The Indentured Isles

Way of Life

The sky was a brilliant pink, signifying the time to quit working for the day. The tall grass parted as Theophan treaded towards the wooden dock. His footfalls on the planks woke his beast, the Yangaun, at the end. A flying creature, it transported citizens to their homes among the isles. Theophan strapped his waist to the saddle and gave the Yangaun the signal to depart. He watched the thin sprinkler rods in the field shrink as the great wings began to flap, and Theophan added a trail of his breath, which crystallized into electric blue beads of ice, to the breeze rushing across his skin. The exhalation dissipated and fell away into the endless dusk. It was customary for the energy of the wind to replace that of light on Cerakzho, planet of the satellites. This aided the Yangaun's flight in the departure from labor isles. In the dark, the isles of Cerakzho gravitated slightly closer to one another and caused breezes to grow even more so, sometimes carrying unfamiliar sounds from faraway lands. Night arrived with haste, but never was entirely black. Many bright stars trimmed the evening, as if encapsulating breaths of daylight into pockets that possessed the equivalent luminosity to what they were lacked in size. Under the semi-sheer veil of dusk, strange things came about. The smooth creature under Theophan cried out in its graceful flight.

In the distance was Modduncilik, land of the miners. Theophan was always grateful he was not enlisted there; the work was much longer and more hazardous than that of the farmers on Hyangsab. Often times he heard fragmented anecdotes of the misfortune that seemed to fall upon them, yet the detail was arrested by constitutional restriction of speech. Those stories were sufficient for encouraging even the most discontented citizens to appreciate their circumstances. In Cerakzho, following a certain age, all subjects were assigned to an isle of employment. Each one entailed different work and therefore a variety of wages was found among them,  but the products of all were sent to the core to be evenly redistributed. None were kept by the subjects. Theophan himself had just received his weekly earnings.

Little time passed before Theophan dismounted near his home. He pulled fodder from its stow on the dock and fed it to the Yangaun, then scampered up the dramatically convex hillside to the house. Sometimes this movement was peaceful, at other times taxing. Tonight Theophan passed the steepest length without burden. The aromatic draft of baking had permeated the front door as he arrived, stimulating his already eager temperament and inviting him inside. Theophan lived with two other boys and an elder male caretaker. On the same residential satellite was a house of three girls and their effeminate caregiver. This artificial family setting functioned to give citizens the comfort of a domestic setting and the propinquity of others. The overseers; however, possessed a reserved friendliness as though not to call attention to either excessive or inadequate countenance. Theophan did not care highly about his interactions with them and was never distraught by their obscurity. In the foyer, Theophan was greeted by his friend, and decided brother, Lucius.

"Aye, how went the ol' farm this afternoon?" Lucius asked him as they walked to the kitchen.

"I have endured worse. Besides, got my week's worth," he replied with grin, gesturing to a groove in his pocket. "And look at my arms, I'd say they are even thicker around than the month before!" Theophan said proudly. Lucius poked his slowly toning arm.

Lucius raised his own arm into view, above Theophan's. "Perhaps if looking from this angle," he teased.

"You behave like a squib," said Theophan quietly, laughing. They found their caretaker at work by the stove. "What'ave we got to eat tonight?" asked Lucius. The caretaker extracted a dish from the oven while he spoke.

"I'd guess Atlon," Theophan whispered to his friend. The caretaker did not say anything, but began to cut the steaming loaf into eight sections, each to feed a member of the house. The muted-green hue inside the meal confirmed Theophan's speculation on its flavor. This particular meal metabolized in similar fashion to leafy vegetables and was meant to eat alongside a serving of raw crop and a scrap of meat.

"Bleh," Lucius said, gazing into the food. He was not fond of loaves deviating from the muted coloration of starch. Theophan snorted at this, newly amused by his picky eating.

"Come on. To the table. We'll get first pick for sides," Theophan urged. Their efforts to reap benefits of punctuality were denied by Edelyn and Cyrene, who were already seated. The two were of the neighboring house of the satellite, and the two families often met for meal hour. On the girls' plates were slices of venison, Lucius's favorite meat.

"Ah, What? You thieving girls!" He cried. "Let me 'ave some! Please, I been in the fields all day! My back is sore, my shoulders are killing me, my-" his complaints were cut off by Cyrene.

"Sure, sure, we know!" She said sharply. Cyrene was not soft spoken, but her plainness evoked explicit meanings in conversation and therefore evoked interesting conversation. She, in consequence of such bluntness, often riled mischief, yet rarely received a reprimand. Theophan had been taught this  on several occasions and knew better than to associate with Cyrene's scheming, for her lack of blame often fell on her companions. Lucius, however, was found to be more impulsive and stubborn than his counterpart Theophan, and constantly made attempts to prove his worth greater than Cyrene's. In this moment he snapped.

"But how would you know? It's not like you have any tasking about to give you aches! All you do is lie 'round."

Theophan knew this would spark a fiery reaction. Cyrene was too young to be enlisted, and she hated being reminded of it. Her past time was schooling. She was a fast learner and quick witted, but a year behind the others. She scrunched her nose at Lucius's remark.

"If you wanted the meat, you had ought to've been kind," Cyrene told him and pointedly moved her plateful away.

"You swine," Lucius rasped under his breath, and sat down at the chair across from her. "Sit, Theophan," he commanded his friend, who, of course, did.

The house caretaker settled the food among the eight plates, although only four were sat. It was not long before the caregiver came, accompanied by the third girl, Lorelei. Theophan spooned his portion around, eating a bit, but primarily in thought. He was lucky to live in such stability, but by the same virtue was his young and generative mind molded into stagnancy. Only the energy of his friends, spare Liemm, allowed mental respiration and upheld his ingenuity. Liemm was gone for every productive pass of the afternoon, leaving him in a tired stupor upon his return. An age gap also disrupted his connection with the others, as he neared his 81st year of life*. Theophan, like Lucius and Edelyn, had lived 70 years, and Lorelei was five years ahead of them. Everyone was relatively quiet at the table. Theophan assumed that the elders were not going initiate any substantial talk, so he decided to begin.

"Lorelei, was your work difficult today?" He asked. Cyrene rolled her eyes.

Lorelei put her fork down to speak. "It was productive, thank you," she told him softly. The brief exchange was like a branch tilting over a cliff; its fate on one side a gross drop into nothing, and on the other like a strained thump onto solid earth. The tilting made Theophan uncomfortable. As she returned to eating, Theophan continued speaking in attempt to make his question seem less out of place. "Did you know the bags for seeds, on the farming isle you know, are made in your center of work?"

"I am not surprised," she said without looking up. "There are not any others that might produce them besides the textile isle." Lucius chuckled as he always did after "textile isle" was mentioned, due of the floundering of the tongue which the words commanded. Theophan saw his attempt at speaking had failed, with the minor exception of Lucius's amusement, and fell silent.

Liemm arrived at the door shortly afterwards. His lanky silhouette emerged in the entry to the dining room but commanded no verbal welcome. Always so quiet, and peculiar, Theophan mused.

*a year on Earth is roughly 4.5 years on Cerakzho