LIBERATION | A Thomas Love Story

4 - Interests and Regret

The Greenie soon began to get the swing of things around the glade. She even chose her new job.

She was to be a gardener, or track hoe, as Newt called it. Her job was to care for the crops the Gladers grew and to harvest them.

Newt worked alongside her, his hands expertly plucking vines of grapes.

The girl enjoyed the gardens. It was a peaceful sector of the Glade. It let her clear her mind and think.

As she was plopping seeds into some new plots, Newt started speaking.

"Need to request more corn in the box, I miss Frypan's butter corn."

She looked over, intrigued.

"You can request stuff?"

Newt nodded,

"Yeah, we do it all the time. We slip a piece of paper in with some writing and most of the time it comes up."

The girl nodded and grinned.

"Maybe someone requested me then."

Newt laughed and shook his head.

She smiled to herself and went back to work.

Later, when she went to take a break, the newbie wandered into the forest at the corner of the glade.

The Gladers called this section the Deadheads" because they buried their dead here.

She felt a bit saddened as she walked among the crude grave markers, but she also felt peace.

She had seen the crossed out names on the walls of the maze, which still bewildered her, and she was curious about them. How did they die? How could someone die in the safety of the Glade?

She then stopped as she came to the exact corner of the glade, its two walls connecting together with sunlight and ivy cascading down upon it

She looked at the ground and noticed that it was a bit bare, and she got a spark of an idea.

Lately in the glade, she had been getting bored. She would do the same routine each day, wake up, eat, garden, eat, garden, eat, sometimes bonfire, sleep.

She looked at the plot of land and smiled to herself at her idea.

If the Gladers request things to come up in the box, maybe she can ask for flower seeds.

Not crops, flowers.

The Greenie was never the girly type as long as she remembered, but she did like plants.

She knew what flowers looked like, but has never seen an actual flower garden in her memory. She probably did before the maze, though.

They made her relaxed and she admired their unique patterns and petals. All together in one garden they looked like an art piece.

She made up her mind and walked towards the map room because they had paper according to Minho.

Minho gave her the paper and pencil and grinned,

"Draw a pretty picture of me."

She grinned and proceeded to draw a blob on the paper with lines and flies coming from it. She showed it to him.

His grin disappeared and he turned red.

"Hey! I don't look like klunk!"

******

The girl finished her request and read it over.

Wild flower seeds, please. This place needs some color besides green.