her cubicle having gone back to her quarters and restarted her day at the intended time. She had encountered KR as she always did and with their standard hint of a smile and nod, they both shut their doors behind them as though this day was like any other.

She had to be alert as she gingerly removed the little drive from the folds of her tunic. Its blue color shown obnoxiously bright against the backdrop of the workspace that she’d never noticed was so dull until now. She inserted her terrible treasure into the input on her control panel. She knew that any passing eyes would immediately latch onto the unfamiliar color so she kept her hand carefully over it.

The receiver was against her ear and she tapped twice on the screen to begin playing the contents of the mounted drive. Her mind raced at the possibilities of what she might hear when a voice finally broke the hum of ambient recorded noise.

“My name is Meira Nicolette and I’m here with my family at the end of what has been a perfect day---”

MX dropped the receiver, making no effort to stop it from bouncing up and down from its short, spiral cord.

The voice on the recording was her own.