yesterday's dove

prologue

<trains>

At first, I wanted to report because of my father. I was never allowed to watch cartoons so when the television was on, it was always on some random sports channel or news channel. I liked watching sports–it meant I could spend time with my father, a bubble of time that I would remember because of my father's rare excitement. But I liked watching the news more, because it meant my father thought I was mature enough to handle "real world stuff" and because he always seemed like he was listening intently to the person on the screen, something he never did for me. I think that's why I wanted to become a reporter–I wanted to be listened to.

When we visited my mom in the hospital, I did my best to report all the big things to her. I realize now that I was blinded by my young enthusiasm–I never saw her tired eyes struggling to stay open to listen to minuscule details of my life.

It was only when I saw my father crying over my mother's empty hospital bed, cursing at the doctors' mistakes under his breath that I realized, at fourteen, barely matured but mature enough to understand what was laid out in front of me, that small scenes like these were the ones that should be on the news. Scenes that were born of tiny "mistakes" made without concern for the effect it would have on another's life. Scenes like this that occurred daily to millions–ones that could be stopped with just a single choice.

At the time, I hated that the news was simply filled with which alpha-led conglomerate would succeed first, which omega cheated on which alpha, whose alpha son would succeed the company next. We're all riding the same train of life to the same destination in the end. Trains will crash, stop, rush. Why was it that just because beta numbers slightly dimmed compared to alphas and omegas that one train would be so different from another (betas: 30%, alphas: 35%, omegas 35%)? Why was it that just because the slight majority of the population was alphas and omegas that a beta train crash wasn't that important?

Even though it feels like we're all headed for the same destination, it feels like we're on different trains–one for alphas and omegas and one for betas. Alphas and omegas are the movie, and betas are simply the audience, divided by who can smell pheromones and who can't.

I used to hate being a beta because of this, but life told me to make lemonade with the lemons instead. Once I became a reporter, because I was immune to the pheromones that people used to keep others away, for blackmail, to seduce reporters, I became able to report anything and everything in candor. But that also exposed me to the catalysts of endings in this world, just like the mistake that ended my mother's life years ago.

Even if the movie is about alphas and omegas, I think that the story could be in the audience too–in a moment where two hands intertwine with each other, where two people lean against each other in a warm embrace, where a family sits to watch a movie for the first time, where people's bubbles bond,

and I hope that's the story I'll be able to tell.