The Clockwise City

Chapter 1

A quiet knock sounded at our wooden door. I looked up, eager for my father's approval across the small table. He looked up tiredly from the bowl of soup he had and nodded, a slight smile on his aging face. The smile was cut short with another knock sounding abruptly from the door. I took advantage of his approval and slid back my old wooden chair back on the age-stained tile floor.

My father usually hated when I saw him; the boy at the door. But he knows to expect my young love. Anthony, or Tony as I called him, sitting at the table next to my father, stuck his tongue out at me, scrunching his face up in the process. I made a disgusted face back at him, almost looking like I smelled rotten cheese. The screeching of my chair sliding back silenced the persistent knocks.

I already knew who was at the door. He has worked for the Officer Arrangement of Helping Forces all the time that I have known him. Lower class citizens call them the OAHF. The oafs of society they say. But not me. Not because I was higher class, because I was definitely not that of all things. I didn't call them Oafs because... I was in love with one.

"It's bad," my mother had said when she found out. She was always telling me to leave the OAHFs alone, let them do their jobs... but he loves me too.

Tonight he promised to give us alone time, maybe even find somewhere private. He told me that once the wheel turned us to darkness, we would be able talk alone.

I walked into the cluttered hallway, passing old family photos overed in dust and ancient toys. You may think we're messy, but it's the law.

The law stated you are forbidden to rid yourself of things that may later be useful. I mimicked this in an exaggerated voice, keeping my head down as I wavered back and forth among the junk on the ground. The hallway ended, leaving me facing the front of our house. Suddenly I felt the nerves fill my mind, anticipation giving me the only courage to open the door.

It screeched on its hinges, sounding like the door was willing to fall at any moment.

As soon as he was visible I heard his deep voice. "Kaila," he sighed my name. Immediately I relaxed, melting like an ice cube in the desert.

"Ryden, you came." I whispered, pulling the squealing door shut behind me with a solid thud.

I looked up to see the artificial light shine into my blue eyes. Little dots of light bulbs littered the metal roof that made up the sky in this quarter of the city. They faded in and out all at various times. It reminded me of the stories my grandmother used to tell me, of the things that her ancestors used to know. They had called the glowing things 'stars' although of course they weren't that. All the lights consisted of was a lightbulb attached to the metal roof of a barrier that enclosed our whole city.

Slowly, the city turns in a circle all day long. People never feel the change but you can see the small red dots coming to show Lights Out. The red stars are the only light during Lights Out, leaving this quarter of the city in a black darkness hinting a light red.

"Kaila, Lights Out is almost here. We need to get away from the streets so no other Officer Arrangement of Helping Forces comes and finds me," he said, twisting his head to the sides in search of them. Ryden's short cut hair seemed to move along with his head.

"You're lucky I am even taking you. Do you know how hard it is for me to break the rules that Leader Tom set, Kaila?" he whispered quietly, but it felt as though it was a full-out yell. I shook my head in response.

"Well it's hard," he finished, stomping off in the opposite direction.

"Wait Ryden! I will come with you. I'm sorry I am such a bother to the rules," I apologized in a quiet voice, my head bent in humiliation.