My eyes opened slowly, taking in the dimming sky. I was not in my home. My fingers traced the hard, earthy bed I was lying on. I pushed my fingertips into the ground and felt the untreated soil beneath the grass. I took a deep breath to smell the thick air, anxiously waiting to release its rain from the heavy clouds above. Sounds of lapping water and laughing in the distance informed me that I was not far from home. I was not in a field. I was not in danger.
I sat up slowly to take in my surroundings. I was in a small clearing. I recognized it as where I would eat lunch with a few of my friends. I must have fallen asleep on break. By the looks of the darkening sky above me, I took an extended nap. I could hear talking from my learning group and winced. They must be upset I had disappeared for so long.
"Good morning sleepy sprout" I let a small screech and turned to see Abeisa, one of my friends in my year. Abeisa chuckled and jumped from the limb she was lounging on. She helped me stand and crossed her arms. Her impressive attitude made up for her small stature. Abeisa stood to my shoulders. She was one of the taller ones in her family. Her skin was a light green. Her eyes and hair matched pink.
"How long have I been asleep?" I spoke, still half asleep.
Abeisa shrugged before turned to gather a basket beside the tree. "You looked exhausted during lunch. The group thought you needed to rest, so we told you to stay back and rest. The day ended a little while ago and everyone left. I decided to wait with you after you wouldn't wake up!" The group she was referring to was the bunch of seven people my age who study and work with each other until graduating and getting a career.
The learning system in the community starts at age four. Children report to a learning facility in the Great Center near the market until they reach the age of eleven. Once the child graduated the in-house lessons where they learn about each family and the trades, they go and work alongside each trade to determine what they want to do when they graduate the system. There are many trades specific to each Bloma family, so the five years that they spend experimenting each trade are of the utmost importance. The last year of the system is spent in the persons top three trades and one day a week in the Great Center to prepare for their trade. Groups of seven who are interested in the same three trades will spend this time together to build relationships for the careers they will likely share.
Today marked the last day of the system. Tomorrow and three days after would be a celebration called the Gathering Ball, but the fifth day would be the start of the graduates first day on the job.
"I can't believe we're finished" Abeisa said dreamily as we walked down the path hidden from the fields and towards the community.
"It's like we just started. I don't know if I'm ready to choose. It's kind of frightening after the excitement wears off" Abeisa seemed to grow visibly nervous.
"We still have four days! Let's celebrate for now. Worry later" I nodded as the community came into view and we grew quiet.
The community was filled with people called the Bloma. The Bloma world consisted of four different families with the same or similar genetic traits, like a race. Each family lived within the greater family in what we call a vicinage. Each vicinage has specific advantages for the families. There was some interchanging between the marriages, but the physical needs of each Bloma weighed heavily on the place they lived.
The original Bloma families came together to build our world in between mountains hundreds of years ago for protection. Each family built a vicinage specific to their kind in various locations and connected them in the center with a large marketplace. The vicinages were built in a field for sunlight, in the woods for shade, over water for moisture, and in trees for some light. Each vicinage is strategic in the way the Bloma live their lives and contribute to the community.
The fifth vicinage is considered the center where all the different family's meet. The top part of the fifth vicinage is the Great Center where the Gathering Ball is held every year for the families to come together and celebrate each other. It is also where the leaders of the community meet daily to discuss issues. The bottom half is the market where the family's come together to buy and sell good from their vicinage.
Abeisa lived with the Field Bloma. Her family lived in huts built in the fields. For that reason, I knew she was lying when she claimed to be waiting for me to wake up. A field Bloma would seldom stay in the shade for longer than necessary. Their skin needed sunlight, that was how they received their energy. They were the tallest Bloma people, so they needed more sunlight to energized their taller bodies.
Abeisa and I had connected during the system after disliking each other because of our differing living styles. We became friends when another Field Bloma was teasing Abeisa about her parents not wanting her so her grandparents had to raise her. I talked with her afterwards about how I was not living with my real parents and we made jokes about ourselves and each other. She's always struggled with the depression because she felt unwanted. We've helped each other through the difficult times, but her demons ran deeper in her blood than anyone, including myself knew.
"See you tomorrow!" Abeisa said pulling me from my thoughts. I turned and caught Abeisa by her wrist and drew her to me.
"We did it. We are so awesome" I whispered, knowing she was having a hard time with graduating and the thought of being on her own even if she didn't express it. She hugged me back tightly confirming my suspicion.
Sudden, thick raindrops pulled me from my thoughts, causing us to break apart. I could feel the drops of green dye on my skin beginning to roll off as if my skin itself was melting off my body. Abeisa was too busy blocking her head with her arms to see my identity stripping away, the one thing I hid from her. Thankfully, her vicinage was on the opposite side of the community then mine. We broke off from each other before she could see my diminishing dye.
I lived in the third vicinage where the water Bloma live. Our vicinage used a special root of a water tree native to the area to create a floating walkway. The tree trunks and roots were manipulated to enforce a railing for when the elements rocked the pathways. Overhead the water Bloma vicinage would look like a flower with many petals. The main walkway leading to each family's path was called the stem. Every family had their own path with huts on either side coming from the stem and hooking away from the shore to form one petal. Beautiful arches were sculpted where a specific families path met the stem.
I tried to hide myself from view of the other people who may be looking as I ran down the stem. It was in these moments that I hated living in one of the furthest huts. When I reached my path, I focused on running to the seventh hut rather than hiding. I threw myself into my hut and closed the door. My Papa was bending over material with a needle in his hand and his tongue poking out of his mouth. I smiled at his deep focus as I walked over the grassy floor. I called out a hello but received only a grunt in response. Once I reached the bathroom door, I turned around to see if Papa would fuly notice me, but he did not.
My eyes scanned over the hut and how chaotic it looked. The standard hut was sculpted upwards towards the sun with manicured floors accessible by stairs built into the wall. Because each house was considered living, the walls would shift over time, adding height. The huts start out with one floor when Bloma move into it and grow with the couple as they age. Once the couple move out, the tree is considered deceased with them and cut down for a new couple to move in. Each hut was about as tall as a large tree and as wide as half of one flipped on its side. The huts created an oval shape at the top and a circle on the bottom floor. I had the top floor because I was the best at reaching the height while Papa and Lo had the second floor. The bottom floor was the common floor where guests were entertained and where the bathroom was located. Currently our common floor was covered in material, paint, flowers, and completed dressed out to dry.
"Thallia? Darling please come help me!" I turned from watching Papa's back hunched over the table and saw Lo, my adoptive mother rushing in from the pouring outside.
She struggled to pass through the door with baskets made of roots full of flowers and other materials balancing on every available part of her body. I rushed over and picked up some of the heaviest baskets so that she could walk properly. She seemed to take a collective breath and smiled at me. Her light green skin was withered from time and her hair was starting to fall. She looked weak. Her kind eyes met mine and her old face twisted into confusion. She seemed to have aged another year.
"Darling are you okay?" I shook my head out of a trance only for Lo to chuckle.
"You are just dripping darling. Look at your skin!" She put the baskets down before she dropped them as her laughter grew.
"It started to rain and it's the end of the week" I defended myself only for her to laugh a little harder.
Papa stood and tore us from our exchange. He was slightly larger than Lo, but his head only reached just below my shoulder. He was just as withered from age as Lo, but his hunch was more advanced. His long white hair was also beginning to fall out. Unlike Lo, his face was stern with worry lines and an emotion I had never experienced. Both his and Lo's skin was tinted just darker than my green skin. Some speculation from outside the family inquired that I wasn't even part of the Bloma people. They didn't know how right they were, and that caused Papa and Lo to take careful precautions which caused them their withering looks.
"Did you grab any of the pink petals?" I handed him the basket in my hand.
"Thallia, darling please go take your bath before your real skin starts to drip off" Lo giggled to which I stuck my tongue out and turned to the bathroom. A tub made of thin stone sat towards the back wall with a constructed pump next to it. I pressed down on the pump to fill the tub and waited for the water to come. When it did, I went to a cabinet and snatched a bottle with green liquid. I poured it into the tub like I did at the end of every week and removed my nightdress. I settled into the tub and took a deep breath. I could feel the green mixture hydrating and tinting my skin.
I dipped my head under and looked down at my body. I did this every time I took a bath to remind myself of who I was. Before I put on the skin of a stranger, I had a few moments to be who I thought I might be. The fact that I didn't know who that was instilled a curiosity in me. When I was little, I would look at myself and imagine the cool adventure my real parents were on and how they died in an intense battle to save a kingdom. Or how my parents were running from a catastrophic event outside of the mountain and I was the only one to survive. Now, I just look. I look in hopes that one day I'll leave and find who I am and who I belong to. I frequently wondered if there was anyone out there that was like me, or if I was the last one.
My head bobbed out of the water because of lack of oxygen. I pulled my hand out of the water and saw it turned from the color of silky dried mud to a velvety green like everyone else. I lathered my hair with a pink mixture to mimic the Thallia flower. The roots of my hair were beginning to turn back to its original silver color, one the most defining difference between myself and everyone else. Lo calls my hair precious, the pit of a liquid silver waterfall.
After dying my body and hair, I stood from the tub and saw that while I was under, Lo hung my nightgown on a root of the wall. It was a see-through material with flower petals cast over to help my skin and cover my decency. The Bloma were not modest, but they were respectful.
I walked out of the bathroom to once again see Papa working furiously on a dress for the annual Gathering Ball. I had lost count on how many he had completed. The ball was in two days when the sun set on the prime growing season where the four family's come together to acknowledge the contributions and sacrifices each trade has made. It's where engagements are revealed, accomplishments are brought to light, the past graduating class reveals their chosen trade, and where trades rest along with the year's sun. Beauty is of the utmost importance. It's all about paying tribute to the respective family and your own.
"Thallia, would you mind going out with me tomorrow? I must get more petals" I smiled at my Papa while walking to the stairs.
"Of course," I spoke kindly, hiding my distaste for collecting petals with Papa.
I walked up the stairs past Papa and Lo's floor and to my own. My room was not very full. In fact, to some it would be considered empty. The only furniture I had in my room was my bed and a desk. The ground was grassy to soften the tree and roots. My walls were covered in the Thallia flower. There was a canopy of material and Thallia flower above my bed. I liked the open room and the comfort of the color I've known since I was a baby.
I slowly walked to my bed and pulled the cover over my body to relax. My bed was made from treated soil and grass. My pillow was made from moss and a flower petal cover. I closed my eyes and envisioned what my parents looked like. I try to picture what the bed of flowers felt like when I was a baby lying in the open. The last image to flash through my mind before I slept, was the large tree that haunted my dream earlier. I needed to find it. If I found the tree, I might find myself.
Let me know what you think!
-JCross