We, The Lucky Few

by P. S. Lurie

  Theia turns towards the desolate street and we both sense the quietness, like if you concentrated enough the nearest sound would be the waves lolling against whatever they had conquered as the newest, and closest, part of the shore. The danger of the rising tide is that it creeps up without warning and then swallows anything in its path, like an outburst of anger.

  Theia puts her hand to her chest and I mimic her. My heart beats faster than usual as I know that soon I will either be discovered or I will have to confess I am here. Theia’s lucky with her perfect, large family, a younger brother and sister, two parents pathetically in love. Henry tells me we’re all in the same danger with the same losses ahead and that, while it may be a few days’ difference between our streets, we’ll all find ourselves homeless and helpless soon enough but he’s wrong. I’ve lost already. I rub my rake-thin arm but it’s tender and I take in the various shades of purple that are taking form. I hate when Henry compares Theia and me. When he hugs me he has to reach up around my lanky frame whilst is arms fit perfectly around Theia’s waist. My mother likes to remind me of this too.

  Theia enters her house and the road reverts to its empty state. Everyone is waiting for the Surge where they should be, except for me. I am glad my mother will be alone during the announcement. This is my way of retaliating against the latest onslaught. I don’t feel guilty.

  I check the analogue clock on Henry’s desk and know I have some time. I cross the room and put my ear up against the door to the rest of the house. The Argents won’t be irritated by my presence but instead saddened I’m not with my mother. I don’t like disappointing them.

  I swallow away any hurt because showing weakness in front of anyone is something I forbade myself from doing too many years ago to admit defeat now. I’ll be safe here, I tell myself, but it’ll be in an hour’s time, after the Upperlanders’ announcement of our fate, when I will realise just how wrong I was.

  Theia

  ‘Where have you been?’ my mother asks me with infuriation.

  She isn’t at the hospital after all. I scan the kitchen and see more plates of food than I have ever witnessed along the sideboard. She must also believe that this is the big announcement and there will be cause to celebrate. If she’s wrong then at least we have plenty to eat away our disappointment.

  ‘I wanted some air,’ I lie. There’s no way I can tell her where I’ve been or why I went there. ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Offer your grandparents a drink. And check on Leda.’

  ‘Grandma and grandpa are here?’ I am beyond surprised since they have been in the retirement complex for over a year and this is the first time they have returned to the house. With my mother spending her days in the hospital, my incapacitated father unable to look after himself let alone anyone else and my efforts directed on Ronan and Leda, it wasn’t fair on my grandfather caring for my grandmother alone. Plus we didn’t trust her around a baby then and, since her condition will never improve, we still don’t.

  I make my way into the living room. To one side my father wearily places cutlery around the table. He doesn’t acknowledge my presence and I don’t bother to greet him. My grandparents sit on a couch, their walking sticks propped up and tower over them. My grandmother stares into space.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, but it comes out awkward as if I am asking a question. I bend down and kiss them both on their cheeks. Their skin is dry like sandpaper, like they have been through a drought. Ironic, given the water crisis.

  Ronan sits to the side of my grandmother on the floor. ‘Hey Ro.’ I kiss him on the forehead and he tilts his head upwards to beam at me. ‘What have you got there?’ I ask when I notice the object in his hands. He turned six a few weeks ago and has unwrapped a present my grandfather must have brought. A yo-yo. I don’t know where my grandfather found the money but it is wasteful. Ronan looks bemused by the gift. He has enough toys. Many years ago my father went into our attic and came down with a collection of electronic boxes and discs. He explained they were computer games that linked up to the television. It was hard to see why they would be fun without him demonstrating. When the electricity runs freer he promises to show me. I’d rather trade them in for clothes for Leda but they have no value. Believe me, I’ve tried.

  My mother brings in the meal. It is the same humdrum food as always but much more of it: a few root vegetables that can grow on alpine terrain and an abundance of fish. I won’t go hungry tonight. I am hypnotised by the plates until I catch her out of the corner of my eye, raising her eyebrows at me. I almost forgot.

  I walk down the hallway and climb the staircase. Henry’s house is laid out exactly like mine but mirrored, with a wooden fence between the two although its magnitude is nothing compared to the Fence north of us. I put my head against the wallpaper and imagine his family sitting together waiting for the announcement. I wonder how much food they have. We agreed I’ll go over later to make fun of the transmission; easier to mock the phrases than be glum.

  Leda is fast asleep when I enter my parents’ room but, as always, the slightest noise wakes her immediately. She has always sensed when someone checks up on her. She smiles at me as naively happy as she ever is. My sister has a lot to learn and a lot to be disappointed about when she gets older. She’ll have to attend school, if there is such a place by then, and that will consist of reading, writing, basic maths, history, swimming and, depending on the current state of our land, geography. My father told me that school lasted for twelve years when he was young but, soon after the resources started to drop along with the world population, so too did the need for detailed education. So we learn the basics until we turn fifteen. It’s not riveting stuff but I reckon school only exists now to give the youth somewhere to be.

  I remember every term there was a new map on the wall, each with a little more blue and a little less green than the one before. The teachers explained we were the lucky ones. Anyone who argued against this fact would be sent out of the room and conditioned to not question the state of the world.

  I reach down and pick up Leda. She is heavy for a nine month old and I am not surprised given how much nutritious food my mother forces down her throat even though supply is low. My mother is a doctor when she isn’t having babies. She returned to work eight months ago and has always cared for the sick so I am somewhat surprised she’s here tonight and not in the hospital. That she not only brought my grandparents over but is also here means she must really believe something is going to happen with this announcement. The rumours have spread like wildfire and no one has escaped the buzz of our fortunes turning.

  I rock Leda in my arms and sing a lullaby to her. She is wide awake and gurgles to the song. ‘Ok baby. Let’s go eat.’ Leda almost slips out of my hands when I hear a distant shriek. It’s probably my mother dropping a bowl of vegetables. ‘Oh well,’ I say to no one in particular. ‘It’s not like we’ll go hungry.’

  Selene

  I scream at the hammer hurtling towards my face.

  The world stops and everything happens in slow motion. Henry yells when he recognises me and his hand reaches out to obstruct his father. Mrs Argent clasps her cheeks in horror. Fortunately for me, Henry’s father brings the hammer to a standstill an inch in front of my nose, just before it hits me square on.

  I need a moment to regain my composure but the adrenaline kicks in and my heart begins to race, reminding me of unpleasant memories. You brought this on yourself. It’s not like I haven’t been hit before but never this violently, never with a weapon, although the level of force has been escalating over recent months. You’ll get what you deserve. If I had just told Henry I would rather be here than stay with my mother he would have let me. It’s not like I don’t spend most of my time here anyway. It would have saved me from almost having my face caved in.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Henry asks, as if he doesn’t know the answer.

  ‘I almost killed you.’ Mr Argent finds his way to the couch and collapses on it. He realises he’s still holding
the hammer and lets it drop to the floor. They all stare at me, waiting for a response but they know what I am going to say so I don’t bother. It is the same reason as always, only the bruises aren’t visible this time.

  Mrs Argent is the first to spring into action. She cradles her arm around me. ‘I’ll boil some water. I was going to serve some food after the announcement but if you’re hungry I could make you up a plate now.’ I shake my head and smile at her kindness. Boiling water is hard work and a far cry from flicking the switch on a kettle. She goes to the kitchen.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to come here?’ Henry asks me.

  ‘I knew what you’d say, that I should be with my mother and that I should keep trying with her. You’ll never understand. Especially when you have them for parents.’ It doesn’t feel strange to have this conversation in front of his father. Mr Argent has heard it enough times and, anyway, he’s spaced out from nearly killing me. I feel bad and lean over to him. ‘Can I do anything?’

  ‘No dear,’ he says, looking into the middle distance. He appears to have aged ten years in the last two minutes. The resemblance between him and Henry is uncanny. Henry is often told by traders and the other fishermen who work with his father what a handsome man he is becoming. He usually just shrugs but sometimes he storms off. It’s not that he doesn’t want to look like his father; rather he doesn’t want to think about a future we may not live long enough to see.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Henry says.

  ‘You haven’t done anything wrong.’

  ‘I mean I’m sorry for you. Anyway, you’re here now so watch the announcement and eat with us then we’ll work out a plan. What was it this time?’

  I shrug because I could cast my mind back to the argument with my mother but there was no trigger as far as I’m aware so what good would it do to recount the events of the afternoon? Always stupid, trivial fights that escalate until she goads herself on enough to take screamed words into physical attacks.

  Henry’s mother comes back balancing a tray of cups. She perches it on a side-table and hands each of us a drink. Like everything, tea is a commodity that is available but, due to it becoming ever rarer, it is now rationed for even those who can afford it. Bags are a third stuffed full of leaves compared to a year ago and it is up to the individual whether they are happy to drink it weak or combine a few bags for fewer but stronger cups. I notice mine is a darker brown than the others. Mrs Argent turns to me. ‘This should,’ she starts to say but is cut off by a whirring.

  The red light blinks on the television. The Surge has begun.

  Theia

  ‘Quick,’ my father says.

  I don’t have time to ask what my mother has dropped or broken, or even if that was from where the yell emanated because time is limited and slowing down the process would only irritate my parents. ‘Give Theia to me,’ my grandmother says and I avoid her outstretched arms and settle Leda onto my grandfather’s knee, hoping he isn’t too frail as to drop her, and then hurry to complete my duties.

  As with Henry, I am on secondary Surge tasks and sprint up the stairs. We practised together when we were growing up, timing ourselves one after the other to see who could complete their routine quickest. Then, when we realised our houses were almost identical in layout, only reversed, we raced at the same time. The first to stand in front of their window looking onto the other’s bedroom would be declared the winner. It was a game because to think of it as anything else would be miserable, even though Henry was faster and won every time.

  I click all the switches in place and make sure everything is charging in the bathroom before setting all the clocks and other electronics, first in my parents’ bedroom and not forgetting Leda’s hand-me-down electronic toys. I stick my head around Ronan’s door to see that everything is on its green light and then I rush into my room. I don’t bother checking anything. I am used to going without and prefer it that way, finding the withdrawal worse than not having any in the first place. The real reason I hurry is that, just once, I want to beat Henry. My pride in beating him at this childish game overrules everything else. I swing around my bed and slam my hands into the window with a thud. I prepare to accept defeat as...

  The winner. I won.

  I count in my head. One, two, three… Henry takes another thirteen seconds to appear. This is specific but every second mattered when we were practising. Sixteen seconds longer than he has ever taken before. For a Surge, this can amount to a huge difference.

  I am about to gloat from afar but he has a troubled look on his face and I restrain from grinning. I give him a slight, concerned wave then he mouths something but I can’t read his lips so I shake my head. He holds a finger up to indicate I should wait and disappears from behind the windowpane, I guess to fetch writing materials. Our parents tell us off for wasting paper but we like communicating this way and have perfected the art of writing small enough for legible reading whilst saving on space.

  I don’t have time to wait for his return as my mother calls to me upstairs that the announcement is beginning. I hesitate and then leave. I don’t want to miss the news and Henry’s message can wait. I walk down the stairs and have no idea that in the next five minutes my world will be devastated, and that I will learn what people mean when they say hearing bad news can feel as brutal as being kicked in the stomach.

  I will wish that my mother hadn’t brought my grandparents to the house tonight and that they were still in the retirement home, far from our reach. I will wish my mother was at the hospital, where she normally is, rather than choosing her family over her job for the first time on the worst possible occasion. I will wish Leda and Ronan had never been born. Scrap that, I will wish that none of us had ever been born because the announcement will destroy any last hope we have clung onto. Because this hoped-for announcement will be far from hopeful.

  Because the consequences are too grave to at first comprehend.

  Because, in ten hours’ time, only one of us will be allowed to live.

  7 P.M. – 8 P.M.

  Henry

  I return with a scribbled note but Theia has left to watch the announcement and I might not have a chance to prepare her for Selene’s presence before she comes over afterwards. There’s already been one potential hammer to the face incident and I’m not sure the two of them post-broadcast is a good combination.

  I also wanted to ask where she’s been. It’s the first time I’ve seen her all day, which is unusual because on Surge days we normally pass the time speculating on the lies they feed us. I tried her house a few times during the morning but her father was unexpectedly in charge of Ronan and Leda and didn’t know where she went. My father had already left for the shore to fish and since Ruskin wasn’t around I spent the day alone kicking up dirt, then stuck my head in a book, a fiction about a shipwrecked boy, but took no notice of the words as my mind turned to conjuring up the Upperlands’ phrases. We all face these grave times. We each and every one of us have sacrifices to make. We are all suffering together. And then I pictured who would be delegated to sit in front of the camera this time. A woman or a man. Old or young. Harsh or softly-spoken. I’ll never see that person again but each of the previous announcers has stuck firmly in my mind’s eye. Their face, their voice, their safety, their effortless lies.

  I decide my message to Theia can wait, not that I have a choice. I crumple up the paper and find Selene downstairs, awkwardly on the sofa and not one bit relaxed. My parents join us from making sure all of the sockets are charging although my father keeps a watchful eye on the generator in the corner of the room, conscious of how disastrous it would be to blank out now. The announcement still hasn’t started so this should be a pretty decent Surge. My parents will be delighted. If Selene feels guilty about leaving her mother to deal with the electricity she doesn’t show it. Mrs Gould should have no problems with this extended Surge but had it been any shorter it could have made for a few more uncomfortable nights of no heating or light compared to the rest
of us.

  The screen now has a picture and, as usual, the callousness of the Upperlanders astounds me. Each announcement is different: the speaker, the setting, the time of day, but this one aggravates me immediately. The television displays a golden yellow corn field on a hot summer’s day. Whilst the sun begins to set outside my house, and the streetlamps have done their rare thing of turning on only to flicker off as soon as the announcement is over and leave the night to settle into its darkness, we stare at what might as well be another world. It’s amazing this much open space exists beyond the Fence whilst we clamber onto our dwindling land.

  My mother hears me scoff. ‘It’s a good sign,’ she says, although I can’t work out how she comes to that conclusion.

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ Perhaps this scene is meant to reassure us that there is space for us and that promises of Rehousing aren’t hollow but it’s downright insulting. A patch of dry land bathed in sunlight? It couldn’t be further from where we are right now. Of course, given the time of day, the feed verifies that this is a pre-recorded message as they all are.

  The camera turns a fraction and locks onto a woman, predictably another new face. My mother thinks that using a different person each time signifies that we are all part of a larger society but I can’t share her optimism. I sway more towards Theia’s belief that there is a lack of authority and no one wants to take responsibility for failing us. Selene has settled on the conspiracy that we hear around the market, that a powerful group hides behind the announcements. As with the rest, we’ll never see this woman again. She could be anyone, anywhere. The lack of a consistent figurehead and the inclusion of anonymous conduits is something Theia and I tirelessly argue about but we are not the only ones; around us, dissent in the marketplace grows stronger and so far this announcement will do nothing to quash the enigma of who is in charge, which I disagree with my mother as being more unsettling than comforting. I brace myself for the typical message and guess how it will begin. Dear Middlelanders, your best interests are being looked out for. Tell that to all the homeless at the Fence.