by Ann Christy
He picked it up and looked at it again for some clue as to what she meant by the drawing but there was nothing. It could just as easily be any of the others save for that strange sense of motion—of being poised for something—that it imparted. It looked impatient and he wondered if it was only a drawing representing her desire to go, to fly. Blinking back tears, he tucked the drawing into the portfolio with the others, turned and left the room.
He hurried out toward the farms where the feeling of the plants in their resting state, with their green and ripe smells, eased his frantic feelings a little. Marcus joined him just a moment later, his steps heavy and slow. They stood silently for a moment, not looking at each other but instead out at the darkened farm around them.
“You should go back,” Marcus said abruptly, then looked briefly at Greg’s racing coveralls. “You’ve got a lot to do.”
Greg only nodded, at a loss for words. How could he possibly go on with training now? How could he compete and laugh with his competitors and complain about the tank and the hundred other things he did as a matter of course throughout the day? How could he ever run as fast as he would need to and then smile at the end as if he were happy?
“Son,” Marcus said and waited until Greg looked up at him. “She wouldn’t want you to let this ruin your chances. I think she wanted this for you very much. If anything, you should let this help you to win.”
He couldn’t believe what Marcus was saying. Clearly, he didn’t understand what this felt like. He couldn’t know that part of his desire to win was so that when he declared for her, the silo would have to accept Lizbet as his mate and a human like any other.
“Before you go all up-top on me, remember how old I am. My own wife was planted back there not five years ago. I know what this feels like. But understand this, too. She did what she did for her own reasons and it was her decision to make, no matter how much we may disagree with it and wish she hadn’t made it. She wanted you to be happy, to be successful and to achieve your dreams. That much I can tell from just the little she said and the note that she left. She was a good girl. How could she have wanted different?”
It was a long speech for such a man, Greg could tell that. And that he was sincere in what he said was also clear. There was nothing more to do here. And Marcus was right about Lizbet wanting him to achieve. She had been more proud than anyone when he’d told her he was competing and her face when she’d seen his coveralls the night before said it all. He smiled a little when the flash of her face as she’d seen him last night flitted across his memory.
“I’ll win,” Greg said and walked away.
Twelve
Numbness was the only name to give to the way he felt during the next days of training. Even so, there was only so much disengagement he could tolerate and still compete. The numbness wore away into a strange sort of single-minded dedication. He felt a bit like he was betraying her because he didn’t mourn like he had on that first day, but he simply couldn’t do it and, at the same time, be totally subsumed in his work. He simply put her from his mind when he stepped out of his room in the morning and allowed her back in, like a rush of cool water, when he went back in for the night. It was like she had been waiting for him when he closed the door to his room. Her smile, the feel of her skin when it was heated from dancing and way her hair smelled all came back to him.
He kept the ring on a length of strong, braided twine around his neck but only let it show and hang free in his room. It was his alone. He would share it with no one.
In the days after he returned to training, he had kept an ear open for snickers or jokes, but in the time between his leaving and returning, someone had put a clamp on that sort of talk. He had heard not a peep from anyone for any reason. His competitors and trainers treated his absence like it had not occurred, neither sympathetic nor accusing. He had simply been gone and then returned.
By the time of the route drawing, he had settled into his new life a little. His days of work were separated from the hour before sleep and his time with Lizbet’s drawings and her memory. He had half expected he might feel her there but strangely, he did not. Her absence was complete.
The route they would race seemed drawn just for him and he fingered the ring on its lanyard, wondering about such a thing. It was a vertical race on levels he had run hundreds of times in his life, just two levels from his home and on the way to one of the places where he picked up goods for the family stall at least once a week. He would barely need his eyes to run the route. His feet would know the path without any help.
Though he couldn’t stay at home the night before the race—it would be seen as an unfair advantage to have such comfort—he was close enough to it for the feel of it to be nearly the same. He brought one of the drawings with him, the one that had been on her desk, and he thought he was close to understanding its meaning as he readied himself the morning of the race. The butterfly was in motion, going toward something it desired. Was that the message? To go?
At the line, he couldn’t hear the crowds at all and when the buzzer sounded he ran. He lost track of his competitors almost immediately and never once considered them or where they might be during the entire run. He crossed the finish line so far ahead of them he was confused for a moment, thinking he had made a mistake somewhere and missed some crucial part of the run in his fog. But he hadn’t and the Mayor had thrust his arm in the air and named him the winner.
After his run outside—a dismal one that had been plagued by fierce winds and dust so thick in places he could barely distinguish where he was—he felt strangely finished. No one had even asked him what specialty he would like to shadow for, assuming that he would stay on with his family’s stall. When it didn’t happen after what Greg thought was an appropriate period of time, he wrote to the Race Director and asked after this part of his prize.
To say that the Director was shocked at his choice was an understatement. Why would he want to be a farmer when he would have to go to the bottom of the list for an allotment? He would be working on a farm like everyone else but he would have no bonus plot for his own use, possibly for years. He would earn no extra without that.
Greg knew all that and didn’t care. He had felt something good there, something peaceful. His request that he work the lower farms, where the butterfly garden was, further baffled the Director. It was a much longer climb to visit his family from those farms. Again, Greg simply smiled and nodded.
The Director seemed to catch on to something then, his confusion clearing and a return smile coming to his thin lips. “Is this about a match? Are you going to declare for someone?”
Greg shook his head, but kept the smile. The Director didn’t need to know how much those words hurt. “No, nothing like that. I just really like the butterflies and would like to get a spot where I can help tend their garden. They fly, you know. Have you ever seen them fly?”
Thirteen – Ten Years Later
Greg walked into the Memoriam and waved at the Historian shadow as he passed. She smiled and waved back, not bothering to ask if she could help him. His walks through the Memoriam, straight through to the Silo Ecology displays were well known to everyone who worked the Memoriam. He went the same way, stayed a while, then left.
This part of the Memoriam was always quiet, tucked as it was to the side with many twists and turns to isolate it from the sounds of the main room, where groups of children gathered for their guided tours and lessons. Greg entered and went to the bench, studiously avoiding looking at the walls until he sat. When he lifted his head, he saw it all at once. That was as he wanted it.
On the wall dedicated to the mystery of flight were two dozen of Lizbet’s drawings. The most beautiful and detailed of the bundle he had brought were seen by the silo inhabitants each and every day. When he had brought the portfolio, clutched tightly in his arms, unsure if he could truly donate them, the Historian that had met with him had been patient and kind.
In a side room, Greg had finally opened the portfolio
and then sighed in relief when the Historian’s eyes filled with wonder and more than a little greed. That was how Greg knew the drawings would be safe. If a Historian looked greedy to possess something, it was because it was worth possessing forever. He had kept back only one drawing—the one from her desk—which now hung on the wall in his tiny single compartment.
Most of the drawings were archived, but not permanently. Every so often the Historians would change out some of the drawings for others, creating a new display that somehow had a different feeling to it. This one felt light and alive, full of motion.
They had no idea who drew them. The Historian had asked but Greg demurred, saying the artist was shy and no longer capable of drawing. It was true, in a way. He suspected they thought it was him but he couldn’t draw a decent stick figure and had said so.
When his butt started to hurt from the hard bench, he knew it was time to go until the next month and the next visit. The farm was waiting and flying season was just beginning.
Epilogue – Race Year 89
The files on the racers were late as usual. Every year they got three new racers and every year the same paperwork had to be filled out. Why was it never ready on the first day of training? He shuffled the papers into the correct folders as he walked, mentally rearranging the entire administration of the race for some sort of efficiency. It would never happen. Things were as they were and that was that.
He heard Zara’s stifled laugh as he turned into the corridor that led to the main training room and looked up to see her peering through the glass set into the door. She heard his steps and turned to him, motioning for him to hurry and join her. She peered back through as he approached and asked, “Do you think we should tell them this is a one-way mirror? You should have seen the new racer up here picking her teeth and making googly eyes at herself. You should see what they’re doing now.”
He could very well imagine what they might be doing. Probably touching things even though they were told not to. Every year it was the same. “I think we should tell them only when we’ve caught them doing something really embarrassing first.” He grinned at the thought. A few years ago they had caught a couple of candidates doing something they were definitely not supposed to do. Luckily, Danny hadn’t waited to see how far that would progress and had broken up the situation before either the girl or the boy had any clothes off.
Zara stepped back from the glass so Greg could take her place, smiling all the while. Greg peered through the dim glass and heard the drum. It took a second for him to parse out what he was seeing and then another to believe what he was seeing.
It was her. Lizbet. It had to be. She was wearing race clothes and her hair was straight, but it couldn’t be anyone else. No one leapt like that and made it seem like flight was the natural state of a human. And that strange twirl with her toes pointed and her arms out like wings was entirely Lizbet’s.
Greg made a strangled noise in his throat and pushed open the door. The folders fell from his suddenly nerveless fingers, the papers fluttering around his feet as he walked toward her. How was it possible? Lizbet had died almost 19 years ago. It would be the anniversary of her death is just two weeks.
“Lizbet,” he whispered as he walked toward her.
He felt Zara’s hand on his arm, her grip forceful enough to stop him in his tracks. She looked at him quizzically and asked, “Greg. What about Lizbet?”
She knew, of course. They were friends, good friends, and she was one of the few who knew of Lizbet and his connection with her. She was sympathetic, the situation too far removed from her for any hint of disapproval or questioning of Lizbet’s status. Zara also knew she was dead.
Greg looked at Lizbet, her dance ended, as she pushed her hair from her face. “There.”
Zara looked at Lizbet and then back at him, understanding coming into her expression. She pulled his arm again, making him face her. When he tore his eyes from Lizbet, she said, “That’s not Lizbet, Greg. That’s Lillian and she is a candidate. She’s just an 18 year old girl.”
“But,” he said, extending a hand in Lizbet’s direction. “That’s her.”
She pulled his hand down and looked quickly at Lizbet and the boy now standing behind her, both of them watching their exchange with wary eyes. Greg wished he could see her expression.
“No, Greg, she’s not. Maybe she’s a relative or something and she looks like her. Look at me,” she demanded, so he did. “Don’t scare her. Lizbet is dead. That is Lillian. Are we clear?”
Reality tumbled back to Greg and he shook his head. Of course, it couldn’t be Lizbet. Zara was right. Lizbet had been dead for almost as long as she’d been alive. She’d been dead so long that Greg didn’t know when he’d stopped missing her. He didn’t even visit the Memoriam to see her drawings anymore, it had been so long. It must be a relative or some quirk of features. Everyone in the silo was related if you went back far enough.
“Yeah, okay. You’re right. Sorry,” he said lamely, embarrassed now that the moment had passed. But it was just so uncanny. “Let’s get going before we scare them anymore.”
He tried to sound light but Zara’s eyes were still worried. She gave him a brief, tight nod and he set off across the vast training room toward the candidates. He could feel her eyes on his back as he walked and he made an effort to keep his steps casual and not too fast.
As he drew nearer, he saw her face more clearly. She had the same figure, the same general facial structure, but Zara was right in that she was a different person. Not Lizbet at all. He tried to keep his face neutral, but it was disappointment he felt. Her hair was straight and she had an atrocious cowlick on the right side of her forehead. She was very similar, but each feature was just a little off. The eyes were a little bigger and further apart, the lid creased more deeply. Her eyelids were not the almost perfectly smooth lids that Lizbet had been blessed with. Her lips were a little bigger, her cheeks more sharply defined and she was taller, too. No, it wasn’t Lizbet but she could have been her sister. And the way she moved was pure Lizbet.
The racers looked nervous. The boy was holding the girl’s shoulders protectively and giving Greg a look, the girl bouncing a foot on the floor. When she pushed the hair away from her face again, he saw the mark there. It was recognizable in an instant. Though brown and without detail, the birthmark on her cheek was something he had seen almost every day of his life at least once for the last nineteen years. It was the drawing from Lizbet’s desk that now hung on his wall. The butterfly.
He remembered the words from her note, words that had made no sense to him at the time. Not me, but of me. Greg smiled.
Thank You
You have my sincerest thanks for reading my work and I sure hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please take the time to write a review on Amazon. It doesn’t have to be long, just 20 words. Believe me when I say that each review matters in a huge way. There is no visibility on Amazon without reviews. Plus, without those nice words there is no way I’d be able to force myself to muddle through and keep writing.
I love to hear from readers, even the ones who didn’t like something I did. Readers do change the way I write and what you say might even impact a future character. You never know. You can reach me via email at [email protected] or on Google+ under Ann Christy. I’ve only just gone onto Facebook, too.
You can also give me a shout out or use the Contact Me form on the series webpage at http://Silo49.blogspot.com. Go on, click it!
The next book I’m slated to get out is called Lulu 394, a science fiction adventure that involves cloning, self-replicating machines, space travel and all sorts of goodness. If you want to keep up with my work, go to the Silo 49 website and contact me to get on the release list. No spam, just a rare heads up on a new release and any giveaways I might do.
On a more serious note, I thought of this story arc long before the most recent spate of bullying related suicides in the real world. I almost didn’t finish this story because of it, but in the en
d, the story was what it was. Bullying is never okay and can have horrific results. Suicide is never the answer…ever.
Until next time, Ann
Table of Contents
Chapter One – Race Year 71
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Epilogue – Race Year 89
