Not Just A Pretty Face

Chapter One

   My mum’s and my own heels clacked along the linoleum floor.  She and I were always in sync with dressing, and I could thank her for that.  Everyone said I was just a younger version of my mother, even though I knew I’d made bad choices in my life that prevented me from truly being so.  But, when I looked at us, and saw how much similarity we had, it made me wonder if perhaps she and I were more the same in some respects than I realised.

   We headed to the elevators that would take us up to the Maternity ward, and I decided to people watch.  I tended to do that.  The ones we could classify as Beautiful ones, I smiled at, and he smiled back at me, taking me as one of his own.  He had dark auburn hair, blue eyes, a lean body.  I could only truly classify him as a Beautiful.  The others ranged from the Inbetweens, to the Afflicted.  Inbetweens were the most common in the world; pretty to average.  Afflicted were the ones you shied away from, so grotesque was their disfigurement, but it was their own fault; they’d chosen that.

   I looked over the Afflicted and the Inbetweens; I noticed marks, scars, hollow faces, skeletal to fat bodies, less-than-healthy hair.  I looked at them, and could almost classify them, how they got that way.  Fat; greed.  Skeletal; lies.  Scarred; hands that shed innocent blood, or did wrong to someone.  I compared them to myself – tall, thin, healthy.  Some could say ‘flawless’.  I had no scars, no marks.  My cheekbones were high.  My breasts were nicely sculpted, as was the rest of my body.  My eyes were bright, almond in shape, that took in everything around them.  The one flaw I had was a tiny mark on my arm, but that was from an injury, not who I was.

   The Beautiful one kept smiling at me, obviously enjoying looking at me.  The others in the elevator did the same, but they did so in a draining manner.  I wondered if they all thought the same thing: Will she stay like that?  Of course I would.  I couldn’t change who I was.

   “Come on, Dylan,” my mum said.  I heard the elevator ‘bing’, and then say in a cool, luxurious female voice, ‘Level 3 – Maternity’.

   I exited the elevator, feeling eyes on me.  I’d always felt that throughout my life, but it varied in intensity when I grew.  When I was young, I was regarded as cute; now I was regarded as gorgeous.  I didn’t like to think of myself that way – it felt rude, and disrespectful to others who weren’t.  So whenever someone told me, my first instinct was to say ‘Thank you, but I really am not’.  Though internally, I knew, I knew it was not kind to admit to it.  My mum said that was one of the hundred reasons why I looked the way I did.  But I really did not see my beauty.  I figured it was just a thankful coincidence.

   Mum led the way towards where Olive was.  She had done this many times – our family always had babies, and Olive led the charge in breeding them.  We walked past a large window, and I saw an elderly, motherly-looking nurse tending over babies in small plastic cribs.  They all looked identical – small, pink, all with silver eyes and no hair.  It was literally as if someone had gone Ctrl+C, and then Ctrl+V’d all over the place.  I wondered how they would turn out later on in life.

   Mum walked – perhaps glided was the best word – to the reception desk.  There was a pane of glass separating her and the receptionist, with only a small grate to talk through and a small cut in the glass to shove things through.  The woman there had dreadlocks, was rather thin, and thick make-up to try and obscure her flaws.  An Inbetween, but I felt with another blow she’d become an Afflicted.  Nevertheless, mum still smiled at her.  That was the thing about my mum – she was nice to everyone, no matter what.

   “We’re here to see Olive Wood, please,” mum asked.  The Inbetween looked at the Beautiful in front of her.  She made a ‘tsk’ sound, and opened her mouth to blow a bubble with her gum, before it popped and she sucked it back in.  Mum kept her smile up, but I knew if I looked into her eyes, I’d see a subtle hint of distaste and anxiety.  The woman pushed a finger with many cheap silver rings through the slot, shoving out a card, before twirling away on her office chair and proceeding to file her finger nails, chewing loudly.  Mum looked at me; I shrugged.  “All right, well, um… thank you,” mum managed, gently taking the card into her hands and looking at it.  “Room M-21.  Thank you, miss.”