White. A pure color. White is everywhere. On the four symmetric walls, the flooring, the ceiling. The only glimpse of color on the pod was a swirling puddle of oil in the corner. Studying it, it seem it had dozens of hues in it. Kaleidoscopic looking, even. Green. Green then purple. Purple then blue. Continuous. The world must have had all of these colors and more long before the winter. Green vegetation, not like the synthetic plants grown in labs. Blue skies, unlike the simulated blue dome perched above our heads in the courtyard. I continued to look at the puddle, submerged in my thoughts. It seemed as though I had thought about how the world was before the conflict of the countries time and time again. Yesterday too I thought about the ravaged Earth and what it had seemed then and how it seemed now.
The executives come every so often to educate the youth on the dangers of our past vessel and how only the Carriers should go down there if you get the honor of doing so. They make it sound as though being a Carrier was a noble job. But only the ones handpicked by Mr. Burke himself go. They are plucked from the learning center or their families and shipped away to Earth to get water, metals, all the necessities for ship maintenance and basic needs of the people. Though there are two types of workers. Carriers and Miners. The Miners are sent to the Moon to mine Helium-3 to fuel the reactor on the ship, but that is a rarity. Every two years Miners must be chosen. I myself am only 16, but it still is sad as the people bid farewell to their grief-stricken families. The families always have hope, but nevertheless they return only to die because of the harsh conditions they experienced or are killed by the tribes.
It reminded me of a book that I read as a child. It centered on the Second World War. How children were sent away from their parents on trains to be kept safe from the lethal bombings. Literature. One of the great things that keep me grounded to my seemingly unrealistic being is literature. That and my vast hunger for learning. I had proven to be very inquisitive, though I really didn’t prefer socializing. I find that the only companionship I need is a book and white noise in the background. That’s my utopia. But, the utopia I wished I could see is the ones talked about in my books. The green and the purple, yellow, and pinks.
The Earth. Oh, what I would give to see a live tree in the wild or a singing bird or feel the gentle rays of sunlight on my shoulders. A life where my hands don’t shake. A world where the ground is still beneath my feet.
And then, I was back in my pod. Waiting, looking at the puddle.
There was a slight knock on my door. I turned around as the door opened. My head spun to the side to my nightstand. It was 6:30. The door cracked even more and a pair of bright eyes of all colors looked at me. Eyes just like the dripping and swirling puddle of oil. Peaking, he brought his whole face in.
He was about 4’6 with wispy caramel hair. His teeth were still like nubs and he had a babyish stature. He seemed much younger than the rest of the kids his age, turning nine this week. The Leviathan being so very close to the Earth, our measure of time is slightly different but overall is quite similar. Still seven days in a week. He came into the room and put his hands behind his back and grinned, rocking from the balls of his feet to his heels.
“Good morning, Grey!” He said with the slightest lisp. I smiled in return.
“You need to come down, there’s an announcement.” Caleb stated while making his way out the door. “Okay, thank you for letting me know, I’ll be down shortly.” He nodded quickly and barreled out the room.
With little to no hesitation, I stand and open the top compartment on my white chest of drawers. Within it, I find one crisp pair of white neutral toned clothes folded neatly in the center. I undress and redress myself. I pick up a pristine hairbrush on the bathroom counter top, combing through my mid-length brown hair into a ponytail just above the nape of my neck.
I look at myself square in the mirror. My pinkish-pale skin bright in the reflection and my eyes intimidatingly blue. Walking out, I pick up a red string on my bedside table frayed from old age. Clutching the string with a shaking hand, twisting and untwisting it with three willowy fingers.
Walking down a pristine white hallway with a still face and with a less still pair of appendages, I find myself in a room filled with others donned in white cotton pants and button-ups, with the still faces similar to mine.
Another humdrum day it was in the Leviathan, a great shuttle that holds the remaining surviving people, animals, and genetically modified plants. It orbits around our sun, like a planet, and about the same size too. It is called the Leviathan for a reason. It is just outside Earth’s gravitational field, like a moon of a sort. I watch as the screens around the tinted windows arise, providing a breathtaking view of our sun from a safe distance.
The sun is a beautiful shade of yellow and red with some orange tones as well and a mighty sight for sore eyes. In which I am sure there are many sore eyes on this ship at the moment. But there is always that silence that sweeps over the room every morning as the sun drips into the horizon.
It is customary now to show the sun again each morning to provide hope of a new tomorrow. We are all promised a better world soon, but soon has been quite long. Mr. Burke swears on a safe return to Earth once all of the “minor problems” are amiss to us. Minor problems that include, a prolonged nuclear winter, humans that became savage, and the last dying population of animal and plant Earth-inhabitants turning to bones and dust before our by standing eyes or so we’ve been told. But he says we can trust him. He promises water. Water. One of the richest words on the ship. Whether you were born into a family of wealth or a poverty-stricken household. None of which matter more than water. As so, the fat man is envied, and the skinny woman is pitied.
With what minimal supplies found here on the ship are what we have until the Carriers arrive. Yes, the Carriers provide for us, but cannot provide much for themselves or their families. The Carriers usually arrive sooner, though it seems they are late. If they are too late, it might cost us everything.
But as we all stand huddled in the square, the silence becomes hushed murmuring from neighbor to neighbor. Me? I stand alone. Not many want to associate themselves with me. As people and their families huddle together in pods, I slouch with my lips pressed tight together. I stare at my feet as people flock about around me, avoiding eye-contact. Crowds aren’t exactly my favorite.
A small hand slips into mine and grasps it purposely. I look down and Caleb is assuring me. My hands hang still aside from the fidgety twisting and untwisting of the string. A room of leisure soon turns lull, the air hanging dead in our lungs as a figure steps into view at the front of the pavilion.
A man painted into the shadows draws out into vision. Christopher Burke. A man of great power and responsibility, standing taller than all others with a stone-like composure. It seemed he had made friends with time, his mind still fit and fitter than most. His snake-like features added to his slim composure and high arched brows scrunched the skin at the center. His upturned nose always made it seem as though he had always smelt something sour. He scans through the crowd with a look of distaste, but many just say it’s not his fault, it’s just his face. A hazy glow of silence surrounds the crowd. I shift from foot to foot uneasily. He opens his mouth and a voice dripping with accent and formality speaks.
“Ladies and gentlemen. I am sorrowful to announce the disconnection with the last Carrier team arriving on Earth-”
He is interrupted by multiple cries from the audience, as whenever the Leviathan was disconnected from the team, it meant that they had been captured by local groups of hunters. That usually happens though sometimes the team doesn’t return. That is, the situation now. The humans now fought with sticks and stones as primitive as we were thousands of years prior to today. Even in their state, they are still hostile to the Carriers, wearing large packs holding water and such. I heard that they are cannibals and they eat the Carriers once they are taken. A girl named Crystal from my studies had told all of us at the learning center, but I was not exactly sure I believed her words. I told her ‘what proof do you have?’ and she told me to ask one of them myself when I go down to Earth. I couldn’t stand being in the same room as her. She poked fun at me a lot because in her mind and in many others, was a freak. Especially being compared to her friends and herself, with their flowing blond hair and blue eyes. I was quite plain. I was just Grey and nothing more.
As the cries die down, Burke lifts out a hand to the audience, a comforting gesture, though he made it seem more dismissive.
“As I said, we do not know where the team is, we are only aware that they are in the southern hemisphere of what used to be South America. With that knowledge, we will put together a second team of people to find them and bring back even more resources!” He exclaimed with wide eyes as though he just had the greatest idea man had ever thought.
Carriers are constantly sent down to that specific area in South America, no idea why, but all of the citizens call it the Stockyard. The name quite narrates itself.
The passengers glared at him with profound intensity. This man was not proposing such a good plan, because they might as well loose another team of 20 people. The crowd looked around to see each other’s faces, looking for other opinions than their own. I stare down at my feet and Caleb sways back and forth against my shaking arm.
What he doesn’t understand being young, is that his mother might leave. His father died as a Carrier when Caleb had just been conceived 3 months before. Alexander Harrigan. He had a lung collapse years before and had only one working one and was not fit for the job but saw it as civic duty. Caleb has yet to realize is that his mother might go as well. An elderly man from the second row shouts out at Burke who is still as his voice is stern.
“But who will go? Many mothers have already left. But what about the children, Mr. Burke?”
“My family gave 1,000,000 euros for a hospitable stay!” A second voice shouted from a row several to the left.
All of the people on the ship had to pay a great fee, because the ship could only hold so many. My great-great-great-great-great-grandparents had sold their house and salvaged all the money they could manage to get the smallest pod size offered on the ship’s lowest level. Many mumbled around to their left and right.
“We will have a second meeting shortly before those will be sent. Thank you.” And he exited into a door behind him.
“So you just sacrifice another group of mothers, fathers, and teenagers?”
A third then a fourth protested, until the crowd became a rioting mess. With haste, I picked up Caleb and ran to the staircase edge and to the hallway overlooking the mass of people. Burke had left the podium and officials made a circle around the doorway, mothers and elders shouting at him from the other side of the barrier as he left his people behind with ease. Cries of children were speckled among the audience. I covered Caleb’s head with a hand as he protested in my shaking arms, shouting for his mother. Breathlessly, I begin scanning the swarm, but soon enough my eyes found the sun. A new tomorrow. Safety. Hope.
“You promised.”