elimination
Chapter Fourteen

The buzzer goes off, rudely waking me from a dreamless slumber. I am in my station with spotless wrists and feet, not even a headache to testify to prior events. I can’t remember the last time I was this confused. Did the crucifixion thing actually happen, or was it a weird dream? It all seemed so real until...I think I must have started hallucinating? Did 14′s head roll off? No, that’s ridiculous! Suddenly I realize that I am sitting in the pitch black on the foot of my bed, the buzzer having gone off long ago. I jump up getting ready within minutes and head out the door.

I need something to feel real, to make me think I’m not entirely insane. The cold hits me hard but it brings no clarity. I still feel half awake and half in a dream. As I enter the school my eyes search frantically for a familiar face. Finally as I near Bump Nose’s room I see 12 walking slowly with her head down, deep in thought.

Our eyes lock as we begin speak with the uncannily accurate telepathy we have mastered over the years. I shoot her with my trademark we need to talk look. We attempt to inconspicuously wait for the hallway to clear, finally I look both ways and we are alone. I begin to speak in a dry choked whisper, “Do you remember...” “Yes,” she cuts me off immediately understanding. “I remember all of it, there are 15 people gone.” “15!!” I choke in utter shock. “Yes,” she says with the same grim, despicable, sense of relief that I feel, “15.” I continue urgently, “Our people?” “Safe,” she responds. I exhale sharply. We quickly turn on heel and scamper into Bump Nose’s class before our absence is noticed.

“The Middle Ages,” Bump Nose begins: “Was a time of great forward progress for the East, and a time of great stagnancy for Europe. Following the fall of the Roman Empire, Europe turned to localism, as often happens when large systems of government collapse and people are looking for protection. The Feudal system reigned supreme; Kings gave land to Nobles in exchange for money and Knights. Nobles gave land to Knights in exchange for protection and military service. Finally Knights gave land to peasants in exchange for food and labor. There was little room for peasants to move up within the social hierarchy, therefore they spent most of their lives working in the same village. The Feudal System and newfound localism allowed for peasants to be better protected and for life to be more stable leading to a slightly longer average life span than what was recorded in Rome, 30 versus 28.”

I scoff quietly reflecting on the 15 new empty spaces around me. That’s much longer than the average lifespan now. Now that we have the capacity to save anyone from almost any medical misfortune almost no one lives past 18. No cough or cancer is cured, no broken bone is healed. It all means weakness. If there is any philosophy this society has that makes me truly irate it is this. An injury doesn’t mean you are weak. It means you were running over a sheet of ice in a blizzard and surprise surprise slipped and cracked something. It makes no sense, it’s arbitrary, stupid, contradictory. It’s not fair. My fists clench under the table as I think back to a far away memory.

A few years ago I recall I was running next to a small wiry girl with auburn hair. I had been desperately fighting the entire way to stay just in front of her with dizzy breath and rubbery legs. It wouldn’t have really in any way have affected my life had I let her pass me, it wasn’t a speed assessment after all. Yet there was something about that girl, a spark of determination that I attribute to my own identity. When I see it in others I either award them my deepest admiration, or do every subtle passive aggressive thing in my power to squelch it out of them. For me, this girl was a squelcher and after the fourth mile I truly could not stand her panting down my neck for another second. I remember beginning to speed up in a last ditch effort to finally pull ahead, but I was made to stop abruptly. There was a gluttonous blob of ice right in front of me, the kind that stretches onward for hundreds of meters and can only be detected by the most attentive of eyes. It started at the top of a hill steeply sloping down the far right side of it for about three hundred meters before being cut off by forest.

As I came to a sudden stop the girl—off of my right shoulder—was forced to bring her feet to a screeching halt that sent her toppling down the hill in a blur of black uniform and panicked sprawling limbs. The more she tried to stop herself the faster she went until she slammed into a tree about three times her width and launched into cardiac arrest. I think she had been overextending herself before. She was painfully skinny, the trauma of the impact did her in. I don’t remember how long I stood next to her wide-eyed pleading pre-corpse. I was entirely dumbfounded, unable to do anything to help. Then out of nowhere I was pushed aside by an older girl with chestnut hair and dark blue-grey eyes.

As I fell to the ground I saw her begin to compress the fallen girl’s chest in consistent increments. My delayed first instinct was to get up and run away, fleeing from the odd, unsavory situation. But as I began to regain my shaky footing the older girl growled at me to pay attention. There was so much emotion and strength in her voice that I did as she told me, sitting transfixed at the bizarre scene while the older girl desperately tried to save the younger. With every compression the younger girl’s eyes seemed to grow, looking as though they were preparing to flee from her skull, while the older girl’s eyes seemed to narrow with determined anguish.

After what seemed like an infinite quantity of time, an officer finally appeared and pushed the older girl and I out of the way. We both slid away across the ice hitting solid snow. My heart climbed up into my throat as my feet scrambled up an embankment, not bothering to wait for orders from by brain. As I got to the top, my chest heaving and panic setting in, I briefly took a moment to look over my shoulder. The older girl was sprinting back over the ice, her blue-grey eyes shooting daggers through all the world’s injustice as she dashed down that slippery slope to save the life of an already dead stranger. Yet before she got to her I heard a screech as the officer hit a button on his wrist port. I turned away as she fell. I do believe to this day that she could have saved that girl, but I never saw either of them again. Yet whether she could have saved her or not is a moot point, because I now know that officer could have saved her in a second.

I shake my head pulling myself out of my icy cold reverie and back into the significantly more important matter that Bump Nose is discussing. “The decline of plumbing from Rome to the Middle Ages.” He also mentioned a decline in technology and intellectualism in general. Aqueducts went dry, the secret to their function forgotten. Bump Nose continues in an everlasting description of the “weakness embodied through lack of scholarly intellect.” Upon first hearing the word weakness my brain goes into power save mode. “Now moving out of Europe. From the collapse of Rome to the start of the Renaissance in the 13th century, the Islamic world prospered. Under the Abbasid a wide array of positive human development took place. They retained a more open mentality toward different cultures resulting in an opportunity for much diverse scholarly learning centered in Baghdad. Córdoba in Spain also became a center for intellectual prosperity. Substantial work was done in philosophy, medicine, mathematics, engineering, and more. In addition, the writings of Greek and Roman philosophers were translated and stored for future generations to enjoy.

Meanwhile in China, the Tong Dynasty was able to hold control over vast amounts of land, while the art and poetry prospered. In the eleventh century—the Sung Dynasty—Chinese metal workers were able to produce as much iron as Europe would be able to produce in the 18th century. This allowed for agriculture to prosper and the population to grow. In addition, by the eleventh century the Chinese were recording their recipe for gunpowder, an invention that revolutionized warfare.”

As I begin to read about Europe in the Middle Ages to say times were dark would be an understatement. Upon reaching a page entitled Medieval Torture Devices I begin to choke on my own saliva. I swallow hard, eyes watering. 12 turns to me with an expression mirroring my own as she too begins to read about a wide variety of creative torture devices used in ancient times. The list is extensive, the highlights include crudely sawing someone in half, spiked metal objects and devices specially designed to rip out certain body parts like tongues and breasts. The entire class has started to stir and has developed a fearful gleam in their eyes. Even 14 looks flushed, his aura of authority waning. Meanwhile One responds by briefly wrinkling her nose before taking on an even more stony facial expression than usual. All I know is that Practical Training today is going to result in a lot of eliminations.