Arabio
Living in a newly founded country is hard. I this particular country, there is no leaving. There people were herded into a place they though would be free. More free than America. Many people came. From spoiled teens to malnourished adults, they came. The people who came here were sick of the riots, they were sick of the government. We’re sick of the aliens. Yes, aliens.
“Dad, don’t wear black and blue together AGAIN!”
“Please, Daddy. Listen to her. Don’t embarrass me.”
“This is the last time, if you two don’t keep it down-”
BANG BANG! - yelling screams in the distance.
-this was the sound of a family being disciplined-
Our family quickly scrambled up against the back wall, shoulders back, neck angled perfectly. Prepared for a home search we stayed calm. Mom quickly put an apron around her waist to hide her bump.
The officials came in, looked sternly, took a loaf of bread, and said, “okay, get ready for the ceremony.” And left.
Dad ran to the closet, mom ran to the bathroom.
“Is she sick again, Eddie?”, Joha said awkwardly, she thought it was her fault. At only 6 years old, I would too.
Dad came back with two white uniforms. He quickly put the thin garment over Joha’s head and handed me mine. We all wore thin tunics as a uniform on top of our usual body suits for our meetings.
Mom came in the room with her hands laid on her stomach. She pinned up Joha’s long, dark hair in one large bun on the very top of her head and stuck one large pin with 01 on it. Then she pinned back my long hair with one too. Mine read 10.
“Ha ha”, laughed Joha. “We’re opposites this year”.
Mom had a worried face on. Dad came over to her and sighed. “What’s wrong?”
“We messed up”, she said “I- I’m expecting. I must have had a false gene malfunction.” She sobbed. When someone has a gene malfunction, they get reloaded. And by that I mean, re-programmed.
“Mom, we don’t understand such old fashioned words concerning pregnancy because we are now programmed to have not such complications. We are perfect in every way and nothing distracts us any longer”, Joha quoted to them, from one of her bedtime stories about robo-human reproduction, books all children who were not processed in here when we all moved in this (country), learned.
Mom started to cry, I put my hand on her shoulder.
