Forbidden Thoughts

by Milo Yiannopoulos

  Mother Qez tapped the small, metallic disc resting on the skin below and behind her left ear. All of the mothers had them—at least the ones old enough to have won the procreation lottery. Once your birth was completed, at whatever age you happened to be when your number came up, the companion was surgically implanted. And seeming immortality attained.

  Or, at least, as close to immortality as could be achieved through science.

  How the companion worked, was also something the senior mothers kept to themselves. Additional knowledge to be gained—by the lytes—when enough years had elapsed. An aspect of society Dinah found endlessly frustrating. But it was the way of things.

  Dinah’s glance at Shervet told her that Shervet wasn’t satisfied, but also wasn’t going to argue with Mother Qez, either. There were many rumors forever circulating among the lytes—about the how and the why of the universe. Surely the mothers knew, for they themselves had once been lytes. But the mothers kept quiet, and knowledge was dispensed to the younger generation over an achingly gradual schedule.

  “It is a mistake to know too much, too soon!” Mother Eilan had once shouted, banging her palm on the very same lightboard that Mother Qez now used. The lessons of the dead world from before the war, seemed to inhabit many conclusions of many lyte-inspired conversations. “Capability, without responsibility!”

  Hesitantly, Dinah pushed the desk button to illuminate her own question light.

  “Yes, Lyte Dinah?”

  “Ummm,” Dinah said, working up the nerve to complete her thought; if Shervet could do it, Dinah could.

  Now it was Mother Eilan who was also looking at Dinah, in addition to Mother Qez.

  Dinah’s face suddenly felt very hot, so she released the button.

  “Never mind,” Dinah said.

  “Oh no,” Mother Qez said, her eyebrow arched. “You’re not getting off the hook that easily. I know your file, Lyte Dinah. I know the kinds of thoughts that knock around inside your head. Ask your question—I’ll let you know if it can be answered.”

  “Shervet wants to know how babies happen,” Dinah said haltingly, “but what I want to know is, how do trogs happen?”

  Mother Eilan practically leapt from her chair at the back of the class, while Mother Qez stepped to the rear several paces, and bumped her elbows against the lightboard.

  The entire class had fallen silent. Now here was a matter few truly dared broach.

  “Also a question that must wait, until you are selected—and made ready,” Mother Qez said.

  “Do we give birth to trogs, as well as lytes?” Dinah asked, pushing through her embarrassment. The picture of the dead trog was foremost in her mind now. He’d been as fragile as any lyte. What were his feelings, up to and directly before the end? What had been his hates? His fears? His loves? Had he even known love at all? Dinah opened her mouth to speak again, but was suddenly cut off.

  “Of course not!” Mother Eilan practically shouted from the back of the room. “The trogs are inhuman!”

  Mother Qez held up her hand, looking to her junior mother—as if to request calmness.

  “Your mind seems to be following a dangerous path,” Mother Qez said, turning her head and eyes to look at Dinah. “I admire the boldness of your curiosity. That is the mark of a lyte who will do much good for our country. But only if your mind is disciplined. On the origins of the trogs, I can speak no further. Not because the truth is not known, but because the truth—at this time, and in this class—would be harmful to you. Suffice to say that you will know eventually. You will all know. Now, let’s continue. I want to discuss the mechanics of the lottery proper, before going into more detail about the communal nursery.”

  Mother Qez’s fingers began to manipulate the lightboard, but Dinah’s mind was very far away from the lecture. It stayed far away until Mother Qez called for a break. The various lytes stood up from their desks—to stretch, and use the lavatory. Dinah herself absently got out of her seat, and joined several other lytes as they sauntered out of the room and down a hallway to where the toilets and wash basins would be.

  A yellow sign blocked their path, guarded by a towering beta.

  “No entry,” the beta’s voice stated firmly. Despite the beta’s size, its voice was high-pitched. Like every other inch of the beta’s pink skin, the beta’s scalp was smooth. It didn’t blink as it stared down at the lytes, who fidgeted with physical discomfort.

  “Is there a problem?” asked Mother Eilan’s voice from behind. She was walking toward the growing collection of lytes, all trying to look past or around the beta guarding the lavatory entrance.

  The beta’s manner turned from stern, to gentle—almost obsequious. “Yes, Mother, there is a problem—for which I deeply and profoundly apologize. One of your kindred instructors alerted the maintenance center to the fact that this particular lavatory is experiencing mechanical problems. I immediately brought a work crew over to deal with it. I do want to apologize again for this extreme inconvenience.”

  Mother Eilan seemed to accept this at face value, then clapped her hands three times.

  “You heard what it said, now, quickly—over to the east lavatory. Before someone makes a mess!”

  The lytes collectively moaned a complaint, then hurriedly shuffled off to the far lavatory in a different part of the building. Dinah was last in, and had to wait for a clear toilet stall. She felt like bursting, before she got a chance to sit down, and relieve herself. Then she allowed herself the luxury of remaining, and waiting. She was on the far side of the lavatory, away from the wash basin. When the other lytes had vacated, Dinah was alone—and in her solitude, able to think. The matter of the dead trog continued to bother her. The fact that Mother Qez was tight-lipped about the origin of the trogs, bothered Dinah more. Surely they weren’t pulled—alive and whole—out of the ground. Somebody had to give birth to them. Even if they weren’t people. Cats made kittens and dogs made puppies. The trogs—

  Suddenly, footsteps proceeded into the lavatory. Two pairs of feet. Adult, by the quality of the sound. The two mothers were in mid-conversation, their tone hushed. Dinah thought it sounded like Mother Eilan and Mother Qez, but could not be sure.

  Dinah held her breath, as the two mothers conducted their personal business just a few stalls away. Had they seen Dinah’s feet? She deftly pulled them up off the floor, clutching her knees to her chin.

  “... she’s too inquisitive to hold back with the others.”

  “... it’s the damned field trip outside the wall, she saw one of them.”

  “... a trog? Let me guess, that was Ouphon’s toy who jumped last night.”

  “... Ouphon shouldn’t be violating the law!”

  “... Ouphon isn’t the first, and won’t be the last.”

  “... How can you just say it like that? As if it doesn’t mean anything?”

  “... Of course it means something. It means Lyte Dinah may have to be placed on an accelerated learning track, and taken out of the ordinary school environment. Her dormitory partner, too. Shervet? They both saw the body. Unfortunate, that Ouphon didn’t think to tell anyone before it was too late.”

  “... Ouphon clearly didn’t want to get caught, nor admit what she’d been doing with that trog!”

  “... Nor should she. I’d have probably kept my mouth shut too. Anyway, if confronted, she’ll deny it, regardless. And so what? It’s not like a dead trog is a crime. Ouphon will just have to get over not getting any more ‘service’ in her auxiliary suite—inside the wall. You have to admit, that’s a clever place to do it. Isolated. Far from the busy buildings. Trogs are not an uncommon sight, performing wall maintenance.”

  “... You almost sound like you want to try it yourself.”

  “... Any woman who hasn’t thought about trying it with the trogs—”

  “... Disgusting!”

  “... Yes, well, maybe.”

  Eventually the voices were drowned out by the sound of running water, and then the adult footsteps receded
.

  Dinah breathlessly lowered her feet back to the floor. After a bit of cleaning up, she was out the lavatory door, and heading back to class. Doubtless Mother Qez had resumed instructing, but Dinah couldn’t be dinged for lateness—the lavatory closest to the classroom had been out of order. What really terrified Dinah, was the conversation she’d overheard. Too many unanswered and unanswerable questions, pushing at the front of her consciousness.

  Ten meters before making the classroom door, Dinah stopped short. The beta she’d seen earlier, was leading three trogs out the way they’d originally come in. One of the trogs was pushing a cart on wheels. Another was carrying a large box with a handle on the top. Both of them were stooped, and had long hair that sprouted from both their heads and their faces—silver in color, and dirty by the smell of it. The third trog was different, though. Young. Black haired. Perhaps as young as Dinah herself? Unlike the older trogs—who simply stared ahead, and shuffled, without speaking—the young trog noticed Dinah, and made eye contact with her.

  There was an instant of connection—of one mind, acknowledging another. The young trog, whose eyes—as bright as Mother Eilan’s—were both warm, and suggesting of intellect. He hesitated for a moment, the mop handle in his hands temporarily forgotten. Dinah suddenly thought him beautiful.

  That was all it took, and the beta was coming down on the young trog like a lightning storm.

  “Eyes front, you waste of skin! Eyes front!”

  The pain flail lashed, and a current-charged cascade of agony caused the young trog to scream.

  “No! No!” Dinah found herself yelling, trying to step between the beta, and the trog who convulsed on the floor.

  Almost instantly, the door to the classroom popped open, and Mother Eilan was standing at the doorway, her voice bellowing commands.

  “Stop that, this instant! Get out of here with your crew! Lyte Dinah, you will report to my learning chamber at once! MOVE!”

  The beta lowered its flail, and smiled a smile filled with yellow, crooked teeth.

  “Oh, most assuredly, Mother, and I do profoundly and deeply apologize for the interruption! I will ensure that this young one is properly disciplined and dealt with, away from the campus. Do please pass my apology to the rest of the staff. I am so very sorry for this. Terribly, terribly inappropriate.”

  The beta’s eyes promised murder at the young trog—who was shakily climbing to his feet.

  Dinah tried to look into the young trog’s face—to see again, what she had so briefly seen—but the trog’s eyes remained fully forward, and his head was bent low, as he hurriedly kept after the other trogs; even going so far as to mimic their age-worn shuffling.

  Shervet joined Dinah at their dormitory window. It was dark. Dinah should have been asleep. Or at least in her bunk. The faint light from a half moon, filtered in through the window’s transparent material. Outside, the tops of trees and buildings could be seen, all shadowy and silvered at the edges.

  Dinah quietly hummed a bit of music, to try to calm herself. It was from one of the nursery hymns they all learned, as small girls. About how there was harmony in all things, when all things knew their places. A sensible enough hymn, for the communal nursery—where mothers worked around the clock to keep toddlers and youngsters in line. The hymn had always brought Dinah comfort. It spoke of finding refuge and support in structure. But now? Now, the words seemed empty.

  “Today was just bad luck,” Shervet said, placing a hand on Dinah’s shoulder.

  “Bad luck for us both,” Dinah replied. “I’m not the only one being pulled out of class.”

  “Punished for being nosy,” Shervet said. “Figures.”

  “I wonder if they’ll move us out of the dormitory too?” Dinah asked. “I think we’re being taken out of class, more to protect the other lytes from our ‘nosiness’ than anything else.”

  “Probably,” Shervet replied.

  A short silence elapsed, as the two lytes stared out into the night.

  Then, Shervet’s hand slowly slid across Dinah’s triceps, to the opposite shoulder, where Shervet’s fingers began to trace little circles.

  Dinah stiffened.

  “Is now not a good time for the touch?” Shervet said, freezing her movement.

  “I’m sorry,” Dinah said. “I don’t mean to be rude. It’s just that... I can’t... Maybe some other night.”

  Shervet’s arm dropped, and she turned to go crawl into her bunk. It was a two-person room. With narrow beds to either side of the window, and shelving above the bunks. A mere two meters separated them. But suddenly Shervet felt very far away.

  “Wait,” Dinah said. “Don’t be cross. It’s not you. It’s me.”

  “You never didn’t like the touch before,” Shervet said, a hint of petulance in her voice. “Maybe it would take your mind off the trogs? That’s all you’ve been thinking about, ever since this morning.”

  “I can’t stop,” Dinah said, making fists in her short hair—as if to pull it out at the roots.

  “I can’t either,” Shervet admitted. “I was hoping the touch would take both our minds off of it.”

  “But it’s not just what we saw,” Dinah said. “It’s what I heard. You weren’t there when I listened to the mothers talking in the lavatory. You were right, about how he died. He jumped. But that’s not the most shocking part. The mothers talked as if a different mother were... well... you can infer a lot from the way people talk about a thing, without really talking about it.”

  “What are you getting at?” Dinah Shervet said, her feet dangling over the side of her bed.

  “Did you notice, how the dead trog was naked?”

  “Now that you mention it, sure.”

  “It didn’t make sense, until I heard the mothers talking about Mother Ouphon. They referred to the naked trog as Ouphon’s ‘toy’ and how Mother Ouphon would just have to ‘get by’ without him.”

  “Okay... ” Shervet said hesitantly, still not getting what Dinah was driving at.

  “Ouphon and the trog... Shervet, Ouphon and the trog were doing the touch!”

  “That’s gross. But why would the trog jump?”

  “I don’t know. If it had been Mother Eilan doing the touch with a trog, she would have jumped—to spare herself the shame.”

  “Maybe the trog was ashamed too?”

  “Maybe. Shervet, we’ve discovered something. Something we’ve not yet been told about, but also something that’s not supposed to happen. Not among the mothers, anyway. But I think it’s happened before. Maybe it’s still happening now? Something the mothers don’t want to admit, or at least don’t want to talk about openly with each other.”

  “Doing the touch with a trog, sounds disgusting,” Shervet said. “They’re stupid, smelly, and filthy.”

  “Yes they are,” Dinah said. “But the dead one outside the wall, he wasn’t smelly or filthy. He was as clean as you or me—ignoring the blood.”

  Dinah watched her friend’s features, in the dim light from the window. Shervet’s mouth frowned, as she seemed to be trying to puzzle something out.

  “What if... what if the question I asked in class today, and the question you asked... have the same answer?” Shervet finally said.

  Dinah felt a prickle run up her spine.

  The next morning, Dinah and Shervet were ordered to pack their belongings. Two large, plastic chests were brought by two young trogs, and their requisite beta master. It wasn’t the same beta as Dinah had encountered the day before, but she was certain that one of the two trogs was the same one who’d been hit with the punishment flail, for daring to meet her gaze. The trogs stood outside the dorm room door, speechless, heads hung low and eyes on the floor, while Dinah and Shervet gathered their clothing and belongings, and carefully deposited it all into the chests. The trogs were ordered in, to pick up and carry the chests—each one far heavier than most lytes would care to handle—and then the trogs trailed along behind Dinah and Shervet as one of the dorm mothers led them
through a service corridor ordinarily not accessible to lytes. Halfway down a connecting hallway, Shervet began muttering to herself. When the dorm mother called for a halt, Shervet confessed to having forgotten something back in their old room.

  The dorm mother sighed in annoyance, then bade the beta to have the trogs rest their burdens on the floor.

  “What could you have possibly left behind?” the dorm mother asked.

  “It’s a smaller chest. Mother Wyo gave it to me a long time ago, and said not to open it until my ascension to motherhood. I keep it under my bunk, so that it’s out of the way.”

  “Is it heavy enough to require a trog’s muscles?” the dorm mother asked.

  “Probably,” Shervet said, her face now bright red.

  The dorm mother looked around for a moment, then threw up her hands in exasperation, and snapped her fingers at the beta.

  “Come. Bring one of the two. The other stays here, with Lyte Dinah.”

  “Mother,” the beta said—its voice high-pitched, like that of its kindred, “I do not believe it would not be wise to leave a trog unsupervised. They can be troublesome if left out of the watchful eye of a responsible master.”

  “Are you saying you were foolish enough to bring a known problem trog into a dorm?” the dorm mother said sharply.

  The beta almost choked. Then rushed to explain himself.

  “Oh, no, ma’am, no, no, it’s not that. It’s just... well, if something were to happen—”

  “I am sure it will be fine,” Shervet interrupted, her face still red. “It was my fault for leaving the second chest. The sooner we retrieve it, the sooner we can be on our way. I apologize for the inconvenience and interruption.”