Morning In America

TW: death, violence mention, suicide mention

7:30 AM

A mild morning in early June. 35-year-old Aurora wakes up to begin another monotonous day. 

She drags herself out of bed and runs a comb through her blonde bob, the shortest of the approved women’s haircuts. She walks sluggishly to the childrens’ room, glancing at the clock on the wall and noting that the bus will arrive in 30 minutes. The clock is inside the chest of a plastic fox, its tail moving back and forth in rhythm with its ever-watching eyes. It was because of these unsettling eyes that Aurora had banished it to the wall outside her bedroom door.

She wakes up the nine out of her twelve children that go to the elementary school and makes them bacon and artificial eggs - real eggs became hard to come by after the bird flu pandemic. The oldest girl, Binxley, helps her mother prepare breakfast. At seventeen, she is almost of age to be married off. The four other girls- Janeene, Wendly, Duracell and Gamma- sit at the table with the five younger boys- Whizzer, Braxton, Nike, and the twins Demi and Remington. Aurora prides herself in the fact that only two of her children are sponsored, unique names are a sign of wealth and class. The two older boys are sleeping upstairs, not required to go to school until the afternoon.

Aurora herds her children out the door, as usual they barely make the bus.

8:00 AM

As soon as they are safely on the way to school, she makes herself a cup of coffee and sits down.

“Binxley,” Aurora says, in her quiet, distant voice, “you should probably get going soon. You’re yet to find a suitor, and your eighteenth birthday isn't far off!”

Binxley sighed, “Mom, can I talk to you for a second?”

Aurora glanced around. There were no horrible fox clocks or other eyes in the kitchen, “Of course, dear. What is it?”

“Well, I was thinking that, um, maybe I don’t want to marry a guy,” Binxley mumbled, “I’ve kind of been, uh, sneaking out of the meetings to meet with this girl and…”

Aurora grabs her daughter by the shoulders, “What did you just say, young lady?”

Binxley, alarmed by the emotion in her mother’s usually placid face, backs down, “Nothing, mom, forget it.”

Aurora smiles strangely, “Now go to your meeting, find a suitor, and don’t bring up this foolishness again.” Suddenly she is back to her usual dream-like state, and Binxley darts quickly out the door.

9:00 AM

After her morning chores, Aurora sits down to read the newspaper. She is most comfortable in her cleaning overalls, the only approved feminine wear without a skirt. The overalls are blue and decorated with sunflowers, and of course have the logo of the Fox Party and the American flag, like all government approved outfits.

More masculine clothes bring her back to her younger days, when she went to the secret underground clubs that used to litter the city. She had gone by Rory then, and followed the dress code less religiously. Things were different back then, when the Fox Party had just taken control.

She opens to the front page. Breaking news: some famous man has recently taken his life, shooting himself in his car. Seeing the lurid, bloody scene in the photograph, spectators gathering around with wide eyes, some taking photos, nobody trying to help, makes Aurora burst into uncontrollable laughter.

9:45 AM

Aurora decides to go to a movie before she has to wake up her two older sons. The movie theater is showing a couple of interesting looking features, but she chooses a war film. It's dystopian, exploring the imaginary scenario of the British winning the Revolutionary War. How ironic, she thinks.

She is the only one who doesn’t flinch at the film’s inordinate amount of bloodshed, though she manages to keep back her giggles.

11:30 AM

Aurora rushes home to wake up Marlynn, her second oldest son, for school. He is thirteen, not yet a member of the Fox Party but well on his way through training school. A lack of a father has affected him more than the others, Aurora notes. Aurora’s husband is still fighting in World War V, and she is yet to hear any news.

She makes Marlynn his breakfast, he’s allergic to the artificial eggs so she makes him pancakes. She sends the timid boy on his way, and goes upstairs to wake his brother.

12:15 PM

Dalton is still fast asleep, he stayed up late last night working on some sort of school project. He’s sixteen, and the one who frightens Aurora the most. Something about the icy young man he’s grown up to be, cold but not in a dreamy, distant way like his mother. Dalton is cruel, intelligent, and calculating. Clearly, as an agent in training, he has been given information about the Fox Party that Aurora, female by birth, was never allowed to know.

Aurora shakes him gently awake and makes him breakfast, really lunch at this hour. She sends him off to school like the other children. They barely speak a word to each other, but he watches her with his cold gray eyes.

2:00 PM

After her afternoon chores, Aurora makes herself a sandwich for lunch. She sits down in the living room to eat it and watch some short videos.

She eats with one hand and clicks through the thirty second clips with the other. There’s one about home renovation, one about baking cookies with artificial eggs, one about the glory of the Fox Party. They’re so forgettable they slip from her mind as soon as she clicks to the next one.

After finishing her sandwich, she falls asleep on the couch. Her dreams are empty and meaningless, full of static and muddled, constantly changing images.

5:30 PM

The shots of a machine gun and a shrill scream wake Aurora up. They are coming from a nearby building, but not close enough to worry about. She goes back to sleep.

7:00 PM

Aurora is shaken awake by a Fox Police officer. She sits up and rubs her eyes, looking suspiciously at the unfamiliar man, “What is it?”

“Ma’am, your daughter is dead.”

“Huh…?” Aurora feels a slight feeling of panic arise through her drowsiness, “which… which one?”

“You’d better come with us, ma’am.” As the man steps away, Aurora notices two other officers behind him. She begrudgingly gets up and follows him outside, eyeing the gun on his belt nervously. It’s a surprisingly long walk, to a shady neighborhood Aurora hasn’t been to in years.

Dalton, Marlynn, and a couple of the younger children are already at the site, craning their neck to see past the yellow caution tape to the gruesome scene.

Binxley, dead on the ground, next to the corpse of another girl her age. Aurora recognizes her as Secret, one of Binxeley’s childhood friends. Bullet wounds cover Binxley’s head and chest, and Secret’s long black hair is caked with blood.

The official cause of death- lesbian suicide pact- has as many holes as her daughter’s bloodied head. Even Aurora could notice the obvious signs of struggle- the sheer amount of gunshots she had heard, the shriek of surprise, the overturned furniture, the shocked looks on the girls’ faces. It didn’t matter, nobody was going to investigate it.

Gamma, who had been watching the scene with wide eyes, tugged at her mother’s pant leg, “She’s gonna be ok, right, Ma?”

“I don’t think so, honey.”

10:00 PM

Aurora finally gets the children to sleep, she sits alone on the edge of her bed. She finally lets go of the welling emotion that has been growing in her chest.

Instead of tears, she finds herself breaking into hysterical laughter. The laughs are so raucous she is worried the children can hear her from their rooms. She laughs and laughs until she finally falls into a restless slumber, still twitching and giggling in her sleep.

7:30 AM

A mild morning in early June. 35-year old Aurora wakes up to begin another monotonous day.