So I eat lunch alone most of the time. But today, by the time I pay for my food at the cash register, there’s barely a seat left. Then I spot F5 and F19 from maths class sitting together, and I join them. They’re both idiots, F19 slightly more so. In my mind, I call them Idiot and Doofus.
“Guys,” I say.
“Hey,” Idiot replies, barely looking up.
“Everyone’s talking about the Declaration,” I say.
“Yes,” Doofus says, stuffing his mouth. We eat silently for a while. That’s the way it is with Idiot and Doofus. They are computer geeks, staying up into the wee hours of the day. When I eat with them – maybe once a week – sometimes we don’t say anything at all. That’s when I feel closest to them.
“I’ve been noticing something,” Doofus says after a while.
I glance up at him. “What’s that?”
“Somebody’s been paying quite a bit of attention to you.” He takes another bite into the meat, raw and bloody. It dribbles down his chin, plopping into his bowl.
“You mean the maths teacher? I know what you mean, the guy won’t leave me alone in trig—”
“No, I meant somebody else. A girl.”
This time, both Idiot and I look up.
“For real?” Idiot asks.
Doofus nods. “She’s been looking at you for the past few minutes.”
“Not me.” I take another sip. “She’s probably staring at one of you.”
Idiot and Doofus look at each other. Idiot scratches his wrist a few times.
“Funny, that,” Doofus says. “I swear she’s been eyeing you for a while now. Not just today. But every lunchtime for the past few weeks, I see her watching you.”
“Whatever,” I say, feigning disinterest.
“No, look, she’s staring at you right now. Behind you at the table by the window.”
Idiot spins around to look. When he turns back around, he’s scratching his wrist hard and fast.
“What’s so funny?” I ask, taking another sip, resisting the urge to turn around.
Idiot only scratches his wrist harder and faster. “You should take a look. He’s not kidding.”
Slowly, I turn around and steal a quick glance. There’s only one table by the window. A circle of girls eating there. The Desirables. That’s what they are known as. And that round table is theirs, and everyone knows by some unwritten rule that you leave that table alone. It is the domain of the Desirables, the popular girls, the ones with the cute boyfriends and designer clothes. You approach that table only if they let you. I’ve seen even their boyfriends waiting dutifully off to the side until granted permission to approach.
Not one of them is looking at me. They are chit-chatting, comparing jewellery, oblivious to the world outside the sphere of their table. But then one of them gives me a lingering look, her eyes meeting, then holding, mine. It is Ashley June. She looks at me with the same kind of wistful, longing glance she’s shot at me dozens of times over the past few years.
I flick my eyes away, spin back around. Idiot and Doofus are scratching their wrists maniacally now. I feel the heat of a dangerous blush begin to hit my face, but they are thankfully too busy scratching to notice. I quell my face, taking deep, slow breaths until the heat dissipates.
“Actually,” Idiot says, “didn’t that girl have a thing for you before? Yeah, yeah, I think that’s right. A couple of years back.”
“She’s still pining after you, she’s got the hots for you after all this time,” Doofus wisecracks, and this time the two of them start scratching each other’s wrists uncontrollably.
Swimming practice after lunch – yes, my coach is a maniac – is almost called off. None of the squad members can concentrate. The locker room is abuzz with the latest rumours about the Declaration. I wait for the room to clear before getting changed. I’m just slipping out of my clothes when someone walks in. “Yo,” Poser, the team captain, says, ripping off his clothes and slipping into his extra-tight Speedos. He drops down for push-ups, inflating his triceps and chest muscles. A dumbbell sits in his locker awaiting his biceps curls. His Buffness the Poser does this before every practice, jacking up to the max. He has a fan club out there, mostly freshmen and sophomores on the girls’ squad. I’ve seen him let them touch his pecs. The girls used to gawk at me, the braver ones sidling up and trying to talk to me during practice until they realized I preferred to be alone. Poser has thankfully drawn away most of that attention.
He does ten more push-ups in quick succession. “It’s got to be about a Heper Hunt,” he says, pausing halfway down. “And they should forget about doing it by lottery this time. They should just pick the strongest among us. That would,” he says, finishing his push-up, “be me.”
“No doubt about,” I say. “It’s always been brawn over brains in the Hunt. Survival of the fittest—”
“And winner takes all,” he finishes as he pushes out ten more push-ups, the last three on one hand. “Life distilled down to its rawest essence. Gotta love it. Because brute strength always wins. Always has, always will.” He runs his hand over his bicep, looking approvingly, and heads out of the door. Only then do I fully remove my clothes and put on my trunks.
Coach is already barking at us as we jump in and continues to berate us for our lack of focus as we swim our laps. The water, always too cold for me even on a normal day, is freezing today. Even a few of my classmates complain about it, and they almost never complain about the water temperature. Water at cold temperatures affects me in a way it doesn’t anyone else. I shiver, get something my father called “goose bumps”. It’s one of the many ways I’m different from everyone else. Because despite my near identical physiological similarity with them, there are seismic fundamental differences that lie beneath the frail and deceptive surface of similarity.
Everyone is slower today. Distracted, no doubt. I need more speed, more effort. It takes everything in me to stop shivering. Even when the water is at its usual temperature, with everyone splashing away, it usually takes a full twenty minutes before I’m warm enough. Today, instead of getting warmer, I feel my body getting colder. I need to swim faster.
After a warm-up lap, as we are resting up in the shallow end, I am almost overcome by a sudden urge to kick off and swim the forbidden stroke.
Only my father has seen me use it. Years ago. During one of our daytime excursions to a local pool. For whatever reason, I dipped my head underwater. It is the first sign of drowning, whenever even the nose and ears dip below the surface. Lifeguards are trained to watch for this: see half a head submerge underwater, and they’re instantly reaching for their whistles and life preservers. That’s why the water level, even at the deep end, goes up only to our waists. It’s the depth that gets to people, renders them incapacitated. If their feet can’t touch the bottom without their jaw line sinking below water, a panic attack seizes them like a reflex. They freeze up, sink, drown. So even though swimming is considered the domain of adrenaline junkies, those willing to flirt with death, really, it’s not. Here in the pool, you can simply stand up at the first sign of trouble. The water is so shallow, even your belly button won’t drown.
But me that day, dipping my head underwater. I don’t know what possessed me. I ducked my head below and did this thing with my breath. I don’t know how to describe it except to say I gripped it. Held it in place in my lungs behind a closed mouth. And for a few seconds, I was fine. More than a few seconds. More like ten. Ten seconds, my head underwater, and I didn’t drown.
It wasn’t even scary. I opened my eyes, my arms pale blurs before me. I heard my father yelling, the sound of water splashing towards me. I told him I was fine. I showed him what to do. He didn’t believe at first, kept asking if I was OK. But eventually, he came around to doing it himself. He didn’t like it, not one bit.
The next time we went swimming, I did the same thing. And then some. This time, with my head underwater, I stretched out my arms, stroked them over my head, one after the other. I pulled on th
e water, kicked my legs. It was awesome. Then I stood up, choking on water. Coughed it out. My father, worried, waded towards me. But I took off again, arms reaching up and over, pulling the water under me, legs and feet kicking the water, my father left in my wake. I was flying.
But when I swam back, my father was shaking his head, with anger, with fear. He didn’t need to say anything (even though he did, endlessly); I already knew. He called it “the forbidden stroke”. He didn’t want me to swim that way anymore. And so I never did.
But today I’m freezing in the water. Everyone is just going through the motions, even chatting to one another, heads smiling above water as hands and feet paddle underneath like pond ducks. I want to stroke hard, kick out, warm up.
And then I feel it. A shudder rippling through my body.
I lift up my right arm. It’s dotted with goose bumps, grotesque little bumps like cold chicken skin. I paddle harder, propelling my body forward. Too fast. My head knocks up against the feet of the person in front. When it happens again, he shoots a glare back at me.
I slow down.
Cold seeps into my bones. I know what I have to do. Get out of the water before the shivering gets out of control, escape into the locker room. But when I lift my arms, goose bumps – disgustingly like bubble wrap – prickle out, obvious to all. Then something weird happens to my jaw. It starts to chatter, vibrate, knock my teeth together. I clench my mouth shut.
When the team completes the lap, we rest up before heading out for the next lap. We’ve all paced ourselves too fast and have twelve seconds before the next lap. It’s going to be the longest twelve seconds of my life.
“They forgot to turn on the heat,” somebody complains. “Water’s too cold.”
“The maintenance crew. Probably too busy talking about the Declaration.”
The water levels off at our waists. But I stay crouched, keeping my body underwater. I trail my fingers over my skin. Little bumps all over. I glance up at the clock. Ten more seconds. Ten more seconds to just fly under the radar and hope—
“What’s the matter with you?” Poser says, gazing at me. “You look sick.” The rest of the team turns around.
“N-no-nothing,” I say, my voice chattering. I grip my voice and bark it out again. “Nothing.”
“Sure?” he asks again.
I nod my head, not trusting my voice. My eyes flick at the clock. Nine seconds to go. It’s as if the clock is stuck in Super Glue.
“Coach!” Poser yells, his right arm motioning. “Something’s wrong with him.”
Coach’s head snaps around, his body half a beat behind. The assistant coach is already moving towards us.
I raise my hands, up to the wrists. “I’m OK,” I assure them, but my voice trembles. “Just fine, let’s swim.”
A girl in front of me studies me closely. “Why is his voice doing that? Shaking like that?”
Fear ices my spine. A soupy sensation steals into my stomach, churning it upside down. Do whatever it takes to survive, my father would tell me, his hand smoothing down my hair. Whatever it takes.
And in that moment with the coaches coming towards me and everyone staring at me, I find a way to survive. I vomit into the pool, a heaving green-yellow mess filled with sticky spittle and gooey saliva. It’s not a lot, and most of it just floats on the surface like an oil spill. A few colourless chunks drift downward.
“That’s so disgusting!” the girl shrills, splashing vomit away as she jumps backward. The other swimmers also move away, arms and hands slapping at the water. The green slick of vomit floats haphazardly back towards me.
“You get out of the water now!” Coach yells at me.
I do. Most people are too distracted by the vomit in the pool to notice my body. It’s ridden with goose bumps. And shaking. Coach and his assistant are making their way to me. I hold up my arm, pretend I’m about to upchuck again. They stop in their tracks.
I run into the locker room, bent over. Inside, I make retching sounds as I towel off and throw my clothes on. I don’t have much time before they come in. Even with the clothes on, I’m still shivering. I hear them getting closer now. I jump down onto the floor and start doing push-ups. Anything to get my body warmer.
But it’s useless. I can’t stop shivering. And when I hear the first voices cautiously enter the locker room, I grab my bag and head out. “I don’t feel well,” I say as I walk past them. Disgust pulls their faces down as they step aside, but that’s OK. I’m used to it, that look.
It’s the way I look at myself in the mirror when I’m alone at home.
You live too long trying not to be something, eventually you wind up hating that thing.
In English literature class right before the Declaration, no one can concentrate. All we want to do – including the teacher, who jettisons any pretence of teaching – is talk about the Declaration. I’m quiet, trying to thaw out, coldness still dug in deep in my bones. The teacher insists the Declaration is about another Hunt. “It’s not like the Ruler is going to marry again,” she says, her eyes stealing up to the clock, counting down the minutes to two a.m.
Finally, at one forty-five a.m., we’re led to the auditorium. It’s bubbling over with excitement. Teachers line the sides, shifting on their feet. Even janitors loiter at the back, restless. Then two a.m. arrives and the screen above the stage is filled with our nation’s symbol: two white fangs, standing for Truth and Justice. For a frightful moment, the projector sputters and blanks out. A groan ripples across the rows of seats; technicians fly to the projector that sits, heavy and unwieldy, like all audiovisual equipment, in the centre of the auditorium. Within a minute, they have it up and running again.
Just in time. The Ruler, sitting at his desk in the Circular Office, is beginning his speech. His hands are clasped, his long fingers interlaced, the nails gleaming under the spotlights.
“My dear citizens,” he begins. “When it was announced earlier this evening that I would be speaking, many of you” – he pauses dramatically – “if not all of you, were intrigued, to say the least. My advisers have informed me that concern spread across this great land, and that many of you were overwrought with speculation and even undue worry. I apologise if that happened; it was not my intent. For I come to you with news not of war or distress, but of great tidings.”
Everyone in the auditorium leans forward at this. All across the land, over five million citizens huddle around TVs and large screens with bated breath.
“My announcement to you, gentle people, is that this year we will once again hold that most esteemed of events.” His tongue slips out, wets his lips. “For the first time in a decade, we will once again have a Heper Hunt!”
At that, everyone’s heads snap back and forth, side to side, loud snorts issuing out of their noses. The auditorium, filled with the staccato movement of snapping heads and the sound of suctioned air, reverberates with excitement.
“Now, before I sign off and the Director of the Heper Institute furnishes you with the details, let me say that such an event is emblematic of who we are. It encapsulates all that makes this nation transcendent: character, integrity, perseverance. May the best succeed!”
A raucous stomping of feet fills the auditorium. As one, we stand with him, placing our hands over our throats as his image on the screen fades out. Then the Director of the Heper Institute speaks. He is a wiry, sharp man, officious in demeanour, dressed to the nines.
There will be a hunting party of between five and ten this year, he tells us. “This is a democracy we live in, where every person counts, where every person matters. Thus, every citizen over the age of fifteen and under the age of sixty-five will receive a randomly assigned sequence of four numbers. In exactly twenty-four hours, the numbers of the sequence will be randomly picked and publicly announced live on TV Anywhere between five to ten of you will have this winning sequence.”
Heads snap back, spines crack. Five to ten citizens!
“The lottery winners will be immediately tak
en to the Heper Institute of Refined Research and Discovery for a four-night training period. Then the Hunt will begin.” The auditorium breaks out in hisses and snarls. The Director continues. “The rules of the Hunt are simple: the hepers will be given a twelve-hour head start into the desert plains. Then the hunters will be released. The goal? Chase the hepers down, eat more of them than any other hunter.” He stares into the camera lens. “But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, aren’t we? First, you have to be one of the few lucky lottery winners. Good luck to you all.”
Then more foot stomping, silenced with an uplifted hand. “One more thing,” he says. “Did I mention anything about the hepers?” He pauses; everyone leans forward. “Most of the hepers were too young for the previous Hunt. They were mere babies back then, really. It would have been cruel, barbaric, and, well, simply unfair to have babies as prey.” A cruel glint perches in his eyes. “But since that time, we have raised them in the most controlled of environments. To ensure not only that they will provide us with succulent flesh and rich blood, but that they will also be more . . . dexterous than last time. Finally, as we speak tonight, they are ripe and ready for sport and consumption.”
More wrist scratching and drooling.
“Good citizens,” the Director continues, “there is no time like the present. Most of you will receive your lottery numbers at your workstation within a minute. Mothers at home, your numbers will be sent via e-mail to your official account. And for those in high school and college, your numbers are awaiting you back at your desk. Good luck to you all.” His image fades out.
Usually we are led out in orderly fashion, row by row. But today there is pandemonium as the student body – a slippery, sloppy soup – gushes out. The teachers, usually lined up along the side directing traffic, are the first ones out, hurrying to the staff room.
Back in my homeroom, everyone is maniacally logging in, long nails tapping against the glass deskscreen. I am all fakery as I put on my act of shaking my head and drooling. At the top of my inbox, in large caps and in crimson red, is the lottery e-mail:
The Hunt Page 2