Fan Fiction

Sat, 12 May 2012 20:55:43 -0700

Two incredibly gripping fan fiction pieces this week. We are staggered by the level of detail. Congrats all around and thanks to Hannah for the title image.

***
“When Faith Lost Her Name” by Alyssa:

BEFORE:
I know who I am. What I am. What I am meant to do. I've known that I was conceived to be tithed. I've known forever. I've known God and I've known family. I've known everything. And yet I know nothing.
Why is it that after years of preparation and months of concentrated prayers and after my baptism, reconciliation, and first communion, I will never be close enough to God? It's because I was supposed to be confirmed at age sixteen. I won't be there, whole and unbroken, to conclude my initiation into the Church.
I know He has told me that all children should come to him innocent and pure. I know that being unwound is a great honor. I know that being a tithe is wonderful. Fantastic, even.
Then why do I feel like I am about to implode?
I glance at the clock and set my mind straight at the same time that I smooth out my white gown. It feels as if I'm an angel about to enter the gates of heaven.
The outfit for girls' transition into the divided state is always the same. Shimmery, lacy, floor-length gowns, soft and perfect, white pearls strung around their necks, gauzy veils shadowing their eyes. Eyes that would soon be someone else's.
We proceed down the red carpet as if we were brides.
I had set my appointment weeks ago.
I thought I was ready.
I thought wrong.
"One more hour, please," I say to the guard, ashamed by the gentle tremor that creeps, unbidden, into my words. "I'll be ready in an hour."
He shakes his head. "No, Faith. We have another unwinding scheduled later this afternoon. It must be done now."
My heart- soon it will no longer be my heart- flutters in my chest like a baby bird. "Please," I say. "Please." My voice- it will belong to another, someone I don't know- shakes, fades, trembles, like a tiny faun, just born. "Please."
"Faith. No."
I stand slowly, blinking away tears that should not have risen. It is my sole duty, my only purpose in life, to touch hundreds of people, to donate myself to the saving of others. Why, why, why now am I scared that it isn't what God wanted of me?
I follow him, shaking. The others, the other tithes, they smile at me, wave, clasp their hands together in prayer. My chest- Lord, it won't be my chest soon- clenches tightly, and I feel as though I will be sick. "May I stop for a moment to say goodbye?" My adolescent vocal chords crack on the last word. "May I?"
The guard shakes his head. "We've wasted enough time as it is."
I nod. I can feel my fingernails carving half-moons into the skin of my palms. I wonder if the people who get my hands will realize how adept at origami and painting these hands are. I wonder if they'll care that the hair they have implanted on their heads was my pride and joy. I wonder if the people who will take my brain will know me, know my deepest thoughts and feelings and memories. I wonder if the person receiving my arms will wonder about the scar I have along my elbows, the thin scrape, no longer quite visible, but there, I received from a bad run-in involving a tree and a bike. I wonder if the person who does, quite literally, take my virginity, will wonder which little girl had grown up with that as a part of her.
I wonder so many things on my way up that red flagstone path that I don't notice until I'm ascending the stairs that a band is playing music. It's beautiful, really, and I glance up and smile pitifully at them. They don't bother to even look my way as I enter.
The door closes behind me. I close my eyes as the music cuts off. Soundproof. Protection from the outside world. Keeping a place pure.
Or perhaps it's to cover the screams of terror.
DURING:
I step into the room where I will be unwound, now in a plain, paper robe. White, of course.
As I settle myself onto the harsh metal table, a nurse comes in, a smile in her face that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Welcome, Faith. Are you ready to be unwound?"
"No," I whisper, trembling like a leaf in the wind.
"What was that, dear?" asks the nurse, checking her clipboard.
I clear my throat. "Yes. I am."
"Very good."
She calls in surgeons, who roll in little tables covered in knives and scalpels and tubes and syringes and bags that I know are meant for my blood.
My breathing gets heavier as one doctor injects me with something on both sides of my neck. The sting reminds me of a yellow jacket's. I wince, visibly. "What- what was that?"
"Oh, nothing, dear, it'll prevent you from feeling any pain during the process." Her words are mechanical, clipped. She's said all of this a million times before.
I nod and wait for my eyes to slide close and for me to slip into God's hands, blissful oblivion my only companion. My limbs are beginning to tingle.
Yet they don't close. "Why aren't I falling asleep?" I demand. I see doctors whipping out their thin medical instruments, testing the sharpness of the blades. Did it not work? Were they going to slice me apart without letting me drift into unconsciousness, letting me feel every blade in my skin?
The nurse's smile doesn't move an inch. "You aren't supposed to fall asleep, sweetheart. You get to learn exactly what's happening, although you won't be able to feel a thing. You have a legal right to know what they're doing to your body. Isn't it exciting?"
No. It isn't. They're forcing children to be witness to their own demise. I avoid the question and counter with my own. "Will there be lots of blood?" It comes out in a whimper.
"Oh, no. You see, Faith, they're draining it right now. It's being replaced, of course, top of the line stuff. Nutrient and oxygen rich fluids. It'll keep you alive until the very end."
I nod. "What am I supposed to do for three hours?" I ask, pretending I can't feel an odd tugging sensation in my ankles, pretending I don't see the bags of blood now up on the wall, on the same rack as the others labeled A positive.
"Well, speak to me, of course," she responds perkily, although her tone has remained indifferent. "Tell me about yourself."
I refuse to begin with the line I know she's expecting. The line that runs a bit like 'I hate you. I hate my parents. I hate the doctors.'
Instead, I start by telling her of things I love. I tell her of my favorite foods, my pets, my siblings. But somehow I am drawn to speaking about him. Caleb. After all, if these are going to be my last words when my mouth and brain are attached to each other, I'd want to remember the best things.
"And there's a boy I've known forever, even though tithes aren't supposed to get connected and build relationships because it only ends in a messy unwinding. His name is Caleb." I want to start crying. "I- he's my best friend. My twin brother of sorts. He told me he loved me. And I- well, I told him I loved him back. And I do. With everything that I am. " I sniffle slightly and close my eyes. "He didn't know I'm a tithe. He didn't know because I never wore my whites around him and at school. It was a sin, and I'm sorry. So sorry. "
"Mm hmm," the nurse says. But this time her voice isn't just flat. It's got something tinged it it. Not quite emotions, but pretty darn close.
I can't feel anything, but I can see the doctors wheeling away my legs on a section of the table that they're removing. I know bile is supposed to rise in my throat. It doesn't. I feel completely numb. At one with God from my confession, perhaps? But no, it's just that I've seen too many others of my parts, the threads that complete the fabric of me, unwound from my body and sent to be twined into another. It doesn't seem to matter now.
"I wasn't storked." I start in on the bad stuff now. A 'spiritual cleansing ritual,' just as the priest had advised me. "My parents wanted a tithe. They wanted to go to heaven by sacrificing something." The venom and bitterness in my own voice surprises me. "They sacrificed me. And so here I am, their sacrifice to go to heaven. Such a funny thing, they send someone to die in order to redeem themselves. But it's in the Bible. Abraham was going to sacrifice his own son. But God saved him, didn't he? Why isn't the Lord saving me too?"
The nurse nods. "You'll have to stop talking in a few minutes, sweetheart." Her voice has returned to her usual numb state. "You may experience I slight stinging pain in your chest."
"I grew up worshipped like an angel that had come down to Earth. My tithing party was huge. Everyone came. Except Caleb. I didn't want him to see me like this. About to die, I mean," I say. "And now I realize how much I loathe my parents, how much I hate the priest. How much I hate doctors and nurses."
"Perfectly natural. Keep still, they're removing your heart. Now shush, you won't be able to speak in a matter of moments."
I watch my neck get placed on the same section of the metal rolling table as the rest of my spine and my arms. My lungs and heart are placed on another. I shudder. The heart is still beating. It means, no matter how twisted it may seem, I'm technically still alive. My lungs, I still consider them mine, although they aren't attached to me anymore, are still breathing raggedly, and all three organs look as though they've been dipped in translucent, fluorescent green antifreeze.
I am now a disembodied human head, still alive, still conscious. I know that soon I'll be ripped into neat little puzzle pieces. I want to scream, but I can't. My vocal chords were wheeled away with my neck.
Somehow I'm sure that God didn't have this in mind for tithes and unwinds. Somehow I realize how terrible it is for them to leave victims alive as they removed body parts and chatted conversationally with the person they were slicing to threads.
"A miracle of human technology," the nurse says admiringly, watching as more dismembered pieces of who I am slip through the door. "Now, we're in the final stages, Faith! How exciting!" Her voice is perky and unreal, as if she's back in high school biology class and is poking the remains of a dead frog. "Blink twice if you hear me."
I blink obediently, and see out of the corner of my eyes, a thin metal instrument working around my jaw.
"You may feel a slight tingling sensation in your jaw. It's perfectly natural, Faith, honey. You're doing great! You're so brave, darling."
The next thing I see is my jawbone passing over my head and landing on a tray with a clatter of bone on metal. I want to wince, but I haven't got the mouth for it anymore.
"I'm afraid you'll have to stop blinking now. Relax and it'll seem less real. They're removing your eyes now, Faith, and such a pretty green they are, too." I can practically see her beaming, whispering for dibs on my parts.
They don't even speak to me anymore, not after they take my sight, and I can hear them talking meaninglessly about the next unwinding ceremony, the next kid they want on the chopping block, the copious amount of A positive they have, the occasional mention of sports.
Soon I can only hear the doctors on my left side. Then I can't hear at all.
But I think, therefore I am.
I can feel an odd breeze on the inside of my skull. A weight is being removed from it.
My bike accident flashes in my mind, the way my storked older brother, Jason, helped me up and dusted off my whites, smiling. Peter was standing behind him with his arms crossed, clucking his tongue. "When will you learn, silly Unwind?"
"Unwinds are dirty. I'm not one of them, Peter. I'm a tithe. I'm-"
"Special," Jason cuts in. "I know you are. Now let's get that super special A positive cleaned up, alright?"
A hand on my elbow. The scarred elbow that isn't attached to me anymore.
I think...therefore I...therefore I what?
Another section of my head feels lighter.
My eighth grade graduation ceremony. My diploma, the parchment so crisp, to be framed right next to the Unwind papers and my grad picture.
My parents are smiling as they show me the papers in a neat row on the mantle, the nicest frame on the one I knew all about since day one.
I think...therefore...I exist?
My skull feels unnaturally empty.
Caleb. The way he'd smile at me and nuzzle his head in the crook of my neck, mussing his already unruly curls.
I...I think...
My head feels light as air.
Bits and pieces.
Jacob hugging me and crying at my tithing party...
Mom and Dad kissing me goodbye as I board the bus...
My cat, unaware I'm not coming back home as she purrs gently, licking my hand...
Peter dancing with me after nobody else would on the night of my homecoming...
Caleb kissing me full on the lips for an eternity that feels altogether too short, confusion rippling through my mind...
I...I have faith in the Lord...
Faith...isn't that my name?
No...
No...
I...think...
I...
...
AFTER:
***

“Nothing Really Matters” by Paige:

It’s time:

“Are you Paige Foreman?” a nurse asks my name even though she knows exactly who I am. However, questions need an answer so I tell her.
“Yes,” I say succinctly. I look at her sunshine yellow scrubs and wish they were a medical green or maroon like blood. Why turn such a happy color into something so dark and foreboding? The nurse grabs my wrist and goosebumps spread up my arm as a reaction to her cold touch. That and maybe the fear of knowing that it’s my time.
“It’s time to go,” she tells me firmly. I don’t protest or ask for more time because I know it will be useless. I desperately want more time and I suppose that’s all we ever want is more time. That’s what people wanted even before the Heartland War. Instead I stand tall and glance back at my fellow “terribles.” My mind screams at them to do something, anything, but they don’t. Most just go on with their business and some look at me pitifully.
“Then let’s go,” I reply to the nurse. We twist through the brightly colored walls of Happy Jack Harvest Camp and she’s still tugging on my wrist. “Let go,” I command and she releases me.

The Blood-Red Carpet:

I am led to a blood-red carpet and I silently cheer for the one thing that actually matches with the unsung theme that hangs in the air of Happy Jack. You are here to be unwound, a voice whispers in these halls. No amount of sunshine yellow and Hawaiian shirts can change that lingering message. The nurse is replaced with two guards, one on each side of me. The band plays from the roof and the music drifts down to the place of the red carpet. I call it the track of the damned and that’s what I am. I am damned.
“Time to go kid,” one guard says. They both grab on to a shoulder each and I hear the annoying pop of gum.
“Spit that gum out,” I demand of him. “And let go of me.”
“Why should I?” the man asks. I hate people like him.
“Hey,” I say. “It’s my funeral today and I’m running it. Got it?” Both men stare at me like I’m insane, but they do as I ask. The gum is spit out and they let go of my shoulders. I stand up straight and walk down that blood-red carpet like the good little unwind I am. I may be damned, but I’m going to march off to my death with dignity.

3 Minutes:

I’m on a table with a nurse sitting by my side and two surgeons in sunshine-yellow scrubs. My heart is racing and sweat beads on my forehead.
“You’ll be alright,” the nurse reassures me. I look at her and say nothing. I won’t be alright. By the end of the operation, I’ll no longer be whole and humans are meant to be whole. Otherwise what are we? Some kind of morbid puzzle that can’t be put together again? It didn’t work with Humphry Dumfee. Like a wise fictional man named Hamlet said: that is the question. Hamlet didn’t know at the time and why can’t the people who wrote the Bill of Life just admit they don’t know? Nothing really matters though, I’m still being unwound and no one will come save me. I feel a prick in my arm.
“What was that?” I ask the nurse.
“The only pain you’ll feel the entire time you’re here,” the nurse answers. I wait for the feeling of extreme fatigue. I’ve been in a surgery before and they told me to count backwards from ten. I made it to seven last time. Ten…nine…eight…seven…six…I count, but nothing happens. I don’t feel tired at all.
“Why am I not falling asleep?” I inquire.
“By law, we are required to keep you awake the entire time,” the nurse informs me. I feel myself turn pale. Shivers go down my spine.
“My god. I have to watch myself be unwound? I hate this!”
“That’s understandable, but you do not have to watch. I will be here if you want to talk.” Oh yeah, I think sarcastically in my head. I’m going to be completely comfortable talking to the enemy while I’m being sliced like a turkey.
I surprise myself though. “Hmm…What shall we talk about first?”

30 Minutes:

“They are starting on your feet now,” the nurse states after my blood is drained.
“It’s a shame,” I reply. “I’ve always liked my toes and feet. My toes and feet are very important to me you know.”
“How so?” the nurse asks.
“I have a muscle disorder and the doctors said someday, I may not be able to walk. I was heartbroken when they said that so I made every single step count. I cherished the feel of grass on bare feet, the beautiful pain of running,” I tell her. “Now my feet are being taken away from me. I’ll never be able to cherish my feet anymore. I’ll never see the day when I can’t get out of bed in the morning.” The nurse nods and looks at me with this curious look in her eyes. Fascination? Pity, maybe? It doesn’t really matter though. Nothing really matters anymore. Not even my feet. Still, I continue to talk to the mousy-looking nurse.

1 Hour:

“You know, I really don’t think any of you are bad people,” I say when they get to my genital area. The nurse looks surprised. “Maybe you believe in unwinding, maybe you don’t, but you all are just normal, hardworking people that are trying to get through life just like anybody else. I just hate what you do. I hate that your jobs involve ending lives that will never even get to become good, hardworking people like yourselves.”
“Interesting,” the nurse says and nods her head. The busy surgeons stop slicing me up for a second to consider what was said before going back to their jobs.
“Guess what got me unwound,” I tell the nurse. “What do you think got Paige Foreman unwound?”
“You think differently compared to the rest of us?” she guesses.
“I suppose that could be part of the reason, but not exactly. My parents sent me because I was too stubborn for them.”
“Really? I think that’s horrible,” the nurse sympathizes with me. Her voice is void of emotion or expression. Nothing really matters to her either.
“They called my stubbornness my inner donkey,” I chuckle. “But they said I went too far with it. I insisted on believing that there is no god, but they insisted on believing there is a god. They said I refused to see reason, that I had no faith. So I was sent off because I am who I am. I am Paige Foreman and not the person this twisted world wants me to be.”
“I see,” the nurse says, looking at me curiously again. I think back to what I just said. It doesn’t really matter who I am in this room though. Nothing really matters when you’re dying.

1 Hour and 15 Minutes:

“I’ve always thought that your heart had nothing to do with love,” I say randomly. “I always thought that it was just a huge metaphor or maybe something bigger.”
“That’s an interesting thought,” the nurse replies, looking pensive. “What do you mean by something ‘bigger?’”
“The soul maybe? I have no idea. God doesn’t really exist for me so my belief in the possibility of the soul is a little contradicting. All I know is that I love Eric and he’s the only boy I’ve ever really loved.” The nurse smirks.
“Who’s Eric?”
“A childhood friend. However, we were never really close growing up. After growing apart we met again at an Academic Bowl tournament and I just slowly fell in love with him. He’s amazing and his parents love him so he’ll never be unwound.”
“What’s he like?”
I smile at the memory of Eric. “He’s very outgoing and easy to talk with. He wants to meet every, single person so it’s hard to get him alone, but once you do, you have the most amazing conversations. They’re deep, thoughtful, and it’s like no one else exists, but the two of us when I talk to him. However, he hates every single person in the world except for me, he says. As you can see, he’s a very negative person, but I still love him for who he is. I just wish he loved me the same way. I doubt he even knows that I’m being unwound.”
“That’s so sad,” the nurse expresses and this time I can detect something other than indifference in her voice. Something matters now.
“That’s another thing I have against unwinding. It takes away my chance to love, the possibility of a future with him,” I share. “Will you tell me when I have no heart?” I ask. “So I can see if I still love Eric Epstein even when I don’t have a heart?”
“Of course,” the nurse says, looking in my eyes. My eyes start to well up, but I don’t let the tears flow. Don’t taint my last thoughts of Eric with tears. He wouldn’t like that at all. I realize that finally I have found something that matters. I smile at the realization and the nurse does too. She strokes my blonde hair and I drift back into my thoughts.

1 Hour and 30 Minutes:

“We have to stop talking now,” the nurse says with a stern look and I nod. Delving back into my mind, I think about stories and poems I wrote. I always wanted to be a writer, but guess what? That doesn’t matter anymore. Stories pop into my head and fade away for the next one, but one poem sticks around. It’s a poem I wrote from the perspective of a sea turtle. The baby sea turtle crawls out of the sand and wants to swim to the stars, but she has to follow the moon to the sea with the other turtles.
But I can’t swim back to those stars, and I know a big hand won’t lift me to the sky. I recite in my head. Maybe someday when I’m done fighting wars, I’ll leave this place I don’t belong and say goodbye. The turtle wanted to be different from the other turtles, but she decided to follow the moon like everybody else. Later she regrets that choice, but hopes that someday she can swim to the stars. I have the opposite problem. I swam to the stars. I decided not to follow the moon to the sea. I discovered that when you go past the atmosphere to space, the stars don’t shine anymore and they’re all far, far away.
It’s better to follow the moon. However, it’s a little late to go back now, isn’t it? So again, nothing really matters anymore.

1 Hour and 45 Minutes:

“You don’t have a heart anymore,” the nurse informs me. I smile this sad smile as I watch the surgeons pull out my heart coated in the green oxygen-rich solution. They replaced my blood with it when my blood was drained. I picture Eric in my head. He has a head of curly, blonde hair, he’s skinny as a stick, has a gentle smile, and he’s looking at me like I’m the only person in the world he wants to be with at the moment. A sort of warmth spreads through me and I know that I still love him. I look at the nurse to smile at her and nod.
She smiles and nods back. So you can still love without a heart. Therefore, love is either in your mind or something bigger. I hope it’s something bigger. Wouldn’t it be nice to believe in something bigger than us? It doesn’t really matter to me though because I know that nothing bigger will come and save me from being unwound. God’s not a superhero who comes flying out of the sky with a miracle in his hand.
Nothing can save me now, I think. Not Eric, not my fellow terribles, not God, and certainly not myself.

2 Hours:

Later, I think about my family. Do I love them? Yes, I answer myself. There were good times and there were bad times, but I guess there weren’t enough good times to save me from being unwound. I remember when we played with the dolphin in the Virgin Islands, I remember when I tricked a goose to come up to me and I grabbed it’s neck, I look back fondly on the times we would go to San Diego to go visit my uncles and grandparents, and I remember holidays filled with love, presents, food, and laughter. We had it good. I wonder how they could just erase those memories completely from their minds to sign the order for me to be unwound.
I was a good kid. Just not good enough. My brother’s face appears in my mind. He swam to the ocean and look what it got him—a warm and secure place in my parents’ hearts. I start to feel fury towards him, but I remember that it’s not his fault. Or is it? Is it my fault? My parents’ fault? Whoever’s fault it is, it doesn’t really matter anymore. What matters is the here and now. The time I have left and that’s not a lot of time.

2 Hours and 15 Minutes:

Images are flashing through my mind. I think about things I haven’t thought about for the longest time. I remember when my biological dad gave me a spanking when I didn’t want to go to church. I was so angry, but when I got to church, I was so scared to be away from them. They were going to listen to the sermon and I was in Sunday school. They came to get me and I was alright as long as they were beside me. I can’t hear anymore, I can’t see anymore and I feel completely and utterly alone.
Are you there God? I pray even though I’ve been agnostic for the longest time. I need someone to tell me that it’ll be okay. Even though I will exist in pieces, my soul—if I even have a soul—will still go to Heaven. Please tell me I’ll be alright. I feel a little better, but I still feel alone. Does it really matter if there’s a God though? People say that unwinds don’t go to Heaven because no one feels our lives are worth living. I suppose it doesn’t really matter that I feel my life is worth living.

2 Hours and 30 Minutes:

I don’t have much time left. Unwinding can’t possibly be ethical. It took away my right to live, my right to love, and even the right to my body. I no longer have free will. Wait, yes I do have a small victory. I can still think the thoughts I want. No one can control my thoughts no matter how hard they try.
Does it really matter though? I think.
Does…
It…
Really……
I cease to exist as a whole.

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