Imperfect

Un-fitting

Chapter One.
It's crazy how you could be totally and utterly oblivious. You know, like how you get from one place to another but have no actual memory of how you got there. We get up, get dressed, go to work, go to school, clean, play, talk, smoke, jump, walk, run, laugh, cry, yell, eat, drink, sleep, and before you know it, you're starting it all over again. It's like we are all trapped on a Ferris wheel in the middle of a bleak landscape that never stops to let people off.
Round and round we go. Same sights, same speed, same everything. But that's okay, because everyone's okay. The Ferris wheel isn't too fast or too slow. It's neutral. Its perfect. The not too fast and not too tall Ferris wheel doesn't scare anyone like a 400ft free fall would. A slow grey Ferris wheel that only moves in a large circle would never offend a person like a ride filled with color and culture and music. Nope, everyone loves learning the same, thinking the same, acting the same, being the same.
It was one week, nine hours, and forty-two minutes since It happened. I was standing amongst all the professors and governors, my hand holding Jared's gently, as he, his father, and the other men talked of things that seemed to bore me more and more each time I heard of them.
Smiling like I was supposed to and responding as if I cared, I daydreamed. I dreamed about the color red. How the day before I accidentally cut myself while slicing white onions. The liquid, dark and thick, coated my thumb looking so vibrant against my pale skin. Compared to the dingy browns, ugly grays, and sad whites that filled our cities, streets and homes, the blood that dripped off of my thumb and onto the white tile was. . . different. Even our clothes were grey. So seeing a color so dark but bright mesmerized me, it could have been hours before my mother ran over to me, hissing between her teeth while wrapping a cold brown wash cloth across my thumb.
"What were you thinking?" She chastised. "We don't use knives anymore, you know that."
After putting a brown bandage on my wound. She picked up the left over onion and threw it into the food processor. "You must listen to instruction May, I cannot take care of you always."
"Yes mother," I said while peeling away the bandage; my cut was still red.
"Good."
A tug at my wrist brought me back to reality. Jared's father (my future father-in-law) told me something, but I had no idea what was said.
"Hmm?" I asked.
Like always, the men laughed cordially, while taking pulls from their enhancers. Jared looked down at me while patting my hand, "Always the dreamer this one is." He said to the men. "What was it about this time May? A new dress, or maybe our upcoming wedding?"
An unseen force took hold of my throat, making it hard to swallow. While another struck my gut, causing bile to rise in my throat. I couldn't tell them about what I was really thinking of; color. While day dreaming isn't against our nations rules and regulations, any color not approved by our council is. Red being one of them.
With a shaking hand, I took a long pull from my own enhancer. As the chemicals filled my lungs, a peacefulness I know all to well overcame me. I released my breath, adding to the accumulating cloud of smoke that filled the room. Looking up into Jared's brown eyes, the same color as mine, the same color as everyone's, I lied, "I was thinking how maybe I could go up to Aunt Elena's house next week to see if she could do something about my wedding gown."
Jared smiled, it didn't reach his eyes, but neither did mine. Nobody's did. "I suppose I was correct on both accounts." He chuckled. "Both a new dress and the wedding."
"Of course you know what she was thinking," said the governor of the south quarter. "You two have been selected by the council itself. Our system is perfect. Therefore you're compatibility is perfect."
"Of course," everyone agreed. . .everyone but me.
Perfect compatibility. Perfect system. Perfect dress. Perfect house. Perfect hair. Perfect speech. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. It was like a mantra, being repeated over an over in my head. And Why was that? Why was it perfect? Everyone walked around saying the same things, blindly believing the things others said without asking the one question that needed to be asked. Why?
It was then, standing in a bare walled ballroom amongst our most noble and highly esteemed men and women, smoking enhancers while talking about nothing, that the Farris wheel, I and all of society seemed to be stuck on, stopped. But it was only for a moment, and in that moment something shifted inside myself. It was a small something, yet it was greater than anything I had ever felt. And it was that something that made my chest feel tight and my head feel heavy. It made me want to clench my hands into tight fists and grind my teeth together. It made me want to scream every banned word at the top of my lungs while stomping my feet until everyone knew exactly what I was feeling.
Yet I didn't do any of those things. No, because just as soon as the Ferris wheel stopped, it picked up again and I was still strapped securely inside. I kept doing what I had always done; take a long pull of my enhancer while doing what I am instructed to do, by whomever was instructing me.
The men talked about up coming council meetings as well as new prohibitions, like knives. Jared was just about to tell everyone about how I cut myself on a knife only the day before when, It started.