I nodded absently, barely aware of the tiny fingers squeezing mine. One of his chubby hands pointed eagerly to a set of bright balloons as the other continued to tug for my attention. When he stilled, I knew the short smile I had given him looked as fake as it felt. I tried again, not wanting him to pick up on the thick sense of wrongness that clung to the air. When his little shoulders eased, I looked to the usual glaring lights and colorful decorations of the Founder’s Fair. They were all the same, scuffed and slightly tattered from the year before. Just moments ago a lively band had played from the back of the stage and children darted about, laughing and dancing as their excitement for the holiday grew. Yet somehow the Founder’s Fair seemed less festive than I remembered.
Even the sight of the vendor tents, once my favorite part of the festival, now left an unsettled feeling deep in the pits of my stomach. Volunteers moved in hushed tones as they prepared the grills and stoked the fires, their faces shadowed by flickering light, while Gwen’s voice echoed across the crowd. “-as the founders intended!” She paused, waiting for the crowd’s cheers to calm before continuing. “Without further ado, let’s call the first riders of the season up!”
I watched as her heels clicked across the stage, each step sharp and deliberate. Her vintage pencil skirt and matching jacket clung to her frame, a homage to our colony’s first holiday, back when the world still reeked, air thick with the fumes of the last world war. Her jacket rippled as she reached for the antique, rusted cage, spinning it slowly. The cage groaned, filled with small, brittle plastic balls, each yellowed and worn, stamped with a number whose ink was faded and barely visible.
If the museum was to be believed, they were a relic from a time before the war. They been used for a simple, useless game where those same numbers were called, for the elderly to scratch them off made up lists, their prize nothing more than worthless trinkets. I had rolled my eyes at that exhibit, the idea of having the luxury to be rewarded for nothing was ridiculous. It’s a miracle that those that survived the blasts were strong enough rebuild. Real work mattered, everyone here knew the aches and pains of a long day in the fields or worse—a night at the lab.
I glanced down at my newly bandaged arm, wincing at the fresh blood beginning to seep through the copper-colored cloth. Another stain that the doctors wouldn’t spend the time to scrub out before passing onto the next patient. I repressed the shudder that tried to work its way up my spine, my shift had ended at dawn. I could mark another day of Radiation Experiments behind me and take some peace in the fact that it would be months before I was scheduled again. I tried not to complain. It was work everyone took turns to do.
Well, almost everyone.
My eyes drifted back to the stage just as Gwen drew the second number. The first rider was already seated, his mother fumbling nervously with the buckle before lowering the lap bar.
“G 56,” Gwen called, glancing at her assistant, an older woman wearing a shabby knockoff of her own outfit.
“Thomas Serigan, sector four,” the assistant replied, her voice sounded flat, almost bored.
“Thomas Serigan,” Gwen repeated, her voice sticky with false warmth as it echoed over the crowd.
To my left, a woman led a small blonde boy forward. His face, confused at first, soon lit up with excitement as they neared the looming metal giant, its rusted frame painted over in bright, tacky hues. The towering contraption seemed to sag from the weight of hundreds of years of fairs. Countless patches and mends were not quite hidden under the newest coat of color, rust peeked out at its joints. Only the chains of the twenty hanging swings gleamed, as they were the only part that was painstakingly reworked each year.
The woman paused, tying a worn paddle ball to the lap restraint, her hands shaking slightly as she lifted the boy into the bright blue seat. The swing groaned softly a sound so familiar that I didn’t need to actually hear it over the crowd’s excited buzz.
I turned away as she kissed the top of his head. I couldn’t bear to watch. Instead, I focused on Gwen, her eyes gleaming as a new child began to move in the crowd—a girl who looked barely twelve.
The hollow clack of the balls rattled through the speakers, picked up by Gwen’s microphone. She turned another rider out, her own son sitting next to her assistant, bored in his knowledge that he doesn’t have a number to be pulled, just as he would never carry the jagged scars that represent the community’s struggles. Ones paid in sweat, blood, and chunks of flesh freely given in the name of the colony in coldly sterile research labs. No, his fate was different. One day, his burden would be the decisions that kept most of New Virginia’s massive population alive.
“I 19!”
My breath caught. I didn’t need to look down at the small hand still clasped in mine. I knew that the number he was assigned, the one that was scribbled hastily in pen by a distracted volunteer as we walked through the gates this morning, would be staring back at me.
I don’t remember the walk to the old carny ride, we were just suddenly there.
I pulled him past each swing he reached for, my heart pounding. Finally, I found the one I wanted: lucky number thirteen, painted yellow this year.
I didn’t hesitate or linger. I just lifted the lap bar and placed my son into the seat. The buckles clicked easily, the bar lowering with a soft snap. His favorite cloth bunny dangled from the side as I tied it in place, my fingers brushing against the stained and painted splattered strip of fabric my husband had tied there just a year ago, before his ride.
Then I walk away.
I didn’t look back. I ignored the frantic, confused cries from my little boy. Three years old was too young to understand, too young to find the excitement in sacrificing for the greater good.
I just…slipped through the crowd, my steps quick, my chest tight. I couldn’t stay to watch. The sight of his mangled body being dragged to the butcher’s tent would be too much. I had barely survived the taste of my husband’s perfectly seasoned flesh, and to endure the same with my darling Jimmy…
My stomach growled.
I pressed my hand to it, forcing the hunger away. Tomorrow, I would return to feast. I’d eat like I hadn’t eaten in weeks, smiling and thanking Gwen for balancing our population against our food stores, for ensuring we’d survive the winter.
Tonight, though, I just might let myself cry.
—
Naomi Sheely thrives somewhere in chaos and caffeine. This has led her to developing a slightly deranged imagination, a love for the written word, and a handful of short story publications. It has, somehow, also given her a steady and calm husband and two well-behaved dogs. Predictably, though, her three children are feral.