A Dome of Stars and Rain

A Cage's Canvas

By the time beef night rolls around again, my brain is spinning with all of our extra history lessons in preparation for the anniversary. Words like "hero", "savior" and "god" are crammed dully into place with the president's name in my mind, yet I suppress a scowl when his strangely wrinkle free yet graying skin comes over the cafeteria's largescreen. He firmly reminds everyone of the change of schedule for tomorrow. We are to report to our amphitheater at eight. Lunch will be served at noon, but we will not leave until six later that night. After briefly stopping for supper we are to head to the border of the dome for the ceremony.

I wake the next morning with a small lump in my throat. Blaise's face flashed through my dreams, the light in her eyes bright as she talked about The Outside, matched in passion only by her looks of disgust she saves for the president. I want more than anything to keep an eye on her, but she and her dad sleep fairly far from mom and I, so we may not cross paths today at all. Mom eases me into my celebration dress, clean, without a single loose thread, seeing as it's only worn once a year. While everyone's celebration clothes may still be gray, they have details and textures unlike any regular uniform. Every single citizen will look and behave as their best selves today. 

We file out, glancing about at everyone flooding into the hall next to us. Women have their hair done up into neat buns, and some of the boys have brushed theirs back. I feel my fresh braid swinging back and forth against my back, stray hairs tickling across my shoulders. We arrive at the amphitheater and take our seats. The lights dim, and the tradition begins.

"When man was created from the ground, there was no one except the president. The president was in The Outside, and realized he could not breathe. The land was barren, the sky and earth below his feet a wasteland of brown. The air was grey. The president knew he did not have long. He waited until the sun fell, and reached up as high as he could, scooping the stars from the sky. Their shimmering silver trickled through his fingers as he molded the dome. It began small, just large enough for his lone self. He scooped more and more stars, tracing his fingers gently through the skies, pulling from the Heaven's nooks. He grew the dome bigger and bigger until you could no longer see either end whilst standing in the middle. Then, once the sun rose once again, he trailed his fingers through the clouds, tugging them down gently, before crafting us. Our existence is to him. Without the dome, we could not breath the wasteland's air, nor drink from it's dirt, or eat from it's barren shrubs. We would all be for nothing without him, so it is my greatest honor to present our president."

The president steps onto the stage. I focus on his shoes and let my brain melt until I hear nothing. That was the only part of the speeches I had ever liked. All the other words spoken today could easily fade into just another memorized textbook, praising the president and the miracle of the dome. How his rules keep us safe. We are privileged to live here under the organization. Etcetera, etcetera. I knew this. I am grateful to our president every second of every day. I pledge every action to him and would never behave against his wishes. I hear this everywhere I turn.

Before I know it, I'm somewhere green. There are emerald tones, like the president's robes, but deeper and lighter ones too. They weave together, growing through one another, twisting and melting across the horizon, There are bursts of lighter colors, blush like the pinkest rosebud. The sky stretches for miles, the sharpest blue, with puffy, pale clouds. A small stream trickles over my feet, ice cold like the showers, but when I kneel to drink it, it doesn't have the familiar metallic dull tang. There's some kind of strange noise. Someone's voice. They aren't speaking though. Their words blend together in bursts of bright colors, each word drawn out and tied to the next, rising and falling.

I'm brought back to the amphitheater with a jolt. These were the images from my five year old daydreams. The ones buried under my mind's grey text. The visions of The Outside that Blaise painted in her murmured words to me. I didn't understand some of the words she described, so I created my own versions of what I thought they'd be.