by Jim Miesner
Something rubbed against her hand and she jerked it away startled before she looked down and smiled. Penny looked up at her and baaed. Sam brushed her fingers through her thick coat.
“Hi, girl. It’s going to be okay. We are going to make it through this. I promise.”
She looked in the mirror at Malcolm, the other sheep laying on her bed, sound asleep. It was a small miracle they had found them so quickly. When Sam had asked for the favor, she almost didn’t expect it to be granted but she had to try. She couldn’t just leave them out there all alone to die.
Drawing in a deep breath she looked at herself in the mirror one last time before grabbing her crutches and hobbling across the room. The doctor had told her because of her condition it would be best if she made the request through a remote hologram, but she had told him that wouldn’t do. It had to be in person, not through a hologram and not in a bulky suit. They had to know she was with them.
Her hand brushed against a bowl of fruit on her desk as she grabbed her key card and stuffed it in a pocket. Making her way toward the door her crutch knocked a garbage can with a banana skin and half an apple core inside. The whole can wobbled, as the door of quarantine slid open. There was no spray of hot water and chemicals upon exiting as there had been when they held Jenny here.
Sam made her way down the same hallway that she and Jenny had strode down on their little field trip. She thought she had been saving a stubborn little girl then, but it was herself that had been stubborn, so convinced their world had been better. After all they were healthy, safe and educated. Anything they needed was at their fingertips. They didn’t have any of the worries or struggles they faced beyond the Shell. It was perfection.
Saunders was right in a way. Mankind was its own worst enemy. Not because of its fears or desires, but because of its obsession with perfection. The Coven believed that if they could eliminate their flaws, weaknesses and differences then they could create the perfect world, a world with universal happiness. It was so naive to look at it now.
You couldn’t change who you were through an operation or drugs. Happiness didn’t come through a lack of weaknesses or by not being different. It didn’t come in the absence of pain and struggles, nor was it something anyone else could give you. It had taken an adventure that had almost killed her along the way to grasp that.
Sam breathed in the smell of the antiseptic as she listened to her crutches pound down the plain white hallway. Finally, she found her way to the exit, pushed against the doors and out into the light of day. The smells and sounds of construction were almost overpowering, and the line of pillars now stretched even farther, markers for the line that would divide them. She took another deep breath and hobbled forward.
Despite her crutches she was able to move rather quickly and soon found herself among the tents and tarps that had been setup as a temporary shelter. The camp was abuzz with noise in spite of the construction and as she made her way through the tents, the cacophony of voices began to slow and turn into murmurs. When she looked up all faces were staring at her. They wore new clothes, and many had bathed, but a lump caught in her throat as she looked at them. Scars that had once been hidden by layers of dirt now stood out on many faces.
She cleared her throat as her entire speech that she had been rehearsing for the better part of a day disappeared from her mind. If not for the construction, you could have heard a pin drop. What did she really say to these people? These people who had lived lives that made her own seem like a joke. She had spent little more than a couple of days among them. Before then her life had been nothing but comfort. She certainly wasn’t one of them. They should be laughing at her, not listening. Who was she kidding?
For a split moment she thought about turning around and heading back to her quarters until she caught eyes with a smiling mother, as she bobbed a baby in her arms. Then off on the other side of the crowd a small boy pointed her out to his parents with a smile. After everything these people had been through, somehow, they were still grateful. Sam realized somehow, she was too. Thankful for whatever reason she was still here, but more importantly thankful for all the people in her life that she had been blessed to know. Something warm welled up inside her at the thought of those that had given their lives for her, Dr. Tesla, John, Emmanuel who was in a coma, Marlena and Kelly who were still missing. Holding her breath was all she could do to keep herself from crying.
What had it been Dr. Tesla had said to her that day she had come to his office worried about Jenny? “We overcame war, disease, famine, illness, but we lost something. We lost our connection to something when we stopped eating. A vulnerability. A reliance on some kind of force.”
Sam wiped away the wetness at the corners of her eyes. The Coven didn’t just have it wrong, they had it totally backwards. Happiness wasn’t the result of a life absent of pain and struggles, nor did it come in spite of them. It came as a result of them. It was only after experiencing them, after being vulnerable, that one could understand real gratitude. Only then could one be really thankful for the life they have. Without vulnerability, without gratitude, there was no joy. Without joy there was no strength.
“Hello,” she said. “My name is Sam Lewinson.” The words caught in her throat and she cleared it again. “For years we thought we were right. We persecuted your people, and others, thinking it was not just our right, but our mission. You didn’t deserve it, no one does.
“What I’ve lived is no comparison to the suffering you’ve been through. I’ve only scratched the surface. Despite our differences, I hope someday we might understand each other. That in time we could work toward building a new world together. A world free from the oppression and violence you’ve become used to.” She cleared her throat for the final time as she raised her head.
“There isn’t time though.”
Men and women looked at each other confused.
“Others are coming. We know almost nothing about them. We don’t know how large their numbers are, or how strong they will be, but I do know one thing. They want this land for themselves and will stop at nothing to destroy all of us.
“I stand here asking for your help, a help that we don’t deserve. Our future and yours is in your hands. If you want to survive, we must all fight, Coven and Naturals together.”
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- Jim Miesner
