This was a creative response for a year 11 subject. I don't think I blogged it at the time, but I found it cleaning out my documents. So, yeah. Now it's here.
Seven opened his eyes.
It was precisely eight hours since he has closed them. His body had received an optimal amount of sleep and as he lifted his left arm and pressed the red ‘release’ button on his sleeping pod he heard the pneumatic hiss as the other pods in his row released. He lifted his head and sat up, knowing that on his left, Six was seated – and on his right, Eight had awoken. He did not bother to turn his head. That action had no logic – Six and Eight were both there, and there was no point in speaking to them or even noticing them.
His feeding tube snaked down from the trough that ran along the low-slung metal roof above their heads. As the pods began to slowly vibrate to further awaken their senses, Seven took his feeding tube in his left hand and placed it in his mouth. He felt the tube begin to pump raw nutrient paste and he busied himself with swallowing it mechanically. He noted distantly that Eight sounded like he was having some trouble keeping up with his flow of paste – perhaps a visit to the medical facilities was in order again. Physical inability would not be tolerated. To be imperfect was to be illogical. To be identical was the purpose of life. Eight would be assisted to equality or he would be terminated.
Seven blinked at a rate of eight blinks a minute, but he allowed himself a ninth in acknowledgement of his wandering mind. Speculation on Eight was illogical. He removed his feeding tube from his mouth after the Feeding Minute had passed, and rose from his sleeping pod. Taking three steps forward, he turned and faced left, looking directly at the back of Six’s shaved head. As the hatches above opened and the cleansing fluid began to rain down upon their naked bodies from the central tanks, he wondered if Six was female. It was a strong possibility – on the seven occasions he had glimpsed Six reach out for a feeding tube or a release button, the hand had given the impression of slim bone structure – something Seven was sure was a feminine trait, or at least, had once been. He reminded himself that unless he was selected to provide genetic material for the Fourth Generation he would likely never know what gender Six was, and as the cleaning fluid dribbled over his body and seared away any traces of body hair or imperfection he reminded himself that gender was a secondary concern. All people were ‘he’. All people were identical. To be identical was the purpose of life.
After the Cleaning Minute had been concluded and the ten people in Seven’s row had been prepared for the work of the day before them, they marched from the sleeping quarters – starting with the left foot, two steps to each second – and headed down the metallic corridor towards their working quarters. Here they met with other rows coming from their quarters and moving in time. Seven did not bother to look at them. His attention was focused entirely on the back of Six’s head as he – or was it she? – led him to the work station. After three minutes and forty seconds, Seven found himself standing by his steel-grey work station. It consisted, he knew, of a metal desk with a computer on it and a metal chair identical to the desk. There was no paper, no drawers, and certainly no walls. Walls were not required when everybody performed identical tasks. Seven seated himself with a mental reminder that he was truly living in paradise. Sleeping chamber, corridor, work quarters. His whole world.
The day’s work began. Seven reached down with his right hand and switched on his computer. His computer clicked on, as did the hundred other computers in the room. All but one. There was a delay of two seconds, and then the computer directly behind Seven clicked. The noise echoed about the work quarters and Seven knew that Eight had turned his computer on late. Yet another sign that Eight was no longer identical. It brought shame on Seven’s entire row and if indignation had been a logical emotion Seven would have been full of it. Eight was flawed and would likely be terminated. The most logical thing to do would be to apply himself to his work exactly the same way he did every day. Eight’s transgression would not affect his ability to contribute to the whole. To be identical was the purpose of life. Imperfection was illogical. Seven set to his work, as did all the people around him – hopefully including Eight.
If Seven had possessed the capacity for boredom, his work would have filled that capacity to the brink. His work – and the work of all those around him – was endlessly shuffling figures of columns from one line to another in repetitive and pointless displays of mathematics. Seven did not know what purpose his calculations served. The entire Third Generation performed the same work – or so he assumed. He did not wonder why. Such thoughts were illogical and imperfect. Seven applied himself to his calculations with no deviation and no flaws. He was identical to his peers in every way, and his life was devoted entirely to the community.
That all changed with the smell.
Seven inhaled through his nostrils at the rate of twelve breaths per minute, and in the third hour of his work on the twenty-second minute, his eighth breath registered a change in the air. Lungs that had inhaled nothing but circulated air for over three decades struggled to cope with this utterly foreign atmosphere. Nasal passages that had experienced nothing but cleansing fluid, nutrient paste and metallic cleaner for years sent frantic signals to Seven’s brain. This was something new, they said. Something different.
Seven looked down. There was a crack in the metal at his feet. Some pressure or weakness in the construction had weakened the floor just enough for a tiny crack to form, and from it drifted raw, pure air. Seven inhaled deeply, deeper than was logically required. The air smelt like damp earth, like rain – like plants. Seven hadn’t seen a plant in forty years, but he knew what one smelt like. He raised his head and stood up.
“I wonder what’s at the end of the corridor.”
A shiver ran through the assembled rows. Illogical! Imperfect! A heretic! They fixed their eyes on their screens and didn’t pay him the slightest heed, but he could see the distress in their eyes. He took three steps forward, and then stopped counting. He started with his right foot instead of his left. He sped up his pace as he headed for the door. His body screamed in protest but the scent was in his nostrils and he didn’t care. The door was open and there was nothing anybody could do to stop him. Out of the work quarters, into the corridor, down to the end of the catwalk. There was a door here, a door he hadn’t noticed in three decades of walking the corridor. A door with a red release button.
Seven opened his eyes.
No comments:
Post a Comment