Jenny

The Supremacists had been taken out of power nearly half a century before I took my first breath. The world everyone knew now attempted to be fair, and it attempted to be equal. But it wasn’t. It was nothing like what it had been, and we were all grateful for that, even if we hadn’t been forced to experience the horrors. Still, something wasn’t right. We all felt it. Me, Jenny, and even those who were usually oblivious to these sorts of things. Jenny especially was adamant about revolution, about changing the so-called obvious injustices of our society. I say so-called because Jenny and I were the only ones who saw them as obvious. Everyone else went around pretending everything was just fine, but that was only because they weren’t being persecuted, or at least not yet. But that day came sooner than any of us had ever thought.

•  

New policies had been springing up like daisies as far back as I could remember. I’m not really sure how it all started but it was undoubtedly an inevitable part of life. We’d all do things a certain way when suddenly we would get a memo that we weren’t allowed to do them like that anymore. We’d have to change our habits as we were constantly conditioned this way and that. It was for our safety. Always for our safety. Ever since the attacks, safety was the big issue. The way we traveled changed, our appliances were constantly being recalled due to imaginary hazards, and hell, we weren’t even allowed to file our nails outside our houses anymore. If the unseen powers decided something wasn’t safe, well, that was that. Nobody could argue with it because nobody knew how. Nobody except Jenny.

 

Jenny, Jenny, Jenny. She was a rebel if I ever saw one. Nothing was going to stop Jenny, not unless she was going to let it. That was just the way she was. I loved to sit and listen to her talk about the things she was passionate about, which was just about everything. Her ebony skin would shine in the rationed lamplight during our midnight talks as her black eyes shot fire brighter than the sun. She’d say things weren’t the same, that’d she’d read about times where people could actually enjoy their freedoms instead of living in fear of them.

 

Jenny read a lot. Reading wasn’t encouraged outside of school, because books that weren’t published by the government were considered dangerous. They weren’t safe. We read in school, but only because those stories didn’t have any meaning behind them. And if they did have any meaning, it was always about safety and following the government and authorities, because they were certainly smarter than anyone else. I always wondered what gave them the right to decide that. I would always think about things like that. See, Jenny and me, we were best friends. I was the thinker, the writer, the introvert. Jenny was the talker, the go-getter, everything that I wasn’t, but still, she was everything I wanted to be. Even with our differences, we got along great. We always said that nothing could tear us apart. But a day came where it did.

•  

It all started with the tags. We were forced to wear them anywhere we went. School, work, even at home. Even when we were sleeping. They had our names, our identification numbers, our fingerprints, and our own personal barcode. I had an issue with the barcode. Hell, I’m not for sale, why on Earth would I need a barcode? Well, in order to get into school. In order to go to work, and in order to get paid for work. In order to get any money at all out of the bank. In order to buy anything or sell anything. I hated it. I quit my job, and tried to quit school, but Jenny wouldn’t let me. She said I was too smart.

 

About six months after the introductions of the tags came another rule: we would no longer be able to carry any bags whatsoever. Not to school with our books, not to the mall with personal items, none at all. The memo said there was no reason for them, and plus, it was a safety issue. It said we could just carry our books at school, and we didn’t need to carry cash anymore in our purses, because the government was doing away with paper and coin money. We would just use our tags.

 

Jenny hated this new rule, and so, she did everything she could to find some way around its regulations. At first she went on as usual, carrying her purse to the store, her backpack to school, and both were confiscated immediately. The street monitors swarmed her like killer bees with their walkie-talkies and tasers drawn. They sat her down in one of their stations off Third Street and Adolf and booked her. Took her information, checked her tag, and then they burned her purse. It went up in flames right in front of her. I was with her, but I stared from a distance as they hounded her and shouted racial slurs. I remember standing on the corner and wondering why I wasn’t helping her, why was I abandoning her? To this day, I still don’t know.

 

After that, Jenny seemed defeated. She’d lock herself in her apartment and I wouldn’t hear from her for days at a time. Then, one day, she did the improbable. Jenny found away around their rule. She started carrying a box. She’d put her belongings in the box, and would carry it under her arm wherever she went. But she was booked again, and this time I stood by her. I heard them warn her that if she decided to make any more “stupid decisions” they would have to inflict a more “serious” punishment. So, Jenny toned it down. She said she’d bide her time, and soon enough, the wait would be worth it.

 

Jenny was fed up with the policies. From the tags, to the confiscation of property, Jenny was tired of it all. She didn’t have to say it, because I knew. She’d bury herself in a mountain of books as I sat watching her from a corner of her studio apartment. She’d write things down rapidly, as if someone was speaking to her and she needed to take his words down before the sound echoed off into oblivion. She was still Jenny, but she was different. I wasn’t sure if I liked it, but I refused to let it tear us apart.

 

Things slowly began to carry on the way they usually did, with just our tags and our bodies and souls, or at least what remained of them. Something was slightly different. A smell in the air, or a different shade of gray in the sky, there was something, and Jenny and I felt it especially. Something was coming. Something gargantuan. Something I will never forget.

•  

A day came where we got a memo that would change everything. All citizens were ordered report to the local government headquarters the following Monday. It didn’t say what for, it didn’t say why, but we all went, every single person, and none of asked why. Not even Jenny. Not aloud at least. I think she had a good idea of why, but she didn’t want to scare me with her speculations that would soon prove true.

 

That Monday, as we walked into the sunrise, neither of us said a word: the powerful silence was too much to overcome. As soon as we caught sight of the tall building in the center of the city, we began to talk. It was almost a cue, as if something unseen told us the curtain was near to closing, and if we wanted to make our mark on the play, we’d have to do it right then and there. Jenny spoke in riddles, telling me she missed me, and that she hoped I wouldn’t let them have the same effect on me as they did on her. This kind of talk frightened me into silence, but as the government building suddenly cast its shadow over us, I said the three words that mean the most in life: I love you. Jenny told me she loved me too, and not to worry. Things would be fine eventually. I could tell she didn’t mean it; she knew things would never be fine again.

 

I don’t know how she knew, but she did. As we entered the building, we were sent to the right with all the other women as men filed into the left side. Nobody talked really, but here and there a mumbled question full of apprehension could be heard. I looked to Jenny, and she had the strangest look in her coal black eyes. It was a look of determination, a look that made her seem nearly god-like. She knew what was coming. She was bracing herself, and me, like an idiot, had no idea. I was oblivious. Naïve. If I had known what was coming, Lord knows I would have went right along with her.

 

We were herded in groups into a room with strange metallic orbs lined in rows on long tables. We were told to each stand in front of one of these objects and to place both our hands on it. I mindlessly obeyed. All the sudden, an electric, burning sensation shot from the orb to my palms, and I could see the same had happened to everyone else from the looks on their faces. We were told to take our hands off the orbs, and as I looked down at them, I grew sick with realization. There were no familiar lines, no fingerprints, nothing. My hands were blank. I panicked.

 

And then, Jenny was right there, making sure I didn’t cause a scene. She showed me her own palms, and I could see the grooves there. She whispered to me that we could sneak past all this, that we could still be ourselves. Because, of course, that’s what it was! They were taking our identities. Jenny had known it. She had seen it coming for weeks, for months, maybe even for years. And that look in her eyes, that determined, fighting look, well, now I saw its true meaning. Jenny was ready to rebel again, regardless of the consequences.

 

Our group went into another room, and it was stranger than the first. There were twenty-five small tables and each had a masked woman in a white lab coat sitting there. The table had strange instruments on it, and each table had another empty chair next to it. Those chairs were for us. We were told to sit in these chairs, and as I watched Jenny sit at the table next to me, my stomach churned in anticipation of something terrible. Jenny sat as if she were a statue, but I could see her fiery eyes look around, identifying the exits, the tools on the table, the masked women, the civilians, all of it. We were ordered to put our left arm on the table, palm up, and we all did, even me. But not Jenny.

 

My eyes were glued to her, and I was sure my heart’s haphazard palpitations could be heard by everyone in the room. Again, we were told to put our arms on the table, but Jenny didn’t move an inch. She was through with being ordered around, and it wasn’t going to be easy for them. A third announcement was made, and as Jenny remained still as stone, a woman, dressed in black, walked down the row of tables and chairs until she stood directly in front of Jenny. Jenny didn’t flinch. The woman yelled at her, shouting words I cannot bear to repeat. Still, Jenny remained unchanged. That is, until the woman raised her hand with a foul slur and moved to strike. As her hand approached Jenny’s face, Jenny grabbed the woman’s wrist, and in one smooth motion, stood and twisted the woman’s arm behind her back. We all heard the crack as the woman fell on the ground, writhing in pain. One of the guards by the door said something into his walkie-talkie and approached Jenny. She ran in the other direction, but another guard came and cut her off. I watched in absolute horror and realized I should be doing something. I stood and rushed towards Jenny, but three of the masked women shoved me back into my chair. I was helpless. I wanted to help, and I couldn’t. Jenny looked at me, and mouthed words of thanks.

 

As she looked at me, a guard grabbed her roughly from behind. She elbowed the man and kicked her legs furiously, but his grip refused to loosen. More guards approached, and she kicked one in the face, and another in the groin. Jenny wasn’t going without a fight, but the numbers were against her. She kicked and scratched and did everything she could to break free. Finally, she slid out of the guard’s arms and made a run for it, and again, I was pushed into my chair as I stood to help.

 

As Jenny ran toward the exit, I saw a guard pull out his gun. I jumped out of my seat, pushed the masked women out of my way and ran toward the man. I shouted and I screamed and when I was five feet from knocking the gun out of his iron grip, it fired. Not in my direction, but in Jenny’s. I watched in slow motion as the bullet perfectly struck its target in the back. I screamed, running towards my best friend. She had collapsed on the floor, steps away from escaping. I kneeled on the ground, crying hysterically, and held her in my arms as crimson blood escaped her veins and flooded the floor. Her eyes were closed, and I thought she was gone. But then, a miracle! Her eyes opened, and though her lips didn’t move, she told me everything she had ever meant to say. Her eyes said it all. They spoke of love, of freedom, passion, and free thought. Of imagination, of laughter, of better days. Of something to hope for. They told me not to give up that hope. And then, with a lingering gaze, Jenny let out her last breath. She was gone. My beautiful rebel, my best friend. Dead.

 

I held her lifeless body close to my chest and sobbed harder than anyone ever had. The guards came and tore me away from her. She was my other half, and Lord, it was hard to breathe without her. My chest heaved and the room began to spin. One guard picked me up and sat me back into my chair. I placed my left arm with the blank palm up on the table, and I watched as the woman in the mask tattooed my identification number onto my arm. The ink swirled with my blood, and all I could think of was Jenny’s onyx hair mixing with her blood on the floor.

 

The rest of us were led into another room, and there we had microchips placed on the backs of our necks and barcodes stamped onto the backs of our left hands. Then they shaved our heads, and took our tags. They told us we no longer had names, only numbers. And then, we were free to go. Free.

 

I wandered the streets until the monitors stopped me and escorted me to my apartment. I sat in the bathtub for what seemed like an eternity. I finally fell asleep, and when I awoke, I felt nothing. When I looked down at my shirt with its red stains, I could barely remember what it was from. And then, I remembered. Jenny. She was gone. There was nothing I could do about it.

•  

Time went on, and as things fell into routine, everyone forgot what life had been like before. I, for one, don’t remember. I know that I am number 20000767. Other than that, there is nothing to remember. I couldn’t tell you my own name. The only thing left, the only name, the only thing I will ever remember is Jenny.

Reviews

[DiggeyEleven]

A story full of great ideas for a good dystopian write. I'm sure if you had more time you probably would have gone on further describing the characters, breathing more life in them. There was something odd about the writing though, I almost feel that it were a bit too listed. You had some beautiful lines and description, but a good part of it seemed a bit too cold, to mechanical, which would actually go well with the character but I just don't know if you were going for that. Favorite line in the story:

"She was my other half, and Lord, it was hard to breathe without her."

Amazing line, simple yet very powerful. I would say, if you want to add more passion to it, try to cut down a bit on some unnecessary description and let us know a bit more of the feelings that are rushing through our character. Perhaps do things like describing the building they are going to, the fear in some faces, the obliviousness in others, those who just don't give a damn. It was full of great ideas, I just feel you need to expand on certain points, let us picture this world in all its horrible glory. Your character was in love with Jenny, I want to fall in love with her too. What made her turn into this beautiful rebel girl, what's her back story. I would also recommend if you haven't seen it, to watch the move Brazil. A beautiful, funny, heartbreaking movie about loss of identity and love. It might give you some good ideas too.

[Chris Newton]

Powerful. Very powerful. I like it a lot! It is also scary. Scary, because of it's truth. It causes the reader to think deeply. It has inspired me.

Well written Lydia!

[PhoeniX]

this was truly an amazing story.


wow... if you've read 1984, you just totally reamped that story. great work!

this is definitely a keeper. wow.... im still aw struck. so much kudos for you!!!!

send me some more stories like this if you have any

[Matt Shutler]

that was honestly amazing

seriously, wow

i love the bitter attack and cruel determination
it is serisouly beyond excellent, pure talent

i also love your topic






but seriosuly lyida, that was one of the best stories ive read in awhile, it was short enough but still had the point, and the fact that it had a purpose was what made it astouding