The Importance of November 12th 2015

I forgot I ever wrote this. It's sort of a concept-excerpt thing from my novel's sequel, same character, only she's closer to how she's developed today. Written April 2009 for the same c.w. class.

2020

Daytime was fine, because Evangeline could find ways to distract herself: gardening, cooking, cleaning, etc.  She greatly wished she could continue at night, since sleep was out of the question, but she couldn’t.  Her mother had very seriously taught her about the importance of sleep, so she did well to her mother’s memory and her own old habits by going to bed promptly each night at ten o’clock and getting up each morning at six.  She didn’t like to admit it consciously, but she knew that every little torture she made herself go through was a sort of self-punishment.  It sounded immoral and horrendous, but it was right to her.  People were punished for crimes every day.  So should she.

At night, her vindictive conscience would seek revenge.  Her memories, which she tried in vain to repress completely, would seep into her head and play like moving photographs, the sounds echoing against the walls of her skull to make sure she didn’t miss a bit.  As night grew deeper, she lost track of whether she was asleep or awake, since they continued to play even when her eyes were open.

 

2015

            In the morning, she had woken to the feeling of heavenly warmth surrounding her, particularly to one side.  She could feel a dull ache somewhere, as if she’d been exercising, but that wasn’t it.  The sheets were of her own bed, this much she knew.  The smells in the air included her favorite lavender perfume as well as the bar of old-fashioned rose soap she kept under her pillow to keep it fresh-smelling.  There was the smell of sweat which brought her back to her exercise theory.  But…

           

2020

            How she could still remember every detail of every moment was beyond Evangeline, but she could.  She was even positive that her mind hadn’t changed any details, though she supposed it was possible.  After so many years, surely memories cannot be remembered so completely.  It’s possible that the mind replaces forgotten parts with its own logical renditions.  Even a sane man forgets details of last week’s party and comes up with replacements as to keep the story from going against what he was sure had happened.  The woman had winked at him, he’d been sure of it.  When he brought her a drink, she had definitely seen him add a little something to it and yet had drunk it anyway.  All her attention had been on him, even when she complained of feeling odd and wavered from specific intoxication.  When she woke up later, naked and tied up but not gagged in the back of his car, dripping in sweat and other fluids, she had not screamed.  She stared at him, but had not screamed.  She had wanted it.  He had merely stepped in to help.

            …This world…This world…Evangeline stared in disbelief at the world around her for the hundredth time, feeling a trickle of terror invade her usual complete numbness.  This was the view of men, this was why they broke them down, this was why they were taught to hate men-males- so much…  Men were slobs, bullies, avaricious pigs, lascivious sick b******s, the reason the world had been so terrible before!  War, famine, poverty, everything was their fault!  This is what those countless seminars and community discussions were about.  The women-no, Women-of the community had many serious discussions abhorring the penile race.  The hatred revealed in those discussions…was staggering.  Had every woman in the pre-Gender War times really felt this way about all men?  Or was it just…power?

 

2015

            Evangeline woke with a start, memories flooding her mind.  Oh God, oh Lord, what had he…she…they? ...done?!  All that…and the…Oh, God!  Theo!  Theo!  She threw the blankets back and immediately threw herself up and into the bathroom, retching hard into the thankfully-clean-ish toilet.  Her thoughts continued to race, so her body worked apart from it and very quickly got dressed.  She barely remembered to grab her purse before she headed quickly outside towards the nearest bus stop.  Mom and Daddy would know what to…They were a safe haven.

 

2020   

            Zeth hadn’t been home when Evangeline arrived, but Aiya was.  Aiya took in her daughter from the rain, got her dry and warm, gave her hot tea, and of course demanded an explanation in the way of a nagging mother.  Evangeline could still remember the look of pure concern on her mother’s face.  It was strange, seeing that look, since her mother had always looked serious, bored, angry, or even calm, but never something so…soft.  When one’s life crashes down, appearances don’t matter.  Evangeline had sat there, yesterday’s makeup smeared and mostly wiped off, wearing thrown-on clothes she didn’t even know the colors of, in front of her mother, who not only didn’t notice she was “showing weakness”, but was actually freaking out quite a bit.  In this world of Women, Evangeline found it ironic that no one cared much about appearance either.  Well, they did, but not quite like people did in the old times.  The Women wanted everything to look neat and clean, presentable, but didn’t discriminate amongst themselves.  They were so accepting, even of Evangeline’s strictly-black style.  In such a time of peace, these things weren’t important.  In such a time, things were just…odd.  How such idealism had come to be was beyond Eva’s psychological ability lately.  Why did they stick to such strict moral values when there was nothing to really…It was just plain odd, but being numb meant that Evangeline could just go on with her existence and let the world run around her, seeing but not really seeing, hearing but not really hearing, knowing but not really knowing.  Maybe people with nothing to worry about, be it from lack of material or lack of feeling, lose the ability to comprehend negativity.  But if there’s nothing negative, do they really need the ability?  But there’s always something negative, like with me-males…  Evangeline decided to stop thinking and go see what Moira was up to.

Author's Note

Yeah, I know some parts are a bit confusing, especially the last chunk where you can't quite tell that she's looking back at the time instead of it being sort of the flashback itself. Let's just say 2020 is Evangeline's present and she's looking back at that day, but 2015 is more flashback. The second 2020 chunk isn't what happened to Eva, it's...sort of...expository of a thought process of stuff of the time? Geh. I can't really remember. Still, I really like this, so do me a favor and destroy it for me so I can get better, m'kay?