Reverie

Chapter One

First thing: I like writing better on the computer. So much.

Second thing: wRITER'S BLOCK AGH

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Society is the best and worst possible thing to have ever happened to me.

In a small community like ours, each and every one of us is expected to be an integral part of our society. As a child, I never saw a problem to that. I could do arithmetic as well as the other kids, I knew how to help out, and I knew when enough was enough.

Now, it's not that easy. Thing is, I'm different.

I've hidden it until I was twelve. How they found out, I'll never know. Some rumors say I talk in my sleep.

Moving on.

We live on a small cluster of floating islands in a realm called Beordan. Yes, floating islands. In the sky. There are little bunches of them scattered around the realm, and the odd one here and there. There's a large island in the centre of it all: the one where the government is run from and all the high-ranking families live. It's literally just called Central Island. We're not very creative. To make cartography easier, the Clusters are counted clockwise from the north instead of having proper names. There are 57 of them in total, placed at varying distances from Central. We're 32, and we're actually one of the closer Clusters to Central.

The nearest Cluster is half a day's journey by airship from ours. The next-nearest after that is a full day. Central Island is almost five days away. Crossing the entire realm takes a full 250 days. Which is really far, even if you've got all the money in the world and the rest if your life to spare. For a working-class Cluster like ours, that means we normally stay where we're born. We don't have that kind of time. The Central folks are envied all across the realm. They're like the Wall Street of Beordan: 1% of the population, 99% of the privileges.

With everything being so spread out and all, good communication is expensive and extremely difficult. Each cluster has its own sub-government that meets up at Central every three years. My dad is the leader in our Cluster. My mom is the head of education. I don't get away with a lot of things. Most people would tell me "you're so lucky! You guys must have it easy at home -- lots of luxury, I suppose?"

Ha. Nope.

My parents are much more interested in saving for a rainy day than spending now. I think we could take that money and buy a big house with a swimming pool, but my parents think otherwise.

They also put me in the public education  system when we could easily afford a better, private education. I don't normally complain about that, though, because all my friends are in public ed. It's not that bad. They manage to get things done when I'm around, or else I can report to my mom and get them fired. It's the only bit of power I get over my life.