cleanse

6

Out of the corner of the corner of my eye, I spot Mahree sitting alone at a table. She has a book in her lap and a bottle of water held tight in her hand. As I walk closer to her, I can hear her sniffling. Her eyes are puffy and red and dried tears left crust on her cheeks. I don't know if I should go over and talk to her, or leave her to cry. I would feel like an ass trying to intrude on someone I don't know at all, but I would feel like a bigger ass if she saw me walk away from her like that.

I end up standing there awkwardly, waiting for her to turn her cheek and see me. Maybe she'll invite me to sit with her. Either that or she'll ignore my presence completely and leave me standing in the middle of Town Hall looking like a lost and bumbling idiot.

I take a step forward, trying to be quiet and unnoticeable, but my shoe squeaks on the wood floor, causing Mahree to drop her water bottle and slam her book shut out of fear. I go red in the face and freeze. My leg is slightly bent in a position so that I'm ready to flee at any moment. Mahree turns her head and looks me dead in the eye.

At first she squints past her tears to make out who scared her half to death, then her eyes widen back to their normal, inviting size. Her emotionless frown turns into a fake smile and she waves me over to her table. She pushes a chair out for me and taps it, as if to let me know which one. I know what chair you want me to sit in, Mahree.

"How do you think you did?" She shoots the question right at me. It takes me a moment to whip up some lie of an answer. After all the thinking I did on the answer, I spit out the worst possible one; "Good."

She nods her head and takes a sip of water. "Do you think you passed though?" She whispers after she swallows her water. I don't even need to answer with words. I can tell that she registers the answer I'm giving her with my eyes. If I were to say my answer out loud, I would have flat out lied. But my eyes can only tell the truth. And the truth is... I'm scared to death that the Examiner thought I was weak. The dream I had about father beating me to a pulp was me at my weakest. That was the brain test on mental state, which means I'm unstable due to my father's violence and my mother's death.

"I think I failed too." Mahree mutters after a moment of silence. "Wanna know something? I was only in that room for that long because I don't know anything about our history. Frankly, I couldn't give less of a damn about Noredge. It's a great big dictatorship with a morbid ideal behind it. Cleansing?! Are you serious?! As if genocide is going to solve anything. Countries all around the world hate us because of it. If you don't already know this, immigration into Noredge isn't slowing down because of overpopulation... it's because the immigrants are scared."

I feel my jaw drop a little. I begin to think about all the possible lies that President Carnegie has fed us. President Josephine Carnegie was elected ten years ago. She is a brilliant speaker and always manages to win over any crowd. In fact, she won Presidency because she created the Exam. Cleansing came forty years ago, but President Carnegie introduced the Exam that led to a Cleansing.

I didn't say anything. Instead, I looked at Mahree with fear, hoping she would empathize with me. I don't want pity, but I want her to feel the way I feel. "Why are you so scared?" She whispers with sincerity.

It takes me a moment to fully digest the question. "My sister." I reply in the same hushed voice. "My mother was cleansed... three years ago. My father became an abusive, drunk, absentee loser... and he..." I begin to trail off, but I quickly come back to my sentence. "He's growing more violent each day... and my sister... she can't be in that house with him. He's already hospitalized her twice. And... if I'm Cleansed... he'll... he'll kill her."

Mahree's face stays the same. Stoic on the outside, but I look deeper inside her to find that she knows exactly what I mean. I also find that she's terrified as well. "Why are you scared?" I say more harsh than I meant.

"Well... my older brother was Cleansed four years ago along with my grandmother and father." She says, her voice cracking on a few words. I see a tear welling up in her eyes, but she immediately blinks them away as soon as she notices that I've seen her show weakness. "And last year... my mother was Cleansed. Just the cherry on top of everything isn't it?" That's when she snaps. The tears come out from hiding and trickle down her cheeks.

Just as I'm about to place my hand on her shoulder, the sound of the Examiner's heels breaks the silence.