August 8, 2000
a short pov
just in response to 'why aren't there any black people on gw?'
I don't remember what it was like out there, before. Gramma and Pop Pop say that it was different. Freer somehow. Safe; but I don't understand how it can be safer out there than in our room. But now, they say, it isn't. I don't understand why they cry when they talk about it, why Mama and Daddy shush Benny and me. We're just asking questions.
I saw one of them, one day. He wore black and gold and had one of those metal things that kills people. Mama says that it killed her father, and her father's father. All dead. He looked at Gramma, said, "Your turn!" and led her out of our room.
And then bang.
She was dead.
I keep looking at him. Maybe if I stare long enough, I'll start to understand. He is so pale, like he's never been in the sun, like he's been moonbathing. It's nothing like my skin. Mine is dark, like the chocolate rations they give us sometimes.
Sometimes, the young people leave and they never come back. I listen to Mama and Daddy at night, when they think me and Benny are asleep, and they talk about stuff that I don't understand. "Gene pool" and "sustaining Colony work force" and "slave labor".
I know what a slave is.
Mama says that a long time ago, there were slaves in our family. They worked all day and didn't get paid, never got anything. Had a master and a missus and a little cottage, but it wasn't real freedom.
And now it's starting to get loud out there. Someone is crying; I think it's Benny. There's lights flashing outside, and now I can smell smoke. A fire. Someone is burning. I can see the red flames and hear their own Mama crying.
Then the man in gold and black comes in again and kills his Mama, then he kills the man on fire. It's not fair, and I tell Mama so. She just smiles and says nothing. All she knows how to do.
"Nice, hefty cow," another man says, lifting the other Mama up. "The kitchen'll feast! All this meaty flesh." And the first man licks his lips.
"Maybe. First we've got to get that Gun Dam."
I don't know what a Gun Dam is, and when I ask Daddy, he doesn't know either. But I can tell he's lying, because his mustache is twitching and he keeps looking at Mama.
"I wish he were dead," I say angrily. And everyone in our room laughs.
Mama takes me aside. "Revenge is bittersweet," she explains, but I don't really understand how something can taste like sugar and still taste like the pills the men give us every morning.
I know that I probably won't get out of here alive. I'm only six, or about six as far as Daddy can reckon. But I've got my book, my records in the back of the only book they give us, the one with the cross on the front, and maybe someone out there who is free, who can get out, will find it and understand.
'Cause I'm keeping count, an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, pound for pound, waiting for someone who will even the score
Ariana and Bianca
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