And That Was That

                                                I.

A man bent over the piece of paper, scrutinizing the written words with narrowed eyes. With an affirmative and jerky nod, he circled something on his sheet and pointed at a closed metal door.

“Purple.”

The child who had written the paragraph that had just been judged was no older than six. Her small feet made no noise as she hurried in the direction given, blonde pigtails flapping noiselessly behind her.

The man, whose name was Born, beckoned the next kid. This time it was a boy, and his brown hair was curly and handsome as it framed his small face. He made his way over to the table casually, sitting down and taking the discarded pencil.

There were three papers on the desk. One paper said, FEDERAL MATHEMATICS EXAMINATION LEVEL A. The paper next to it (in the same font and color scheme) read, FEDERAL LINGUISTICS EXAMINATION LEVEL A. The paper next to that was nearly identical except it proclaimed, FEDERAL ARTISTRY EXAMINATION LEVEL A.

The boy selected one of the packets to begin with and began.

The room in which he sat was filled strategically with three rows of six brown desks. Every occupant of the desks sat behind it for approximately five to ten minutes.

The fact that the children were even in this room meant that they had failed or had not preformed outstandingly in their FEDERAL KINETIC EXAMINATION LEVEL A—which in turn meant that they could not perform four pull-ups, do thirteen sit-ups, sprint from one end of a large green to the other in less than twelve seconds or excel in a number of other athletic feats.

The children currently in this room were destined for intellectual pursuits, and now were undergoing a series of tests to determine what sort of intelligence they possessed.

The boy Born was currently monitoring had finished the three examinations. Born took them from him, going first to his essay and then blinking as if entirely unimpressed. He flipped through the mathematics portion, totaling up the sum of correct answers in his head before discarding the booklets in a can and speaking.

“Blue.” he said.

The boy, glancing back once at someone in the line that billowed from out behind the sanctions of desks, shrugged and continued to walk towards the metal door Born pointed towards.

Maybe he was disappointed that he had not been christened a Purple like the girl before him. Purples were linguistic thinkers and (after leaving the said hall) would go on to take the FEDERAL SOCIAL SCIENCES EXAMINATION LEVEL A and the FEDERAL LINGUISTIC EXAMINATION LEVEL B so that their linguistic skills could be furthered sectioned into more precise labels.

Or perhaps he was rather saddened by his poor performance in the artistry examination. If his sketch of something meaningful to him had been, say, potentially inspiring he would have been deemed a Green. Greens were sent to another hall where two further tests were administered: the FEDERAL MUSICAL EXAMINATION LEVEL A and the FEDERAL ARTISTRY EXAMINATION LEVEL B. They were judged further after completion of both exams.

But this boy was a Blue, which meant that he had preformed very well on the mathematics test and was now on his way to a new room where he’d be given the FEDERAL SCIENTIFIC EXAMINATION and the FEDERAL MATHEMATICS EXAMINATION LEVEL B. His fate (meaning future schooling) would be determined from there.

And that was that.
         
                                                    II.


Gulliver’s father was a Blue and so was his mother. His older brother was a Blue, as was his older sister. Gulliver himself was, in fact, a Blue, until the day where he was brought to the hall for it to be Made Official.

There was no doubt in Gulliver’s parents’ minds that their youngest and last would be a Blue, because everyone else in the family had been a Blue and the family genes did no allow any genetic diversity.

Like his father and brother Gulliver did not pass the FEDERAL KINETIC EXAMINATION with anything similar to a profusion of talent.

And like his father, brother, mother, sister, grandmother, grandfather, aunts, uncles and cousins, Gulliver was eventually declared a Blue.

And that was that.

                                                    III.

Bobby was the son of a single mother, who was only single because she had decided that Bobby’s father wasn’t a good enough husband and caregiver (and considering that Bobby’s father had left with no great amount of persuasion this was most likely an accurate depiction of his character).

They lived together in a small house without much decoration and, thanks to Bobby’s mother being a Green (a sculptor, to be more precise), this was not something that was looked upon fondly.

In their city of residence it was not the Greens that typically made the great amounts of money, nor was it the Blues or the Reds. In Bobby and his mother’s city of residence it was the linguistic Purples that brought in the grandest of the paychecks.

In Bobby’s mother’s eyes that meant that in order to live happily and completely (and to have drapes above their windows and rugs atop their floors) her only child was going to have to become a purple.

That would explain why, when he had been only three, Bobby was already reading Dickens and writing poetry like Cummings and Whitman. That was why his playroom was wallpapered with completed crossword puzzles and old word searches slashed with yellow lines.

And that was why, at six years old, Bobby was writing the examination essay for the hundredth time because his mother had given him so many practice sheets. He always wrote about the same thing with the same style and the same voice.

The grammar and fiction analyzing was the equivalent of tying his shoelaces and when it came to giving his opinion on a rather dry work of literature Bobby simply wrote what he knew his mother would want him to write: that it had inspired him and that he felt moved by its words and message.

He had never been made to run before and had never done anything to teach him athletics so his kinetic exam went exceedingly poorly.

Because he had never seen such numbers before he did absolutely dreadful on the mathematics exam.

Because he’d never held a crayon before the artistic portion of his testing was rather pitiful.

Bobby was christened a Purple.

And that was that. 

                                                          IV.

Juliet wasn’t very intelligent. This trait came from both her parents who weren’t considered intellectuals either, and would probably be passed down to Juliet’s own children when that time came.

Her parents (who were both Social Purples who worked in the local grocery store) told her that the examinations were nothing to worry about, and that they would decide where she would be happiest.

Juliet easily failed the FEDERAL KINETIC EXAMINATION, proceeded to performing dismally on the FEDERAL MATHEMATICS EXAMINATION and on the two that preceded it.

Because she had not preformed outstandingly well on any of the tests she was assigned a Green simply because she could always learn to draw more proficiently.

And that was that.

                                                            V.


David had problems sitting still for more than two seconds at a time. His fraternal twin brother Dylan did not. Their parents, however, wanted their two children to remain together for their schooling (it was, financially, an easier weight to bare) so because both did well on their mathematics exam both were declared Blues.

David had preformed exceedingly well on the FEDERAL KINETIC EXAMINATION but Dylan had not. Dylan had shined extraordinarily on the FEDERAL LINGUISTIC EXAMINATION but David seemed unable to read a word. David had spent the entire testing process fidgeting and looking at the clock, but Dylan had remained still, quiet and always obedient.

Because making David a Red and Dylan a Purple would be hard on the parents (who already had five other children to put through school) it was immediately decided to set both twins as Blues.

And that was that.

                                              VI.


Since the Color System had been taken into use in modern-day America it had transformed the way people thought.

No longer were jobs being lost because nobody knew any other skill than their own.

No longer was the economy suffering due to vocational commitments because no worker dared to dabble in things other than what he or she knew from the age of six.

No extreme and dangerous ideas were brought forth, because no exposure to any other field other than the chosen one for students was now an impossible possibility.

Crime was nearly eradicated, housing was well-controlled, jobs were guaranteed to get done.

Sometimes, however, people like David and Juliet and Bobby and Gulliver would look outside of their custom-made windows and see something that they half-wanted to find out more about.

Juliet would often stop on her way home from the bakery to watch the poets and musicians inspire each other in the parks, and sometimes she would hum along to their songs and melodies, tapping her fingers as she matched their beats.

Sometimes Bobby would count the steps he took on his way to the law firm he worked for, and when he ran for political office he would tally his approval ratings without any need of calculators or computers.

Gulliver was known to doodle in between stocking exchanges; drawing little faces and designs as he waited for accounts to call and banks to complain.

David learned to obey like his brother, but even working alongside him he would find himself losing immediate interest in the sums and formulas within moments, focusing instead on the soccer games outside of the office. As he forced himself to not fidget in his seat he found his mind wander to fantasies of running freely through open fields, breaking free of all boundaries…

Sometimes they would question their chosen professions, but usually they didn’t because they knew nothing else. They’d spent their entire lives preparing to be where they ended up and to erase such an effort was silly and ridiculous.

They were where they were.

And that was that.