I will be releasing a chapter from this book when they are ready, so be checking back to read more …
Chapter 1: Questions of Wonder
Wonder was all around them.
Aline had always felt Wonder, a closeness to it as if it were just below the surface. Wonder was like a stream that she could reach out to and feel like cold water flowing over and around her hands. It was like the sun on her face, warming her with its rays. Like light itself it was unseen but by it she could see.
Sometimes Aline felt it in the form of a shiver, kind of like a feeling of being cold it rippled through her body. She could not predict when it would do so. She wondered if others felt the same way but no one talked about it and so she began to realise even as a young child that she was unusual in this.
Aline had always been a curious child and although the curiosity never stopped, she had learnt to hide it well. Back when she was very young she would curl her fingers in her long dark hair and ask the same questions others had at her young age.
The Olders encouraged those whom they called the Infancy in this. They would then laugh at the Infancy with their stumbling words and many questions. It was a way to stop them asking more. Some of the most usual questions were:
“Why is the sky blue?”
“Where does rain go?”
“How many production units are we out by this month?”
Just the usual questions, from young inquisitive minds. The answers were always the same.
“It’s not, it’s grey.”
“Collected by funnel tunnel for centralised use.”
“Too many.”
They snicked as they answered, amused by the Infancy and their lack of understanding of the way things really were. The Infancy did not watch the daily broadcasts at 9am, 1pm and 6pm on the Screens that mounted a wall in each house. school and workplace. They had no interest in the Units and Production status. As they grew older they would come to realise that Production Units were an important measure of the wealth. This concern only started from about age 5.
The Olders would actually look on this stage with dislike as perhaps it reminded them of themselves when they were young, but The Infancy was just a phase – one to be ridiculed and mocked so that as the Infancy grew older, they would have no desire to return to it. The Olders issued devices to the Infancy once they turned five, plagued with games to be played. The screens enticed young eyes to them like flies attracted to something rotting in the sun.
There were rumours of a change from the Ministry of Primary Productions that might see any questions discouraged, perhaps even forbidden, from The Infancy. No-one really knew though, there were always such changes being rumoured.
Aline lived in the Land of Zee, it was all she had known. She also knew somehow that it had not always been this way. There were hints here and there, like a veil trying to hide away what once was. But these things can never be hidden forever. Like the sun rising after the darkest night, she felt in her heart that there may be a glimmer of hope on the horizon.
Just three birthdays were celebrated in the Land of Zee and a portion of some units were even allowed for a special dinner with your family on those days.
The first was on turning 5. The second was on turning 13 and the third on turning 18.
Like all other 18-year-olds, when she would turn 18, Aline would leave the Educationools to start working, adding to Production – after all, “the units will not increase themselves!”. A common expression which reverberated in the streets to anyone found dawdling.
By 18, Aline would have a sound education in what was important. Mathematics. Statistics. Economics. Calculus. Some science, but not too much. Language only in relation to what was needed to communicate about Production and units. Excursions out of her own city were unheard of. Descriptions of the wider world were never discussed and Aline was left to wonder if she shared the same air with others in faraway places.
Aline had heard of a past where things were different, an echo of another time where topics like Art, Languages and History were studied. The “Arts” were not discussed and no longer appreciated. She yearned for such subjects but edicts from the Ministry of Primary Productions had long since discouraged and then eliminated those.
Aline still remembered turning 5, for it was on that day that she first went to school. The questions from children generally stopped within a few weeks, sometimes months. There were too many facts about Production to be memorised and learned. Little time was available for activities like playing outside, staring at clouds, reading paper books or walking in misty rain.
Aline still had questions bubbling away in her mind, but she had learned not to ask them out loud in fear of her Mother being called in to talk to the instructor, which her Mother was clearly embarrassed about.
“I’m so sorry”
“I’ll talk to her”
“It won’t happen again”
These were the usual phrases Aline heard sitting outside in the grey hallway while her Mother sat inside the office.
She felt the disapproving glances from her parents as they ate their food packets after the summoning of her instructors. Aline did not like any of the instructors. They forced the Youngers to memorise figures and assessed their ability to memorise with standardised tests. She knew the instructors were probably selected to teach because they had stopped asking questions the moment they turned 5.
The questions rose up within her much like the feeling of Wonder that would overtake her from time to time. The questions often sparked by something outside, like watching the last rays of sun, standing in the rain or hearing unexpected bird song. Such things opened up a sense of something else, filling up an empty hole somewhere near her heart. The feeling coursed through her and made her fingers tingle.
She wasn’t sure what it was, but by having this close feeling of Wonder, her senses seemed to improve. She felt like she could overhear others in the class when they whispered about her and looked her way.
Aline and her Mother walked home in silence after another incident with one of her instructors. Aline observed the grey concrete houses with paved front yards. She wondered if the soil underneath felt trapped. Was it dark and cold under there? Did the soil miss the sun’s warmth? How would the soil feel in between her fingers. The questions filled the silent void left between her and her Mother. Silence was her Mother’s way of showing displeasure, though it was also how she seemed to approve of things as well. Once they got home, the silence dragged on. Her Mother had nothing further to discuss.
Aline treaded up the stairs to her room on the second floor. It was just the three of them. Her, Father and Mother. She had no other siblings to play with and few friends. There were no toys in her room, just a measuring clock for time which also showed unit production for that day both by region and nationally. The most important unit of Production, which indicated the overall health of the country, was indicated with the acronym GDP in large grey letters. The numbers constantly increased, never stopping.
The walls of her room were grey except for the corner of her room where the wallpaper had peeled. Aline pressed the wallpaper down every morning before school hiding the hint of yellow which peeked through underneath. She was afraid that if anyone saw the vibrant colour, that they would glue the wallpaper down permanently. At night, Aline pulled the grey wallpaper back. It had become a comfort to her, something colourful in the monotones of life.
The springs in her bed creaked as she pulled the covers over her frame. Aline’s thoughts shifted to tomorrow. It would be her 13th birthday. Her reflection in the bedside window which she gazed out of sharpened as she surveyed her features. Her dark brown eyes stared back at her. Her uniquely strong shaped nose, which set her apart from the other Youngers in her class, scrunched as she sniffled.
Her chest hurt when she thought of her dark-haired Father. She rarely saw him, he was always busy in one of the Production factories as a leading supervisor. She wished she had his green eyes. Maybe then, she would somewhat resemble him and maybe he would then show some interest in her. Her Mother with curly hair and the same brown eyes that she saw too much of (in her view) also worked at another factory on Production.
A sense of dread flooded her. She was due to have her Glass Instruments put on tomorrow. She had grown up her whole life knowing this day was coming but still felt a sense of trepidation that her parent’s assurances could not dispel. They wore their glasses with some pride, and she did not know what they looked like without them even. The thick glass of the instruments made her parent’s eyes bigger and somewhat distorted, as if the lenses were twisting true appearances. The frames differed slightly in shape, but all were black coloured and had the same distinctive lights on the side which sometimes flashed showing that they needed charging.
The sense of dread came from a feeling that the Glass instruments were more than just an accessory. Aline felt like they were draining energy from the adults… No, not energy. It was curiosity, it was Wonder.
Aline surveyed the night sky above through the window that sheltered her from the night’s cool touch. Stars were scattered and splashed across in different patterns. She had asked about the stars once and their patterns and been told it did not matter. That was the answer to most of the questions that might relate to Wonder.
She looked up at the pattern of stars and felt her eyes closing, slipping into a dream of a bird with a long curved beak at her window.