The Wall

Dear Anyone,

If you are reading this, they have finally got me. Those Honchos finally tortured me to death, or I caved and was no longer useful to them. I hate the idea that I was not able to do more, but someone has to know. For years, they controlled us, molded us into their little brainless puppets. They still are. They took over so slowly, so subtly, that we had no idea until it was too late. I may sound a little mad, but growing up like this, surrounded by these monsters, I would be crazy not to be going mad! I hid myself from the Vints for 4 years! 4 YEARS! They had no idea that I was right under their nose! Then, well, I got egotistical. I pushed things too far. I WAS SO NAÏVE!! They found out about me and I got marked black and, well, once someone is marked Black, there’s no hope, is there?

My name is Sarita 133573. I was born to Autumn 74835 and Jules 94736 in the dry season. As of right now, I am approximately 19 years old and I am flagged as Black. My domicile is located in the east-north section of City. We are being controlled by the Honchos, or the Higher Ups. They control everything from what color our clothes are to what we have to eat to who lives, and who dies. As of now, the remaining population is around 50 000 and it is decreasing a little each day. I wanted my story to be heard by everyone, I wanted to free everyone.
Depending on the time frame, my world may differ from yours. Those of us who are left are categorized in five groups and a given specific colored depending on our class. Those who are Drudges wear a yellow band around their arm or neck. Drudges are the lowest class and they are the manual labor. They build houses, clean, pick-up garbage. Next are Abettors who are detected by wearing a green vest. They are the people who live to help or serve. They are the doctors, nurses, store clerks, mailmen, anyone who does something to help another living person. Advocates are supposedly here to protect us from what is outside the Great Wall. They wear a blue hat and are next in the social class. Next and previously mentioned, Honchos are those who are in control. They are viscous and cruel. They appear to always dress in a black suit, have a red tie and women wear a red undershirt. Everyone is assorted in those 4 categories at birth, after the Procedure, based on class and wealth. I began life as a Drudge but I fully intend to die as a Duress.

Duresses, or threats, are not based on class, family or wealth. One is not simply born marked as a Duress. The Honchos explain the Duresses as “horrible, deficient human beings with no sense of pride, purpose or honor. They only want destruction and power. They must be stopped!” but, with what I know, I consider it an honor! Once flagged as a Duress, or marked as black, the person is forced to be completely dressed in black, if they are lucky enough to live that long. Depending on the charge, some Duresses are lucky enough not to be Collected right away. They are removed from their domicile and forced to live on the street and beg for food.

Like everyone else, right after Autumn gave birth to me, I had the procedure. It is what the Honchos call it when they take the meaning of life away from you. During this time, they asses the child and determine its health. If there are any irregularities, whether it is physically deformed or mentally disabled, the child is immediately discarded. Then they operate, which is performed by a specifically trained Honcho. During the operation, if you decided to believe me or not, they remove your imagination. They remove the part of you that makes the choices, that becomes inspired to do something other than what you’re told. They remove what makes you unique. The general population believes the Procedure is only to make sure the child is healthy, but I know the truth. To my disappointment, I was not able to find how they do this. This secret was so heavily guarded, that not even I could not find it. After the operation, the child is then branded with a number on their left shoulder. The number depends on the place and time of birth, social class and what their future job will be, hence my name Sarita 133573. After the procedure, the children are placed in the infirmary and returned to their guardians after 3 weeks.

My life began like everyone else’s. I began school at the age of 3. School consisted of arithmetical, printing and reading. Nothing more and nothing less. Every day, I got up at 7:00, put on my school uniform, ate eggs and bread and sat until 8. At 8 I would walk to school alone which took exactly 20 minutes. When I got to school, I would go to my cubby, get my books and sat at my desk until 8:35. My books would be piled one on top another at the right top of my desk and I would have two perfectly sharpened pencil ready and white eraser on the top right. At precisely 8:35 the teacher would enter and the school day would begin. Children are not required to wear their color, but every child would be dressed the same in black trousers and a white long-sleeve shirt. Every child would act a like, say identical things. Every child was the same. Every day was the exact same.

Every day after school, I would walk back to my domicile at 16:00 which took exactly 20 minutes again. I would do my home lessons every day and every time the lessons took 25 minutes. After home lessons I would do chores. First dishes, then make beds, dust, sweep then finally mop. At 17:30 every day, Autumn and Jules would be back from work and begin supper. Every time, supper would be meat, potatoes, peas and carrots. Supper would be finished by 19:00 and then I would travel up to my bedroom and sit on my bed until 20:30. At 20:30, I would lie down and go to sleep. In the morning, my day would start all over again. During the day, there was minimum social contact between me and anyone else. At school, I talked to no one. In school, I only answered questions in union with everyone else. At my domicile, the conversations were always the same; during meal time, Jules would ask me how my day was, it was always fine. He would then proceed to ask Autumn the same and it was always fine. Everything, every time, was always the same.

One day when I was an adolescent, during the dry season, something different happened. I do not know if I was chosen by some mystical being, or if it was just by luck but after that day, I was never the same. I was walking home at 16:00, like normal, took the same route, like normal but I was thinking, thinking really hard. This was not normal. I cannot remember what use to be one my mind when I was one of them, one of the zombies. I know that it was nothing significant. Earlier that day, for the first time, I was having trouble comprehending arithmetical. I was, detached, if you say. So, while walking back to my domicile, I was not paying attention and just kept walking. I just walked and walked and walked. Finally, I tripped over the unfamiliar terrain. I got up and had absolutely no idea where I was. I knew I was somewhere in the Dur-Grounds, where the Duresses roam. I knew this because the pavement was not kept up and there were no domiciles around. This caused a feeling to arouse that I had never felt before, anxiety, fear, worry, whatever it is you call it.

This new, exotic feeling welded up in my chest, slid down to my toes and covered every millimeter of my skin in chills. I let a gasp gently out of my mouth and the only thought that entered my mind was “strange.” Then right after, due to the conditioning that I grew up in, the peculiar thought and bizarre feeling vanished. I stranded up and looked around. I found that a few meters to the east of me was the Great Wall. The Great Wall is the only thing that separates us, the incoherent citizens of City, from everything else. There are specially trained Advocates to guard the wall and, as a child, I always found it odd that the guards would stand inside the wall, facing towards City. Now, I know it’s because they were not protecting us from what was lurking beyond the wall, but they were stopping us from getting out.

This was the first time I had ever seen the wall. It was three stories tall, and made out of dark, grey bricks. In this particular spot, the wall had begun to crack and fall apart. Without realizing it, my insolent feet had carried me closer to the Great Wall. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. It was so eccentric, so old. I put my hand up and touched the rough edges of the bricks. It was getting late, the sun had went down so the Great Wall had casted a shadow across the rocky grounds. Just as I let my fingers skim across the wall, I noticed a crack in the wall. It was a bit further up than I was tall and big enough for a slim hand to fit through. I do not know what compelled me to look through the crack that day, but whatever it was, I am eternally grateful. I slid up on my tippy-toes and I was just tall enough to see through the crack. The wall must have been at least three, four feet thick and what I saw on the other side sent a shock wave through me head to toe and put me in utter awe.

The City does not have nature. There are no trees or flowers. No bushes or weeds. There are lawns but they are made up of synthetic material that only looks like grass. There are not any animals or birds in City. I am not sure how they manage to keep the birds and insects out, but they do. The Honchos always said there was no reason for trees or flowers or animals inside City. They said that it was a waste of space and to mess for our speckless settlement, but what I saw that day was unconditionally delicately marvelous. For the first time in my life, I saw a butterfly.
When I first saw it, never had even seen an animal, I had no idea what it was. It was too beautiful to be a monster, but so alienated to be comfortable with. Its wings were neon blue, outlined in black and twice the size of its body. It was sitting on a dark, rough looking branch which made its wing glow even more. This may not sound like a big deal to you, but when I saw this butterfly, something clicked inside my head. It was like someone turned a light on in my mind. Colors seemed to be brighter and things that I had never thought of came to mind. I felt lighter, like everything in the world made sense. I felt like I was a new person, because I was. Whatever it was that those atrocious Honchos had taken away from me at birth had grew back inside my mind. I felt complete.

I was so memorized by the butterfly that I did not hear the footsteps that proceed towards me. I was oblivious to everything else until the Advocate standing behind me tapped me on the shoulder. I was so startled that I jumped three inches in the air and squealed like a five year old. All Advocates look the same to me, dressed completely in blue from head to toe, but this one had an especially mean look to him. He had dark blonde hair underneath his blue hat and coal black eyes. He looked at me with those lightless eyes like he wanted to wrap his sausage fingers around my neck and squeeze until I was lifeless. Instead, he just stood there. I, scared mindless, just took off running. I do not know why I ran, it must have been the new found life inside me in control, but I ran faster than I thought was ever possible.

I could hear him yelling and racing after me, but there was no way I was going to stop for him. I ran down the uneven street, across a very large parking lot, around an abandoned emporium and straight into a Duress. I had seen Duresses before from a far, but never up close. This Duress was a young man, about six feet tall, dark brown, curly, short hair, vivid green eyes, and, at the moment, looked like he had not had a bath in five months and smelled like he hadn’t had one in eight. He was dressed all in black and looked as startled to see me as I was to see him. He then heard the horrendous Advocate yelling after me. He looked down at me again and, to my much surprise, he nodded his head towards the other abandoned building behind him and took off running towards the speed Advocate. Obviously, I took off running yet again. I did not know, or thinking about what would happen to the eerie acting Duress.

I eventually found my way back to my domicile. By then, it was very dark and cold. As soon as I opened the door, Autumn and Jules were there to greet me. For the first time, I saw confliction in their eyes that I have never noticed before. It was as if the conditioning that they were brought up in was fighting against natural instincts…… and conditioning won. It was something I was eventually got use to seeing. Autumn was the first to snap back into automaton mode. She straitened up, chin high and said “Sarita, you have missed super. Why are you late?”