Sunshine Yellow

Chapter 9

For the rest of the day, I try to keep Alice and I busy, knowing that if I allow myself to sit idle for more than a few seconds, my mind will wander to the disease and all the dangers and worries stemming off from it.  Instead I keep myself distracted with Alice’s lessons, something I’ve neglected lately. I used to follow a strict schoolwork schedule of a lesson each day, but with the Gathering and our frequent visits to Residence 34, all sense of order has flown out the vinflow. So at Hour 19, I decide to squeeze in a quick lesson before bed to make up for my negligence and at the same time to keep me from thinking about the contamination that could very well be brewing inside me.

            I focus on science. The comment Mother made about Alice’s lack of understanding of recessive genes had gotten to me, and although I don’t value Mother’s opinion in the slightest, I figure it’s an area worth studying regardless. I don’t go into detail, giving her a basic explanation of how the genes from our parents—or singular Parent, as Mother claims, but I’m skeptical of that—make us who we are. It’s basically the same information Mother gave me when I was Alice’s age, and not for the first time I question how much of it is truth.  I have no way of telling if Mother is lying to us, or if it was Mother’s Parent that lied to her as a child and Mother is just passing on that false information to us. It’s times like these that make me long for a concrete source of knowledge, something I don’t have to question. Grammy spoke of the schools back in the Ancient Days and how her teacher went through years of schooling herself just to be qualified to teach Grammy. She said that system was slowly corrupted as parents began to protest, arguing that public schooling was demeaning and that their children shouldn’t have to feel inferior to their classmates with the grading system. Eventually everything was made private, including schooling, and Mother tells me it was for the best. Yet here in this room, teaching Alice things I’m not even sure of myself, I have my doubts.

            Near Hour 20, I’m forced to stop the lesson so we can put on our sleep-suctions and head to bed. Still, I’m not satisfied with our progress. Alice is usually an excellent student. Learning is a way to put that uncontrollable curiosity of hers to use, and she’ll soak up any knowledge you give her. Today, however, she’s distracted. This could be due to the fact that she’s as worried about the potential disease as I am, or that she’s simply daydreaming. I desperately hope the latter is the case. I’m already doing enough worrying for the two of us as it is.

The next day goes just the same, and the one after that, each a bland repeat of the day before it. A month passes in a blur of coloring and worry with bits of messages to Asher and arguments with Mother in between. This has always been my life—minus the disease, of course—yet somehow I’ve never realized how boring it is until recently. Or maybe I’ve always known, but I’m just less content with the monotony of it now than I was before. I miss running through the tunnels with Alice and, though I’m ashamed to admit it, seeing Asher and Twyla. What scares me is that these are the things I used to be wary of, things that can get me in trouble. Travelling through the pipes always felt wrong, as did visiting Residence 34, like I was breaking some sort of Law. But now that those things have been ripped away from me, I find myself missing them. I’ve tried telling myself that it’s wrong to feel this way, but to no avail. I’m too stubborn to change my own mind.    

            For these first thirty days, I can almost convince myself that things are getting back to normal. I’m not showing any signs of sickness, and being cut off from the rest of society, it’s almost like the disease don’t even exist. But thirty one days after the Gathering, once my month of peace is gone and passed, reality catches up to me.

             “How many?” Mother spits. She holds a slip of paper in her hand, which she waves in front of my face angrily. “Hmm? How many messages have you received from this . . . this Asher? Think hard now. Answer carefully.”