by Nirina Stone
Mother always told me to look for the silver lining. She said it was an old saying, but is still relevant to most challenges. “When you live in a world with no sky, there’s nothing but silver linings for miles,” she’d say. Mother had a thing for funny cliches. Well, I can’t fight off the thought that there is no silver lining in my current situation. A tear rolls down my cheek. I guess my tear ducts are still working. I raise a hand to wipe the tear away. I have to do something. I can’t imagine what, though.
Okay, one silver lining here could be that only my feet are bound. I can’t imagine why they left my hands untied but won’t question it.
I try to ignore the pounding in my head as I scooch on my bottom towards the door. At least I can get closer to it, I think. And then what?
Pushing on the cold cement floor, I pull my knees under me and kneel. I’m dizzy, but I can still see the frame of the door. I’ve shuffled close enough now.
I place one hand on the floor, one on the door, and push myself up to a standing position. I can’t decide what’s more urgent or more powerful now—the nausea or the throbbing.
The ceiling must be less than a foot from my head. If this door opens in towards me, it will hurt, but I’m operating on some small hope it will open out. Then what? Then I try to run. Or hop. I can’t die in this hole. Not here. I just can’t.
I hear something right outside the door and freeze. This is it. This is my chance to—
The door opens—Out! Yes!—and I leap forward. My hands punch, claw, scratch whatever they can, but my bound legs are useless.
That’s when my head and stomach decide they’ve had enough. Big arms push me and other big arms pull me back into the room. That’s when my stomach clenches and rolls and I throw up all over my assailants. I’m tossed back into the hole like a rag and hear the door slam with finality while I cry.
I don’t know how much time passes but the door opens slowly this time and the silhouette of a short, stocky man stands in the doorway.
He stays still watching me as I watch him. I’m lying on my side. It feels better for my head, but does nothing for the nausea.
The man’s face is in shadows, but I can see his teeth when he smiles.
“No fight in you today?”
I answer him with a silent glare.
“What is your name?” he asks.
I look up without raising my head. “Romy Fifty Two,” I reply quietly.
“No,” he says. “What is your family name, Romy?”
Does he mean the Prospo Family I worked for? Because they do not have you adopt a Prospo family name when you are won at auction, though they used to. So I stay silent, waiting for the shadowed man to clarify for me what he means. He doesn’t speak. He stands there, watching me while I wait.
“I don’t have one,” I say. “I am just Romy—Romy Fifty Two.”
“Is that right?” he says, then he turns his head slightly to the left, as if to listen to someone else speak. “Well you better think it over,” he says. “You need to remember your family name.”
Then, before I can reply, he turns and shuts the door firmly behind him. It echoes for a minute, and all I can hear is the door shutting over and over until the sound is drowned out by my beating heart.
Does he mean my actual family name? Surely he must know—even the Sorens know—that Citizens have not used family names in over two centuries. I won’t have an answer other than “Romy Fifty Two.” What in the world did I get myself into?
I don’t hear another thing. There is no light. No movement. Just my breaths. I need to use the bathroom, but no one responds to my yells. When I’m thirsty, no one responds to my calls for water, though I scream so hard, my throat becomes sore.
I’m in the hole for several hours, probably for several days. It can’t possibly be weeks because I’m not dead yet.
When the door opens, the same man asks, “What’s your family name?”
“I don’t have one. Please please, can you bring me some water? Please?”
“You need to remember your name,” he answers, before he shuts the door. I’m back in the dark. Unless I am dead and am not aware of it, I start hallucinating.
Father is whispering in the dark. I ask him for help, but he doesn’t hear me. He tells me to “hang on,” and to “remember.” But remember what? What is there for me to remember?
Then Arlene is whispering, “Be strong,” and “remember.” I ask her if she ever did meet the Vorkian. She whispers, “Yes,” then she says, “you must remember.”
“Remember what, Mama?” I ask out loud.
My visitor comes once more. Or it could be another hallucination, I’m not sure. To his question, I say, “I don’t have one. I don’t remember. Please let me go to the bathroom. Please!”
He ignores me. “You must remember,” he says and closes the door shut.
Somewhere between my visits from the shadowed man, and Father and Mother, Arlene, and sometimes Isaac, I wet myself.
I sob because I’m humiliated. I’m tired. I’m thirsty. My lips are chapped. I’m no longer afraid though. Death will eventually come, and something in the back of my head reminds me that death by starvation doesn’t hurt too much. I can’t remember where I learnt it, but I sigh with relief.
The door opens yet again. Or it could be another hallucination.
“I don’t know,” I say, before the shadow speaks. “I don’t know. I would tell you if I knew, but I don’t.”
“You need to remember,” he says.
“I know,” I reply. “I need to remember, but I don’t.”
He stands still, then repeats his words.
“I need to remember,” I reply quietly. “I need to remember. I need to remember.” I keep repeating it over and over and over and over. I don’t hear him closing the door. I only repeat the words. My mind is too tired to search, but I force forward as many of my memories as I can.
Mother whispers gently in my ear, “Remember the stories.”
My parents used to tuck me into bed and either read from the tablet, or tell me stories about our ancestors and their many adventures. “Remember the stories.”
I try to pull up something specific, but there are simply no names to recall. I remember that I was named after a Great Grandmother named Romy.
“Romy was her nickname,” Father whispers. “Her name was—” What was her full name? Romaine? No. Romania? Doesn’t sound right. I stare into the dark, and speak.
“Was it Romina?” I ask, to a whispered, “No.”
“Ramona?” I ask, yawning.
“No.”
I try dozens of variations and feel like I’m close, but I can’t focus anymore. I should have paid better attention. “Ramula? Rominalia? Ramarama?” I’m bordering on the ridiculous now, but still keep hearing, “No, no, no—” I fall asleep, still asking names, still hearing, “No.”
I’m having confusing colourful dreams, of lands I’ve never visited and languages I’ve never spoken. I’m dreaming of stories my parents shared with me, of all the people, the fighting people that tried so hard to win, tried so hard to escape, but they all died.
Well, not all of them, but so many died. So many.
When I wake, he’s in the doorway. He’s probably talking but I can’t hear him. I’m cold and wet, and I’m surprised. How is there still liquid in my bladder when I’m parched? My throat and my lips are so dry. I try to swallow, but my throat is numb.
Surely death is close now. The pain starts to ebb away. The queasiness, not so much. There are much worse things than death, I think. This room—this room is much worse than death. I welcome you, death. Come and claim me. At least I didn’t have to enter an agreement with a Vorkian first. Who would get my near-nothing credits anyway?
Death answers me. Or at least, I hear a noise and a shuffle. I look up. He’s in the doorway and I wonder how long he’s been there. Is he waiting for me to answer? Because I still have no answer for him. I close my eyes and try to succumb to the dark.
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“What is your name?” he asks in a flat voice. I stay quiet.
Why bother answering that I don’t know? Just let me die. I’m so close to dying, I can sense it in my bones and smell it on my breath. This game of yours is stupid. It’s not fun. Let me die in peace. Yes it’s a hole, but at least it’s quiet.
“What is your name?” he asks and a word flashes behind my closed eyelids. I open my eyes, wondering if he’s shone a light at me, but he hasn’t moved, so I close them again. He keeps asking me and I keep silent.
What does it matter? My name is death, I think. My name is the dark and the cold and the whispers and the—“Rosemary,” I whisper. What? Did I just say that? Or did he say that? Mother?
The shadowed man asks his question again, with emphasis on the “What.” His tone is different now. Like he’s heard something he likes.
“Rosemary,” I answer a bit loudly now. Yes, it was my great grandmother’s name. “Rosemary,” I say again, my eyes closed. The word flashes behind my eyelids. Rosemary. Bright, like the word is back lit. “Rosemary,” I keep repeating, rolling the word in my mouth. It fits. It’s beautiful! How could I not remember it before?
But I can’t get the last name, I simply can’t. Did they ever tell me her last name? They must have. I try to focus on it, but it flutters away before I get a hold of it. It’s impossible.
I hear another voice, speaking another language, behind the door. It sounds like the other voice says, “Jumping.” Jumping? I think, What’s jumping? I imagine myself jumping around in my state and burst out laughing.
The man in the doorway turns to the right and nods his head, then he slides something into the room, cutting my laughs off. It hits my leg before he shuts the door closed.
I raise my head though I don’t know how I manage. They must have removed my binds at some point because I can move freely now. Not freely, because I’m weak. I’ve never been this weak. I’ve never been this hungry or thirsty in my life.
Reaching for the new thing in the room, I note its flat, plastic surface. I pull it up to my head, though I stop often. It could have taken me hours to finally get it close enough.
Fumbling around on the tray, my hand lands on something soft, spongy. I grab it and hold it to my nose. It smells like yeast, but my stomach reacts immediately to the new smell, and I instinctively hold it to my mouth and take a small bite. It’s bread.
There is something else on the tray. A small cup full of water. I take a sip, fighting the urge to gulp it all down, scared my empty stomach will reject it. But even more so, that this will be my only source of sustenance for a while. My stomach grumbles appreciatively as I continue to take my time to eat up the chunk of bread and drink up the water. An empty belly starts eating itself, so I’ve read. The pain when food finally hits it is unbearable, but I relish it.
I’m still too weak to sit up on my own for long, so I scuttle backwards until the cold brick wall is on my back. Then I push my back into it with a sigh and continue to eat.
My efforts to take my time have no real effect—there was not much bread or water on offer. I’m still hungry, but a little less dizzy, a little less numb. Nothing’s getting rid of the queasiness, though. I wonder if it’s just something in their air—then I wonder—and stop my thoughts immediately. I can’t handle anything right now.
I stay upright and watch the door, but he doesn’t come. It’s such a long time before the door opens again, and there he is.
“Hello Rosemary,” he says. His voice is friendly.
“Hello,” I reply, wondering if he will ever tell me his name. It won’t matter, though. Not if I end up dead, anyway.
“What is your family name?” he asks with a smile.
Ugh. How much more of this can I handle? I just sit and watch him.
After a few minutes of our silent standoff, he repeats, “What is your family name?”
I’m tired. I wonder if he’s dense. Sitting here watching him, not able to answer his question makes me want to lie down and close my eyes once more. “I don’t know,” I finally say.
He pauses for a split second. “You need to remember.”
“Why?” I ask, as the door closes on me and leaves me, once more, in the dark.
My hallucinations have stopped. That’s a good sign. On the other hand, they helped me remember my grandmother’s first name.
My dreams are getting more and more vivid and more and more colourful though. There’s a clue in there, but no one speaks in a language I can understand.
All I see are Father, Mother and Isaac, everywhere I look. Father is smiling at me and speaking in that beautiful but foreign language, then he hands me a glass full of cold cold water.
I take a long gulp of the liquid and sigh out loud. It’s but a dream, but I can taste the liquid’s wetness, its freshness. It hits the back of my tongue, my parched throat, like ice.
Then Isaac is talking to me and we’re back in the robotics room. He is showing me how to take apart one of the little bots I have not worked on yet. He has a glass full of some light blue gel in it, and dips parts of the bot in it now and then. “Is that Azure blue in the jar?” I ask. He nods and smiles, dipping the bot’s pieces in the liquid, over and over again.
Then, Mother is twirling in a field of lush green grass and daisies and dandelions. Her dress keeps changing colour as she twirls, and she spins faster and faster and faster until she’s a blur of colours. I remember having a toy like that when I was a child—it was a blue and red and yellow top and I could watch it spin to distraction. It was my favourite toy, by far.
Then Mother’s spin abruptly stops and she turns to face me, her face flushed from the twirling. “Are you hungry?” she asks. I feel a pang because her voice is so clear, so close, it’s like she’s really in front of me.
Then she’s walking towards me, holding another glass jar in her hands. The glass is full to the brim with peach slices. I can smell them from here.
When is it peach season? I can’t remember, but I reach out hungrily and pluck one slice out of the glass jar and try to pop it quickly into my mouth, but it slides and falls in the grass between us.
It’s plump and shiny with juice. Some of the syrupy gold liquid rolls down its side into the grass as I imagine munching on the flesh. That’s the freshest, juiciest peach I’ve ever seen. I reach in for another slice and—
“What is your family name?” the voice breaks in. I fight to stay asleep, still looking to grab another peach. I can almost taste it in my mouth! “What is your family name?” the voice insists, and my eyes are wide open.
I hate him so much, this shadowed man in the doorway. I want to hurt him. More than anything, I want to make him go away and never come back and never interrupt my dreams.
Before he can repeat his question, I grab the plastic tray beside me and throw it as hard as I can at the now closed door. I’m surprised that I managed to pick it up, least of all throw it—there must be more strength left in my arm than I thought.
When he comes back, what is it, three? Ten? A hundred more times? I’m right back where I started before getting the bread and water.
“I get the message,” I tell the walls. I give you an answer, you give me sustenance. I get it. I should just give him a fake name, then I will get more to eat.
What name should I give him? I try to come up with names, but other than the occasional Prospo family name, I can’t imagine what to come up with.
How did people assign names before we started with the numbers? I think of the Diamonds and try to remember some of the other Prospo names I learnt over the years—there were the Marvins that my mother once worked for, and the Klessmans or Kressmans. Oh I can’t remember.
Those are not names I associate with anything. So I’m lost. I couldn’t begin to guess where to start, with creating a new name. Maybe if my head wasn’t so foggy, I could think of something.
I’m also surprised I’m holding such thoughts. I can’t imagine why I’d want to live through
this, anyway. I ought to close my eyes and ignore his question and let my body wither and shrink away to nothing. There are worse ways to die, aren’t there? This isn’t so bad.
“Don’t die,” Father whispers. “You must remember.” So I’m back to hallucinating, am I? I don’t want to die, Father. But I have no choice. I think of the bread they gave me. In another time, I probably would have found it dry or stale but right now, given that it’s the last taste of food I’ve had in my mouth, all I want is to eat loads of the stuff. I imagine millions and millions of tall glasses full of water, sparkling in the sunlight, enticing me to drink them. Then something pops up behind my eyelids, but I don’t catch it.
I remember seeing Rosemary last time. Is this the elusive last name that’s coming to me now?
The more I try to focus on it though, the less obvious it is. It’s like trying to catch something right at the corner of your eye, but the moment you think you see it, it scoots to the edge again.
It starts to infuriate me. What is with my moods? I can’t keep up with the changing feelings. I was numb before. Now, I’m getting angry every two minutes. Maybe it’s the thirst. Some water would be nice.
The image flashes and I lose it again. Ugh. I hear Mother’s voice, “Remember—Rosemary—Remember—Rosemary—Remember—”
Yes, Mother. I remember Rosemary. That got me the bread and water. Flash! But remembering Rosemary will not get me anything now, only more hunger. More thirst. Flash! What is that?
The door opens and he is standing in the doorway, bracing himself. The tray is still where it landed when I threw it at him. Why didn’t I drag it closer so that I could throw it again? Did not plan that one. I’m just so hungry, I can’t think. I’m so thirsty. Flash!
I realize the flash is not a word this time. It’s a big chunky glass full of water, the beads of sweat rolling down the glass’s sides. I gulp, giving in to the thirst. Flash! Flash! Flash!
“What is your family name?” he asks in his familiar monotone.
My throat is parched. Flash! Yes, I’d love a glass of water. Flash! But it’s not really a glass I’m looking at, is it? Flash!