Another One-- Utopia City
Okay. So I wrote this a while ago, and I've been editing it A LOT. I don't know if it's good or bad, because honestly, I started out with this and just kept writing and writing to no end until I thought I had the entire story out. And then I read it over and thought about the plot.
(link: http://thewritingdatabase.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/utopia-city-v3.pdf)
Utopia City
Her breath was shallow. In. Out. Deep breath. She tried to catch her breath.
But there was somebody behind her, she could feel it, she swore there was somebody behind her, she could just feel that prickly sensation of eyes on her back, those laser-like eyes of her master—
Keep running.
Keep running.
She found the gates. They were big. There were lots of people. They were all crowding around the big, fat, unfolded gate. Thousands of people. She pushed through. Sorry! Excuse me! I’m sorry! She ran. Run. Run.
Deep breath out.
Don’t look back.
Just keep going.
She ran. And ran.
Don’t think about it. Just run.
She ran until she thought there was nowhere left to run. She ran until her breath ran out, until the people at the sidewalks began to move aside to let her run, until she thought her chest would rip apart—
Why was she running?
She stopped.
She’s safe now.
She’s in the land that everybody dreams of. The capital of the country, the land of hope, the soil of freedom, where every dream’s heart resided, where every beating minute of every toiling life yearned ever so desperately to live. She was there. Here. She didn’t need to run. Not in this haven.
She looked around, at the picturesque peacefulness slapped onto the walls of every house, every human, every single monument and object that she could lay her eyes on. Each house had a friendly echo and each person had a welcoming smile drawn onto their face. The warmth was contagious. She kind of felt like smiling in return—
Yet she felt utterly bitter. And selfish. She wanted to take a bucketful of this city and hand it out to each and every person outside of those fat, well-fed gates.
She was now in Utopia City. This was where accidents were extinct, where happiness thrived, and where negativity was nonexistent. She didn’t need to worry. Or run. How could she be arrested here? There was no murder, there was no crime. There was cooperation, there was prosperity. Progress. Improvement. She didn’t need to run. She was in Utopia City. It was okay. She would be fine. Deep breath in. Let that sweet freedom congest your lungs.
She finally smiled. She couldn’t believe it. This was her dream. Her mother’s dream. Her sister’s dream. Her brother’s dream. Anybody outside of the city’s dream. And she was here. In that dream. Her smile scraped the corners of her ears.
She would live here, now. She would start a new life, and find a job, a home, and live in the protected haven of Utopia City. Of course, later on, she would leave to find her friends and family, and bring them back. One at a time. But first, she would cherish her luck and stay low. Stay safe. Settle in. Understand the ins and outs of the city. Then, she would start handing out spoonfuls of Utopia.
How could she have known that she, of the one hundred thousand in her home city, would be the one to land in Utopia City? She wasn’t well educated, like they said you needed to be. She wasn’t exceedingly talented. She had just sneaked in. Somehow. She had just sort of… cheated. She’d just sort of barged in after running away, running away for miles and miles. Did she deserve to be here? The ‘one out of a thousand’ that her teacher always taught them of? Did she really fill that glorious title?
But now that she was in, she knew all the fear, all the suffering, and the running—it was all worth it. She looked around at the beautiful scenery—the lush fields of grass alongside the elaborate technology lining the beautiful architecture, the smiling, friendly people strolling in the streets—and she suddenly felt a pang of guilt. And shame.
Utopia City belonged to everybody, she felt. Not just her. Not just these people. To her siblings, her mother. Her neighbors. The children in the streets back at home, their skin attached to their bones, their cheekbones and ribcages screaming for food. To everybody.
She closed her eyes. She breathed the air. The sweet, prosperous, paper-smooth air.
And she coughed. It was a cough that came from the very pit of her existence, like it tickled the bottom of her stomach and shot right up and fled through her mouth.
She was sitting in a little lunch bar, no money on her at all. She stared at the huge menu that gave her a countless number of options to decorate her sandwich. She looked curiously at somebody throwing out scraps of their untouched food.
She coughed again.
She looked up, for the first time, taking a good look at a Utopian. It was a male, sitting, with a relaxed and happy face, a face that never knew fear, a face that never understood pain, a face that was swelling with sweet happiness. A calm, content face. A face that had never suffered.
She coughed again, louder, this time. Her chest hurt.
The man looked up from his newspaper. He was sitting at a table across from her. He looked at her, and an expression—anger? Annoyance? Frustration? Fear?—flitted across his face. It was like a reflection, like something that you could see if you tilted it in just the right angle in just the right amount of light. But it had folded back into a smile before she had gotten a chance to identify it.
She stood up to leave. Something was a little eerie about the man’s expression after she saw the little ripple of emotion.
But it was Utopia City. There was nothing wrong here. They kept everybody safe and happy. They would keep her happy, too.
She was walking in the streets, with her old backpack. She needed a home. She needed shelter. The streets of Utopia City was good enough a haven. It was crime, disease, and discomfort-free. But for some reason, she felt... undignified, and—undesired if she dared sleep in the streets. Sure, the streets were as safe as the home, they were as warm, and as comfortable, but the mere thought of sleeping in the streets made her feel—barbaric. Uncivilized. The words came to her quicker than she could have conjured them herself. As if they were slipped into her mind.
She walked into a neighborhood and saw little kids playing in the yard. They seemed to be negotiating over a soccer ball. She smiled. One of them seemed old enough to work. He was lucky to be living in Utopia City.
But as she passed them, she saw the little glint again. It was faint, but it was still there. And it bothered her. A little rustle of emotion—anger? Pleading? Sad?—on their faces that disappeared as quickly as it had flickered by. The nearly invisible moment poked at her like a needle.
She had been there for a week now. She was working at a coffee shop. The owner was kind and accepting—an old woman who knew the city inside out. It was where they sold coffee, a sweet yet bitter drink that she immediately fell in love with the moment she took a shy sip. It kept her awake and alive, despite her lack of sleep, her nightmares—which she had noticed, were fading away. They weren’t as bad as they were when she used to live outside.
Outside—did she really think the word outside? Her sense of home was beginning to shift. She was becoming a Utopian. Soon, she would find her family and bring them, as well.
She poured the freshly brewed mix into a pastel green mug for a customer. He was a kind young man, and he gave generous tips.
She was thinking dreamily about the way he smiled and lifted his hat as a greeting every day when suddenly, her hand slipped ever so slightly. The cup responded violently, however. It dropped on her apron, splashing and attaching its hue and scorching heat to her clothes, beading up on the edge of the table, dripping onto the floor in a mocking way—drip! drip! drip!
Suddenly, she felt a surge of emotion rip through her. She wanted to shout out in pain and clear out the mess with anger. But she felt something. At the back of her mind. She suddenly realized that all her life, she had been living uncontrolled. Uncivilized. Unmannered. Undignified. A true, mannerful person would calmly wipe away the mess, change her apron, and pour a new cup. So that was what she did. She felt a sigh unfold.
Thank goodness she came to Utopia City.
Otherwise, she would have lived her life as a barbaric commoner.
It was only later, as she was giving her kind, handsome customer his coffee with a smiling apology that she realized what had happened. She wasn’t the same as before. She had changed.
She was beginning to become a Utopian.
A true Utopian. As she saw the familiar flicker quickly accompanied by a smile and a reassuring comment made by her customer, she realized that this was the way every Utopian lived.
They lived controlled. Dignified. In a utopia.
At the back of her mind, she felt a wheezing cough coming up. She felt it tickle her lungs and her heart. She wanted to cough. She held it in.
Days passed, weeks ended. Ellen was becoming more and more accustomed to the peaceful life of a Utopian. She was enjoying it. She was smiling. She was happy. For the first time. She finally understood what true happiness was.
She was lying in bed one day, during the two hour lunch break, sitting in the spare room that the coffee shop had. It had been about six weeks or so since she first crashed through the gates. She was taller now. Well fed. She had gained much weight—her shop owner had told her just this morning, “Dear! You’re so beautiful! You look so healthy now!”—and she was finally getting enough money to start finding a new abode instead of living in the coffee house. As much as she loved it there, she didn’t feel too civilized living next to coffee brewing machines and hazelnut beans.
Facing the ceiling, her back on the bed, she tucked her arms under her pillow. Her mind wandered to the pressing responsibility of bringing her family to Utopia City. After all, she had settled in, now, feeling more comfortable and at home. She was much more mannered and dignified and learned.
At first, she constantly felt like she needed to bring her family quickly, that they were waiting for her, they were depending on her, they were worrying about her.
But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that it was impossible. She couldn’t just leave Utopia city. Abandonment was a trait of the doomed. It was a trait for nomadic barbarians. Not for Utopians. But still... she didn’t want her family to live life so uncivilized—it was almost an embarrassment to think that her mother would be at home, scolding and hitting her younger sister for silly mistakes.
But still.
Ellen soon realized that she would have to bring not only her mother and her sister, but her brother, her aunt, her uncle, and her cousins, as well. How could she selfishly bring just her mother and her siblings? What about her aunt, whom she had been so close to? And what about her friends? She had planned the runaway with them—though in the end only she was brave enough to go.
The plan was getting bigger and bigger—more and more impossible. She couldn’t just bring a bunch of uncivilized people into Utopia City. She shook her head. She couldn’t believe that she was so clueless when she had first entered the city.
Besides.
They were living fine, back at home. They weren’t as bad off as the starving little children in the streets. And it wasn’t like she could bring them, because there were too many starving children in the country.
Suddenly, it hit her. How could she not have known?
Utopia City wasn’t a right.
It was a prize.
It was something you had to chase.
Utopia City wasn’t some flimsy award that you could hand out.
You couldn’t have it given to you.
You couldn’t ask people to lend it to you.
You had to work for it.
She couldn’t just run and bring her family and—rescue them.
They had to work for it. Like she had. In the woods. Starving. Hunting. Running. Screaming. Rushing. And finally, arriving. She was the rightful one out of a hundred thousand. You didn’t just have to be smart. She had been strong. She had been brave. And you needed to deserve Utopia City to get there. She realized that she deserved Utopia City as much as the next door Pizza shop owner. The guilt and confusion that she had been feeling for so long, that had crumpled her heart into an uncomfortable ball—disappeared. She let out a sigh of relief. She deserved this place. She wasn’t undesired. She didn’t need to worry about being caught.
She stood up and looked in the mirror. It was small, but it was big enough against the wall so that she could see her face. She touched her face, looking at her reflection do the same.
Her finger froze.
Something felt.
Different.
She ran a finger down her cheek and found that her skin was smoother now. Much smoother. She could no longer feel the rough bumps of wild pimples strewn across her face. But it wasn’t the smoothness of skin.
It was the smoothness of...
Paper?
She looked in the mirror, her nose pressed against the glass. She examined her skin. She turned left, peering through the corner of her eye to see her side view. She turned her face to the right, to do the same. She fingered the outline of her face, where her skin and her hair met. Her finger paused right next to her right ear. She felt a little flap of skin. She peeled it off, a bad habit returning from when she used to live outside.
It didn’t stop peeling.
She kept pulling, until she realized that she had peeled off a fourth of her face and suddenly oh god oh god it hurts oh my god please what is this pain I’m going to die and she instantly let go of her skin, which plastered itself back onto her face.
She looked in the mirror, blinking the tears away. She looked perfectly normal. She felt no aftershock of the pain. She looked in the mirror, and as curiosity got the better of her, she tried again. She fingered the paper-like, rough, yet smooth skin that covered her face.
Even though she had scrunched up her stomach to anticipate the pain, nothing could have softened the blow. She was hit with a pain that was not just physically excruciating. It shook her from the very bottom. She felt the scraping of the branches as she had run through the woods—the frantic, unstable fear that buzzed around her every minute she was outside of her home. She felt the crack of the whip when her master had punished her, her voice crying out in pain, her back opening up to let the blood rush out of her. She hear the crying of her sister as she was being thrown into the punishment room when she had refused to drink the long expired milk. She heard her brother crying out in pain as the master’s son beat him up. She heard her mother’s voice—Honey, honey. Don’t worry. We can sit. We can talk. Please don’t leave us. She felt the pain stab her heart and the sorrow tighten its wisps of fingers around her throat. She felt anger, sorrow, pain, suffering, frustration, confusion, fury—
She coughed. She let out a deep breath.
She looked in the mirror.
Her hands were frozen in front of her. Her skin was back on her face.
Her face.
It looked happy. It looked content. It looked like a Utopian.
What had happened?
Her memory was hazed. She felt like a little mouse was tugging at the corner of her memory, shyly trying to unveil what had happened in her mind a few seconds ago.
She felt a little uncomfortable. But she couldn’t exactly remember why she was in front of the mirror.
She didn’t really want to know, though.
For the rest of the day, she stood at the counter of the shop, helping the other Utopians, keeping her face composed and her emotions under control.
And as you passed by the shop, you couldn’t have been able to tell who was Ellen and who was a Utopian, because they were different, yes, but they were also all the same.