The Cure

This is for a short story contest in my area. We are asked to write a 2,000 word essay on the theme "Out of the Blue." It will be judged on "excellence in use of dialogue, imagery, character development, setting, plot, conflict and resolution." So...yeah.  I'd like to get some outside opinions soon so I can incorporate them before I send it in on the 27th. Also, feel free to voice any opinions on titles. Many thanks. :D

                                                                                  The Cure

A narrow shadow slithered across a pile of garbage where the head of a young boy rested, cheek on the surface, like a wilted flower. Jamie laid a hand on the boy’s mop of matted hair and caressed his forehead with her thumb.

            “How many times have I told you not to fall asleep when I’m not around to watch for the incinerators, Tash? You know they’d burn you along with the garbage without a second thought,” Jamie said gently.

            The boy opened his eyes with a sigh and blinked against the sunlight. “I know, but I was so tired. I thought since they only come at night, it wouldn’t matter if I just – Jamie, your arm is bleeding.”

            Jamie backed away and covered the gash in her arm with her other hand.

            “Yeah, I, uh, cut it on a bottle on my way from getting these.” She slipped a hand into her one intact pocket and pulled out five plump strawberries, deciding not to tell him about the fruit seller almost cutting off her hand.

            Tash’s face burst into a broad smile, and he scrambled out of the garbage mountain, releasing a cascading river of trash down the slope. He plopped down cross-legged in the alley, cupping his hands into a squalid bowl and tracking each berry’s descent with hungry tawny eyes.

            “Don’t you want any?” he asked.

            “You eat them all, Tash. I’ve already eaten my share.” Jamie’s empty stomach twinged in protest.

            Popping a berry into his mouth, Tash leaned against the garbage and closed his eyes, letting the juice slither along his jawline to tickle his neck. Jamie smiled, wrapping her wound with a ratty strip of cloth.

            “Father used to have bowls of strawberries with sugar on top,” he said distantly.

            Stiffening, Jamie turned to Tash with a glare. “Quit calling him that.”

            “But he is my father.”

            It had never been a secret. Tash looked just like him. But of course the master wouldn’t acknowledge the accidental product of a few nights spent with the maid.

            “He was your master. You were his slave. That’s it. Do you think a father would do that to his son?” Jamie pointed violently at Tash’s right foot. With his doe-eyed gaze locked on her, Tash slid a scrawny finger across the ridges where his toes used to be. Haltingly, he lowered his head.

            “It was my fault,” he murmured. “ I shouldn’t have tried to run away. How do you know he didn’t do what a dad’s supposed to?”

Mouth bobbing wordlessly, Jamie paused. He was right; she wouldn’t know. A teardrop fell from beneath his hair umbrella and splatted onto his foot. With a heavy exhale, Jamie ran a hand through her hair and sat next to the boy.

            “I’m sorry, Tash. Let’s not talk about it anymore.”

            “I completely agree. Enough of this melodramatic nonsense.”

            Both children leapt at the unfamiliar voice. Like the stomach of a large animal rising and falling with deep breaths, the garbage pile began to heave. Jamie felt her legs trembling, begging her to run, but curiosity kept her rooted in the alley.

            A hunched figure with a cane emerged from the rubbish and hopped out sideways. Body forming a bridge with legs on one side and cane on the other, he used his free hand to brush off his chest and pull a greenish glob from his moon-colored beard. As he patted his balding head, he straightened and looked back at the mound of trash, making a hollow clicking with his tongue. 

            “Ah,” he exclaimed, retrieving an expensive-looking silk top hat from the garbage. “Now then,” he said as he turned back to the children. Jamie drew Tash closer to her, eyes flicking to the nearest exit to the street.

            “Have you ever dreamed of leaving this city? You could, you know. Leave, I mean. There is a world far greater than anything you could imagine out there. My great grandfather told me stories of a place where green fields stretch out for miles in all directions, where the orchards aren’t guarded, where vast herds of wild animals roam, where there’s no such thing as the elite or poor. Just think! You wouldn’t have to sleep in the elite’s garbage to keep warm. No one would pluck you off the street and force you into slavery, calling it an “Act of Philanthropy” in their self-righteous idiocy. The sun there shines for everyone, and what’s more, it generates warmth.”

            Jamie looked up at the pale disc in the sky. A warm sun? How absurd.

            “My great grandfather was declared insane by the government, but I have proof! This,” he lifted a hand and stirred the air above his head, “is not the real sky.”

            Blue eyes twinkling, he reached a gnarled hand into his cloak and pulled out a sheet of rusted metal. Flipping it over to reveal a gleaming blue screen, he knelt in front of Tash and handed him the piece. Jamie caught sight of a familiar tattoo on the belly of the man’s forearm. Her master had the same image of his family’s Nobility Mark on his own arm. She had heard other servants gossiping about the master’s father, but none of them had ever seen him. Only the head butler was allowed to enter his room.

She watched him point to the screen, holding Tash’s hand with a tenderness that starkly contrasted his earlier eccentricities. Seeing them side by side, Jamie could see Tash’s dimpled smile reflected on the old man’s face, the similarities in their elfish noses. But what could possibly have brought her master’s father to the Outer Circle?

            “I’m old, child. But you – you can clear my family name. All you have to do is start walking in any direction, and you’ll reach the edge of the sky eventually. With one step outside, you can open up a brand new life, show the government the world they’ve ignored, cure this city of its senseless hierarchy.”            

            Tash held the metal piece in his lap, peering into it as if trying to see the bottom of a well.

            “Look, Jamie!” he cried. “There’s a cloud on it.”

            Jamie leaned over Tash’s shoulder and watched a pixelated cloud drift across the shard of the sky. When she looked up, the man had vanished.

            “Let’s go,” Tash breathed. “Maybe he was crazy, but let’s go anyway. Just in case. Please, Jamie.”

            Jamie chewed on her lower lip, her thoughts muddled. If they even could reach the edge of the city, surely nothing would await them but disappointment. Of course the man was crazy. What he said couldn’t be possible. She stared at the blue screen in thought. After a while, she slid her hand into Tash’s, chose a direction, and started walking.

            Tash struggled to keep up, but after he stumbled and bruised his knees, Jamie let him ride on her back like a baby monkey. He babbled in her ear about the new life they’d have together outside the city and all the things they could do together. He spoke of tall trees and singing brooks and the small house deep within the forest where they would live. For the first two days, Jamie listened with the mild amusement of a mother listening to the outrageous imaginings of a child. But as his stories became more elaborate, more detailed, she began to see more vivid reflections of his descriptions like memories from time spent in this world years ago. His excitement and belief became infectious, and soon she had thoroughly convinced herself that the old man’s great grandfather had not been insane.

            On the fifth day, they reached the edge of the sky. They gawked from behind a looming, barbed-wire fence at the dome as its surface subtly fluctuated between hues of blue. A child-sized door in the curved metal screen interrupted the illusion. As Jamie gazed in awe, her last clinging droplets of doubt evaporated.

            Tash pushed himself off from Jamie and began digging under the fence as Jamie watched, frozen with shock.

            “Come on, Jamie.”

            Robotically, Jamie lowered herself to all fours and shoveled away the dirt. Neither complained nor paused as dirt jammed itself painfully deep under their fingernails. Within minutes they had created a gap wide enough to accommodate their slender bodies. Jamie squirmed under first then helped Tash.

            Fifteen yards separated them from the dome. Jamie took a step forward, and as if she had set off a trigger, her one footstep echoed a hundred times. From both left and right, groups of guards stampeded towards them, shouting indistinct orders.

            “Run!” Jamie shouted, grabbing Tash’s wrist and dragging him towards the door. Ten yards away. Tash limped after her, too slowly to keep his balance. Eight yards away. Tash fell. She jerked to right him. His hand slid from her grip. Five yards away. He was calling her name. She didn’t glance back. If she stopped for Tash, they both would be caught. But if she continued, she could make it. She shut out Tash’s screams. Three yards, two, one.

            Forgive me, Tash.

            Jamie burst through the door into a dark tunnel, pushing forward until the shouts from inside the city faded along with the light. She paused in front of a hallway illuminated by a dim red glow like embers from a dying fire. A warped wooden door faced her, and Jamie turned the rusted knob to find herself at the foot of a wide set of steps, glistening with moisture. As the door squealed shut behind her, Jamie ascended the stairs to a large, circular steel door. She fingered the spokes of the rimless wheel-shaped handle in the door’s center, slimy with moss. She tried to turn it, but her hands slipped off. After wiping them on her tunic, she turned sideways and pulled down on the handle with all her might, blistering her palms. With a protesting groan, the wheel broke free and turned to unlock the door. Catching her breath, Jamie faced the door, anchored herself to the ground, and yanked on the handle, expecting it to give a similar resistance. Much to her surprise, the door flew inward, releasing a torrent of water that grabbed Jamie and slammed her down at the base of the steps. She struggled against the flood as it pinned her down, swirling over her and roaring in her head. Within seconds the passageway had filled, taming the water. Jamie could hear the wooden door moaning under the pressure, and she seized the brief moment of calm to swim out through the round hole before the water overwhelmed its wooden dam and charged further into the dome.

            Blindly seeking the surface, she propelled herself in what she hoped was an upward direction. Her chest tightened, as though it contained an overfilled balloon on the verge of bursting. A deep blue swallowed her, making her suddenly feel very much alone. She pictured Tash’s innocent eyes widening in horror as the bloodthirsty sea gushed into the city. If he was lucky, perhaps the guards had already granted him a quick death. The old man was right about one thing, though: opening the door to the outside world would cure the city of its hierarchal system. She couldn’t help but wonder if the old man knew. Just as she relaxed into submission to the sea, a thin ribbon of light streamed toward her, kissing her face. Letting the current lift her, she made one last effort.

            She erupted from the water, gasping for air and choking on the waves. After catching her breath, Jamie turned in a complete circle, but she could see nothing but water. She squinted through the pelting rain at the sky.

Grey. No green fields, no trees, no cottage. No warm sun – no sun at all.