You see, my birth was a sort of miracle.
The average woman the age of my mother when she got married was expected to already have four to five children, and several doctors in Eseq (my home town), and the village after that, and the village after that, always told my mother that she wasn't even physically able to have children. They looked down on her a lot—for marrying a city boy and betraying her people, for taking so long to get married, for being the quiet, social pariah she was so good at being. And now, for trying to have a child when it was long overdue. It always frustrated me; they talked down on her for not having kids, and when she did decide it was time to build her family, they kept talking shit.
I was certainly an unexpected visitor, even to the woman who bore me. She named me after the special night I was born in—Varona, meteor shower.
My parents met when they were in their early forties, fell in love rather quickly, and married not long after. Father wasn't from Eseq—he was a city boy, with a city education, and city charm. My mother was the exact opposite; she oozed with the smell of open fields, sandy beaches and sugary sweat. To be honest, I don't know too much of their relationship. My mother wasn't employed in Eseq, and my father had a job in the deep, far off city, so he had to leave home for long periods of time, so often that I barely remember the kind of person he was. I don't know what drove them to fall in love, I just knew they were.
But I'm certain that all the books we had came from my father.
There was only one public library in all of Eseq, and it contained mostly meek picture books for toddlers, particularly biased Valon history books, basic first-aid booklets, and other topics lacking in depth or any real substance. No one really went there, anyway. Young boys spent most of their time in school or skipping it to play around in the streets, until they grew into teenagers, where they had to begin enlisting into the Valon army. As for the girls—well, they stayed at home. Girls weren't typically educated at all. They got married young, and the only places you would see them were during the day for a quick market run, or in their homes, with their mothers, their mother's mothers, their husband's mothers, and so on.
I was barely six when I stumbled upon the treasure chest under my bed. Admittingly, it was a smart move—I was always snooping around the house as a kid, looking for anything to get my hands on and play around with. It took my forever to suspect that something might be under my own bed, but I found it nevertheless. I ran to the closet and grabbed an old hatchet (quite a funny picture, huh? A three-feet tall jungle-haired six year old with half her teeth missing running to her room with a hatchet in her arms. At least I was practical and chose the easiest thing to break the box with) and eventually cut a hole large enough to slip my hand in and grab whatever was inside. I unloaded the chest one by one, and each time I put my hand in, I pulled it out with a book in my hand. Of course, I knew what books were. Mother would read to me and help me read myself every night before bed. But the books I knew were thing and light, with illustrations and words with big letters. These books were heavy, old, grim-looking, and some were even in languages I didn't recognize.
By the time I finished unpacking the whole thing, I whirled around to see my frowning mother at the door, her arms crossed and her foot tapping. When she saw the hatchet, I think she smacked me.
That's where it started. My mom would try and distract me with anything else, but I would always go back to the books. I understood very little, but I had never seen anything like them before, and I couldn't take my hands off them. Some books had old, smudged sketches of birds or reptilic animals. There were different kinds of plants with detailed descriptions of what they could do when used, documents of historic figures I had never heard about before or even after I read the books. Entire chapters of one book were dedicated to philosophy, another book to religion, another to more mature fiction. I had never been so enlightened before as a child; not even toys could distract me. My mother later told me she was a little worried, but at the same time, relieved. She didn't want me to end up an outcast like her, but she didn't want me to become a part of the bubble that was Eseq, either.
I guess she told my father about it, and he was apparently ecstatic, because from then on, every time he came home from a trip, he would have a new load of books for me to bury my nose in. I would take his quill and underline my favorite quotes in a story, or take notes on different functions of the body. I would even get into hour-long discussions with my mother on certain topics—that was where my snarky nature developed.
I never really left the house. I never really talked to anyone outside of my mother, and occasionally my father whenever he was around. Only reason I would ever see the light of day was if I when to the store to buy ingredients for a new dish I read about and wanted to make.
There was one time, however, when I was around twelve, that I did go outside. Just out of boredom, since there was nothing else to read, and my mother was asleep. Our neighbor—who I never got to know, but I remember she had the face of an ox, so I called her Oxface—had two daughters. They were younger than I was, since girls who reached the age of twelve weren't supposed to be outside in the first place. Originally I didn't want to involve myself with them, and walked right past the two, but after I walked a significant distance, I felt them walking behind me.
I whirled around. I didn't know how to position myself, or what kind of expression to make, or what tone to use when I talked, or if I should even say anything, but eventually I grunted out a "What?"
They blinked at me. The older one (she must have been nine) said, "The market is that way, you know." She pointed in the opposite direction.
I followed her finger stupidly, then looked back at her, confused. "I know." I turned back around and continued forward.
They were following me.
One of them called out: "Do you even know where you're going?"
I didn't answer, but yes, of course I did. Mother made a map of Eseq a few years ago, and I studied it anf implanted it in my memory. But I figured it was time for it to be updated, so I was headed to the place with the least human activity: an underground prison system, disguised as the entrance to the aqueducts. Obviously I wasn't expecting to get inside, but I wanted to scope it out myself.
It was a bit odd that they continued to follow me even after I showed them no interest, but I decided to brush it off.
We got closer to the entrance, which was blocked by two security soldiers dressed in green and gold. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw them, and ducked behind the nearest bush. I couldn't let them see me.
But one of the girls jogged ahead of me, stopped, and waved to the guards. I heard the smile in her voice. "Hello! Hiii there!!!" Her sister followed, went up and began to wave. The guards saw them and raised their hands in response, but I grabbed the girls from the back of their shirt and hid them behind the bush with me.
They whirled around, eyes wide. "Hey! What are you doing?"
I scoffed. "Me? What are you doing?"
"We were waving to the guards," the older one said.
"My mommy always says that we have to show the soldiers our ut-most res-pect," said the younger one, over enunciating the last two words that she heard her mom say but didn't understand what it meant.
My jaw dropped in disbelief. "Your mommy is an idiot," I sneered. "Those guards aren't here to be your friends. They're here to keep you in check. To watch every single thing you do. And if you act up, then they're going to throw you to prison and make you starve to death."
They looked mortified. The older one stood up and scowled at me, her hands on her hips. "The soldiers are here to protect us! They're here to make sure we stay safe!"
I rolled my eyes. "Sure. That's what they want you to believe." I look back at the soldiers through the leaves of the bushes. They were still looking our way, and one of them even took a few steps in our general direction.
I lowered my voice to a whisper. "They gather information on everyone. Everyone is considered an enemy. They're not here to protect us country folk. They're here to make sure the city folk have no type of threat. But I guess your mommy doesn't tell you that."
They fell silent, and I had lost my sense of adventure, so I walked back home, the girls following in my footsteps.
A few hours after I arrived home, there was a loud knock at the door. It was Oxface.
As soon as my mom saw her through the window, she told me to go hide in the closet. She hated Oxface, just like she hated everyone else in the town. She clearly wasn't here for a lighthearted chitchat.
I only remember bits of the quarrel that proceeded. Oxface was angry that I would say such things to her daughters, and make them scared of the brave soldiers that protect us every day. My mom argued that I was just a young kid, and they shouldn't take anything I said too seriously. Oxface yelled and asked where a young kid like me would even come up with such a ridiculous idea. She called my mom a radical, a superstitious madwoman. Said it was people like her and my dad that were ruining Eseq, and making people hate and distrust their country. That she was always trouble, from the day she was born. Mother didn't respond and waited until Oxface went purple with rage, at which point she politely asked her to get the fuck out of her house.
I stepped out of the closet. Mother turned back at me and smirked. I was angry.
"Mom, she was so rude to you! Literally, how dare she talk like that! All I did was tell those girls the truth! Why can't they see—"
She put a finger to my lips. "Rony, sweetie, we've talked about this before. What you and I know is special. People in Eseq aren't supposed to know as much as us."
"I know, but they're so close minded..."
"That's how they were taught to be," she sighed. "We just have to be grateful that we know the truth. That we have these resources at arm's reach. Oh, and don't worry about—what do you call her? Oxface." She laughed, throwing her head back and snorting a little bit. "She's been the most annoying person in the room since she was born!"