COMPLETE! The Wasteland. A woman screams in the night. Spotlights flash on a pile of dust in the desolate patch of land that lay just beyond the tall crosses that picket the boundary of Encampment R-34. A group of curious students leave their bunkho...
MELL'S NOTES BOOK July 18, 2245 Entry #2 - Handwritten
To summarize today, Edie is in the hospital, Bryne and I can never be together, we lost Lenny, and I might as well die right now, because the job I've been pinned to is the worst imaginable. If we hadn't finally gotten answers, I'd say it was a total waste. I'm going to start at the beginning of today, and we'll see if I can get through it all before I snap my pencil in two.
At sunup, Edie and I went to the bunkhouse dressing room where the younger girls, who were jealous of our upcoming Commencement, watched in silent reverence, the way we had done every year prior with the graduating girls. We dressed in our fine-whites, which had been tailored for today alone, and waited for Roz, Felicity, and Lane to meet us in the hall before joining the boys in the courtyard of Classroom 6. That's where all outgoing students gather for lessons.
Usually, on Commencement Day, the students are greeted by the approved Job Heads at the center of the courtyard. But it was empty this morning, which made Oscar nervous.
"It's because of last night," he said.
Lenny whispered to himself, "What if they make us go through another year of lessons?"
"You think?" Rufus asked as the others chimed in with panicked opinions.
Bryne didn't contribute to the conversation. He only looked at me and smiled. Of course, that was before we received the unofficial verdict on whether our physical relationship would be sanctioned. He had yet to lose hope.
The closer we got to Classroom 6, the quieter we spoke. Edie reached for my hand and laced my fingers into hers. We are not supposed to show signs of emotional attachment, but I didn't care this morning. We both knew what she was facing. No woman wants that pin. I should have known something was wrong when the Job Heads weren't waiting to meet each one of us in the courtyard before the last day of lessons, but it was hard to miss when High Elder Hemaris and Job Priest greeted us from the front of the classroom, in place of Teacher Deirdre.
"Please be seated in your normal posts around the room," Hemaris uttered in a silvery voice, raising his thin eyebrows in judgment.
We moved cautiously to our familiar desks for the final time. Lenny, with his slim face and short stature, couldn't help but take the longest to sit. He was staring wide-eyed at Job Priest. Job returned the gaze directly. The look was obvious to anyone in the room at that point. Lenny's life-job was pinned for sure.
Although a Priest has the benefit of learning everything (hearing the full truth of what had happened before the encampment was built, and how the wasteland had presumably been a safer place to live before the infection), the Priesthood is a chaste and unending venture into servitude to Elder Priest. I bet Lenny wished he had never let anyone see him praying to the sketch in his pocket. The most spiritual man of the graduates is always pinned for a Priest.
For a full minute after we sat, Hemaris did nothing but stretch his mouth in a smile, creasing the cheeks of his long, gaunt face. He ran a hand across the gray stubble of his shorn scalp and clasped his hands behind his back. Then he took a step out from Teacher Deirdre's desk.
"Commencement Day is such a special event. I remember mine like it was yesterday. The feast. The ceremony. The trumpet-song. Those questions I had asked on Commencement Day were a mark of the child I used to be, and all the answers I then received made me the man I am today. As you are no doubt aware, the life-job pinned upon you today will be yours until the day you pass on...to the Neverdowns." At this, Job Priest lowered his head and muttered. Then Hemaris continued, "It is essential that we each play our part in creating harmony in the encampment. Some of you almost seem to have groomed yourselves for the jobs you hoped to receive. You will likely obtain them. For others, it may be filling an essential need here at R-34. For that service, your High Elder thanks you."
He broke to clear his throat.
"Now, onto the unfortunate topic of last night. What you heard or saw...or what you think you heard or saw...does not matter. What matters is that rules were broken. And, according to our laws, for each broken rule, one must face a consequence. Consistent rule breaking leads to exile from the encampment. Don't think we haven't noticed that there are some in this room who have been working toward exile since childhood." His sharp, dull-brown eyes cast down to Roz, who seemed uninterested in his thinly veiled threat and unconcerned with her own fate. "Since it is Commencement Day, you will suffer in ways most have not. The ceremony in Townsquare will be stripped. All rights of passage revoked. The usual trappings withheld."
Crevan grunted and kicked the back of the chair in front of him, earning a scathing look from Elder Hemaris that sent a chill down my deceitfully agile body. I wanted to protest as well, but jobs had yet to be pinned, and there was no telling what other consequences we could face. Bryne and I had worked so hard. Seems such a waste now.
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