For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow. -Langston Hughes.
Blind Shot
It was the beginning of summer when we first met. We were made to stand in a line, dressed in clothes that enhanced our scars and disabilities to the naked eye. We all stared at the one-way glass, some defiantly, others fearfully but we knew the day had come. The day they had all been training us for, the scientists, the mathematicians, the detectives, the geniuses of today’s society. They had been grooming us. Us. The entrails of society, the forgotten, the ones rejected by the new world.
There were hundreds of us, Obadiah says there was approximately 456 but he’s been known to be wrong -once-. We were in a warehouse, empty and cold and we were all armed. We all knew what we were meant to do, we had never met each other. We had no feelings, we weren’t raised to have such things. Right or wrong didn’t exist, we obeyed orders, the mathematicians, the detectives, the geniuses, we did as they told us.
Sometimes I’m glad I don’t have sight because what happened that day, we all have nightmares about it, only in mine I see no faces. I hear sounds, and feel blood as it splashes on me plastering my hair onto my skull the way it is when I have a shower. I ran around in circles, sometimes I tripped over bodies as I slashed my way through the crowd. As I ran, I felt someone hold on to my wrist and instead of screaming I smiled and sighed. My last thoughts had been: Make it fast. I took a deep breath and waited for death, but instead I was dragged out of the fray and thrust into the corner of the room -heroically (especially when he tells the story)-.
‘You’re safe here.’ was the breathless sentence I heard, and then silence followed. I thought you'd left and the screams continued, the slashes, the anger, the shame, the hate…I felt so suffocated. I remember you grabbing me to remind me you were there, and the way I pressed my face into your shirt and screamed. I just kept screaming, and screaming. I don’t remember stopping, but I felt your tears drip-drop on my matted hair.
We were so young. Only ten years old. We had all been picked up from hospital straight afterbirth, the disabled ones, the viruses in the world’s hard drive. Our parents had been killed or sterilized and we? We were raised to be special, one of my scientist’s called me his little soldier, we were born to pay for the world’s sins or at least that’s what Nicholas says when he isn’t so depressed.
After the selection test -the blood-bath- there was seven of us left standing. A voice through the loudspeaker ordered us to stop, and we did. I think that’s when we realised what we had done, then I wasn’t the only one screaming. Though you hate to admit it you screamed too.
We survived, you say it’s like an episode of American Idol, 456 hopefuls…one winner, but you’re wrong. We will continue to exist, despite our sins. Together. We were ushered into another room soon after that, we said nothing to each other but I held on to your shirt. We were all on guard expecting another fight, another series of deaths, but we were fed, washed and clothe.
They’d lost our trust but not our obedience. Only Obadiah complained, mumbling, and murmuring. To be completely honest, he was the only one who talked, he still is sometimes. He sat on the other side of me that day, asking stupid illogical questions he still asks. I thought he was an idiot, but now that I think about it, he was something else to think of something else to focus on, to be exasperated at. He plays that role admirably.
They led us to our beds, and I refused to let go of you. The only words we had exchanged had been a sentence, but we had a bond so strong. It was the closest to feeling I had ever been. I curled up beside you, sucking my thumb, my free hand curled into a fist around a piece of your shirt.
‘Goodnight.’ You said, and that was all I had needed to fall into a dreamless sleep.
The next morning we were rounded up and taken to the boardroom we now refer to as 'Death Hall'. Me, you, Obadiah, Nicholas, Akito, Niagara, and Zero. Wide-eyes, and bushy-tailed, expecting the worst but hoping for the best. I was still clinging onto you.
In that room our destiny was re-written, in that room we became what we are now. Their words seeping into our heads, telling us what we were going to do but not why. How much we would earn, but not the consequenses. So cold, so calculated, and we accepted. How could we not? They were all we had then, it was all we were good for.
You struggled, and bristled, but I held you back selfishly. I couldn't lose you, not a day after I had just found you. You joined us in training, you were the best of us all. Your disability was mild, all you had were learning difficulties. If you had been in a normal school, you'd have been the worst. Yet it was all you wanted. Normalcy, the very word sickens me.
When we became Seven-Eleven, you were against it. I pushed you into it again, I made you kill all those people. I made you hate yourself because I didn't want to lose you. Isn't it ironic that I who feared losing you killed you at the end. Isn't it?
You were too good for this world. And me.
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So this is my eulogy to you, as I plunge this dagger into all their chests. Their listless eyes probably staring up at me accusingly; Obadiah, Nicholas, Akito, Niagara, and Zero. Perhaps you were right, 456 hopefuls, one winner. Me. If only I could see the damage I caused, perhaps then I would feel remorse but until my sight return I remain like this. Empty, selfish, and blind.
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Spoiler
This is an idea that I don't think I've executed very well because I didn't quite know how to so I cut it short, and made it an eulogy. Hope you enjoy it. Oh and that poem is by Langston Hughes, not mine, never mine...I just liked the feel of it.
