He tapped his cigarette on ThoughtcrimeShe took the cafeteria’s brick wallmilk out of the refrigerator and spilled the last of it into her cereal. “You saw She knew the teachers family didn’t have any more in therethe back,” he smirkedbut she didn’t care. The rest of them weren’t up yet, “how did they look?”and so the rest of the milk was hers. Not that she liked it, anyway.
“TeacherShe spooned the remainder of the Alpha-ish?”Bits quickly into her mouth and ran out the door, leaving her jacket on the chair in the living room. She really didn’t need it; it was thirty degrees warmer than the average winter day, or, at least, what she remembered the average winter day to be. She was about to make a mad dash for the bus when she realized that it wouldn’t leave while the driver could see her walking towards it, and she might as well make them wait for her. After all, they cut her breakfast short.
“NahNauseous,” he smiled and blew a puff she put on her headphones. Out of smoke into them slipped the frigid fall airbeautiful man-made noise. The noise that wasn’t supposed to exist anymore, “they looked happyas the maker of it was dragged off by some guy with a badge a couple years ago. Teachers always look happier when they’re Nobody said anything, of course. The hardcore kids just kept on listening to their “dissident” music files. They wouldn’t be bothered. At least, she knew, not teaching studentsyet.”
“And we’re a lot happier when we’re not being taught. They’re only human<i>There are things, Sammy.” He laughed and blew out more grey smoke, making me cough. “you’re so naïve! Already at the school for two months and you’re already saying they’re human. What’s with you? Did you hear MrThat I said I would never do. Deiess in study hall yesterday?”<i>
“NoThe grinding,” I shook my headindustrial undertone only supported the ironic lyrics. The voice, “what did nearly covered by the noise of machines, nearly yelled, as if he, too, was trapped in this reality. Of course, the song was written seventeen years ago, so there wasn’t much he could understand about the new decade. Then again, the album he released after that one had to make you wonder just how much he say?”knew. It almost felt like a soundtrack to the year.
“WellThe other kids on the bus were absolutely silent. A few of them were listening to music, he was talking to this girlbut even the little kids wouldn’t make a sound. She was felt a sophomore, I thinkpattern. And She knew she wasn’t that tired coming into school when she was late to school ‘cause her brother younger. Even <i>she</i> had had vigor at a certain age. All the little kids wanted was to go to and go home. They were growing up so fast, with none of the hospitalbenefits or wisdom of age. He wouldn’t let her sign in late<i>They were stone. So she told him that her brother was real sick, but you know what he said?”
“What did he say?”For my soul,Is too sick and too little and too late.</i>
“He said ‘TooShe looked down at her shirt, almost expecting to see right through to her heart. BloodyIt was dulled. Bad,’ that’s what he saidNot dulled like everybody else’s; not dulled in a sense that she was indifferent. They don’t careDulled from seeing that she was the only one who wasn’t. You know what I would’ve said? I would’ve said ‘okayShe wondered when all of it started, the apathy.’ I have a heart.”
Sammy had a point. Of courseShe thought it might have been around the end of middle school, Sammy Z. always had a pointbut that couldn’t have been right. He was like a big brother to me, and Children much younger than that were just as far as I knew, he was never wrong. He liked to put me down a lot, thoughuninterested. Whenever I had a funny story, he didn’t think it It was so funnylike an epidemic of silence. Like the time my English class found out She knew that she was the intercom works both ways and that our teacher wasn’t just talking only one to the disembodied voice from abovestill embrace a breezy spring day with open arms. He thought it was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. But after all <i>The more I stay in here, The more I was just a freshman and he was a seniordisappear. </i>
“Are you ever going The bus stopped short at the school. She grabbed her backpack and made sure she was the last one off the bus. She still had a few minutes, and she wasn’t about to get caught smoking like waste her time before homeroom on uncompleted homework. As the bus pulled away, headphones still in her ears, she stood there, in front of the large brick building. The nameplate, <i>Orwell Public High School</i>, was being removed in favor of one that?” mentioned a much less thought-provoking author. I would ask him.
“Nah<i>As far as I have gone,” he’d laugh, letting his cigarette smoke fill the lungs of passerby’s, “neverI knew what side I’m on. Who really caresBut now I’m not so sure, anyway? Half the student body smokes. I’m one in a millionThe line begins to blur.”/i>
“WellShe never really knew why,” I’d coughbut that part, “the rest the chorus, always made her look up at the sky in awe. There was never anything <i>in</i> the sky (with the exception of clouds and birds and such), but the student body doesn’t smoke at schoolsounds lifted her gaze. She didn’t believe in a god, or aliens, but it was like she just <i>expected</i> something to happen.” Naturally, nothing ever did.
“Ah, yesShe made her way to her assigned seat and crossed her black jean-clad legs. Her watch read in neat letters, 9:07 Feb 3 2022. She smirked. She knew it was illegal to keep a calendar or watch that displayed the year as anything but they smoke0000. A boy with short blonde hair stumbled into class. If I could make it Drowsily, he took a little longer through seat next to her. His sunglasses shielded his classmates from his blank, tired stare. By command of the teacher, he promptly removed them, showing his black left eye.Not that his eye was black in the old sense of the dayword, I’d smoke at homenot the eyelid, but the eye itself. The whites of his eyes looked like they were tinted with oil. Everybody sitting there knew exactly what was going on, but nobody was going to say a thing. They boy was tooinebriated to be thankful for his classmates’ lack of interest.”
“You’re gonna die one dayShe was getting nauseous again. She couldn’t deny her stomach anymore; she hadn’t had water in a few months. Her mother stopped paying the bill for the water truck to come around, and the tap water tasted metallic. The only thing better was milk,” I’d mumble to myself every timewhich she never had a taste for. I meanThe drinking fountain at school was usually filthy, I knew that we’re all gonna die anywayacting more as a garbage can than anything else. She chewed on a tiny slice of watermelon from her lunch bag, but I hoping her teacher wouldn’t see. Lunch was worried for Sammya disappointment. Only the thin slices of watermelon eased her sickness. I didn’t know why I was worried for SammyShe felt proud, though. He’d never done anything She planted those watermelons herself last winter, and worked for methem. “You see“We’re not alone, you know,” he’d lean against the cafeteria walla thin boy with light brown hair took a seat next to her, “teachers don’t like me, so teacher’s don’t see me“you gotta look at this printout. You’re luckyI’d link you to the website…but…” he looked around him, kidbreaking into a whisper, teachers like “if they found out youwere off the water, and started checkin’ your computer, you’d be worse than dead.” I frownedShe furrowed her brow, “Teachers don’t like “what are you because they talking about?” “You know you don’t like them. Your history teacher is really nice.The Parepin? In the water?” “YEAH!” he’d laughShe shook her head.“Well, it’s supposed to protect us from shit, “one helluva nice guy! but the people who don’t drink the water are so much more…<i>alive</i>…” You know how many times he’d gotten me suspendedhe glanced over at her, “except for you, who always looks like you’re about to collapse from dehydration.” “Do you drink the water?” “Only as much as I need to live,” he shrugged, “I’ve been trying to live off homemade smoothies lately, but making ‘em takes time…and effort. Of course, being the unathletic, sickly child I am, I don’t lose much water during the day, so I’m alright.” He stretched. “I notice so much more now.” He looked both ways again, “but anyway, I didn’t want have to be wrong againshow you this website. It’s this whole resistance thing; you’d love it! It’s all artsy, too. Fourth time we’d had that argument that weekIt’s really your thing. It was like an endless cycleI don’t have it bookmarked or anything, and no matter how many times but I playedprinted some of it out…but if we’re caught with it, we’re doing time for the viewing of subversive material.” “You know, Sammy always won” she said, “you really talk too much. ” He By fifth period, the boy with the black eye had disappeared. She couldn’t say she didn’t know expect it, though. Everyone knew that he’d woncoming to school on opal was a thoroughly stupid thing to do. Anyone brilliant enough to do it really deserved being disappeared. <i>Disappeared, though</i> her mind used to venture, <i>what do they do with all the people they have disappeared?</i> It hadn’t been so he’d just keep fighting until I shut uplong since her uncle Gil had vanished, and she knew it happened often but was never, ever talked about. It was Uncle Gil who had given her the With_Teeth files, her first taste in rebellious music. He was strange that waysaid, “You’re growing up and thinking for yourself, girl, I’m proud of you. I’d keep hating him till Here, I couldn’t stand not want you to be around himhear something. ” His voice was He took her hand and led her to the weirdest part attic, where an ancient looking computer sat between columns of himeven older compact discs. He sifted through the column on the left, thoughpulling out a small disc in a dark blue case. It was the first time a very educated voicesong ever spoke to her.<i>You’re keeping in step, with the line, With your chin held high and the way it echoed in you feel just fine,Cuz you do, what you’re told,But inside your head made heart it sound like is black and it’s hollow and it’s cold.</i> Just a year after that, he vanished. Nobody ever talked about him again. The only reason she knew he was Britishgone for good was the look his girlfriend gave her. It was on the street one warm winter night. “Laurel!” she called to her excitedly. But he spoke Laurel just stood there, like a C+ studentbeautiful statue on the sidewalk. She didn’t frown, but she didn’t look happy to see her, either. After allShe made eye contact, he but she looked like she was oneabout to cry. “And you want to be a writer!” he chimed Laurel kept walking, until she was around the corner, but She ran all the way back home, sobbing for him once but never again after I told him that underground street racing wouldn’t pay for his insurance. “What, <i>Just how deep do you believe?Will you aren’t bite the hand that goodfeeds?<i> A couple years later, anywaya headline appeared in the newspaper. It’s all this emo crap and poetry like that“SUBVERSIVE MUSICIAN CAPTURED, SENT TO EXTERMINAL,” it shouted. You write stories about people who don’t even exist doing regularThe artist, writer of the With_Teeth files (also, Pretty Hate Machine, The Downward Spiral, The Fragile, and Year Zero being the most disturbing), boring thingswas never seen again. If I wanted to know And that’s when she knew what it was like to live, I’d just go outsidethey did with Uncle Gil. Who needs those stupid books you writeShe wondered if he’d met the artist there, anyway? They don’t have dragons in or if they just killed themall instantly. Everything Uncle Gil’s friends <i>hated</i> that he gave her all that could happen in them could happen in real lifeAnti-American music. That’s why it’s so stupid.” And I would frown and shrug but I would They never listen. I didn’t want him wanted to have see a pointyoung girl, thirteen at the time, to ever live in fear of the government as they did. I’d shut my earsHe wasn’t stupid, though. Mrs. Cavallo stepped out from In the copy of a subversive book he gave her, he highlighted the side passage, “The consequences of every act are included in the cafeteriaact itself. “What are you doing here?” He wrote: ‘Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death.’” That book was the one she asked, furrowing her angry brow, “Boys, to found the principal’s office, now! most enlightening. Put that thing outThe ending was realistic: the main character becomes a brainwashed drunk who was carried away by the government, Samuel!” to his death. <i> Sammy dropped his cigarette on the floor and crushed Will you chew until it with his heel before walking the walk that he bleeds?Will you get up off your knees?</i> Uncle Gil had made so many times before, never said anything to the principal’s officeofficers about her possession of his illegal materials. We sat there In a way, she made it easier for about twenty minutes before the whole thing was cleared outhim. Sammy It was suspended for smoking on school propertya few more music files, and they told him if he’d get suspended one a few more time, he’d be expelledbooks hidden far away from his home. She spent last period finishing her life-giving watermelon slices. They gave me detention for a little while for not telling anyone There was nothing more she wanted than to move to New Zealand, where there is no totalitarian theocracy or thoughtcrime or anything that I might get her killed.<i>Are you brave enough to see?Do you wanna change it?</i> When she got home, she saw him smokingthe water truck pulling up by the door. But I didn’t care about detention. I Her stomach was just happy that Sammy could ever be wrongscreaming at her, but she knew very well That the last thing she wanted Was a drink of water.