Inside the cowshed, my grandfather and two of our neighbours, Bill and Robin are already at work. They get up at 4am and start the day by cleaning out the cowshed. The old hay is raked up and discarded, the floor is hosed off and fresh, new hay is laid. Our farm has one hundred and twenty cows. They need milking four times per day. Tom and I usually help with the morning and afternoon run and Pop, Bill and Robin take care of the rest. The cows are lined up next to each other in the milking parlour, ten cows at a time, while the rest of the herd patiently waits outside. We set to work, gently cleaning their udders. Then we hook up the milking unit, which relieves them of their burden. We work quickly and by 7:30am we’re done.
Soon, the milk delivery truck arrives for the first run. Sure enough it’s Seth, Dave and Keith.
“You guys done?” Seth asks
“Yep, we’ve just finished”, replies my grandfather
“Hi” I say to the deliverymen.
Characteristically they give no response. Their job is to do a quick test on each new milk batch for contamination and then to transfer the milk from our storage tank to the tanker truck. Anything else is breach of New City protocol. All of the milk from the Snowy Whites goes to the New City. We have two haggard, old brown cows, who supply us with milk for our own needs and they are only milked twice per day.
Pop says that the delivery drivers have been instructed not to talk to us. The youngest of the deliverymen, Keith catches my eye but doesn’t say anything. I smile at him but he deliberately looks away.
“We’re going to get breakfast. Is that OK, pop?” asks Tom.
“Sure thing Tom. I’ll be up in a bit myself” says my grandfather.
We head back into the house and I lunge straight for the shower in an effort to try to wash off the cow smell that has permeated my being. After that, I pull on my school uniform, which is a thick, blue cotton dress in summer and a thick blue cotton dress in winter and head into the kitchen where Tom is devouring a large slab of bread.
I make myself toast and coffee and sit opposite him at the kitchen table.
“All ready for your aptitudes, sis?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be” I retort with a smile. In truth, I am beginning to feel nervous and I can feel my heart starting to race a bit. The aptitudes are an exam taken by all subs who are fifteen years old that year. They consist of four parts: maths, English, intelligence and logic. My future will depend on my results. Tom, being eighteen, took his aptitudes three years ago and surprise, surprise, his career prospects came back as ‘dairy farmer’. Naturally, he was thrilled.
Our future jobs are assigned to us, by the Career Board of the New City, based on how highly we score. Having to help out on the farm, there hasn’t been a lot of time spare time to study, but to be honest, I tend to do well in exams. Partly, it's because my memory is so sharp. When I was four, my mother used to read stories to me. I never wanted to hear them again because I could remember them word for word.
“Still bent on being a teacher? Why you’d want to beats me, especially when you could spend all of your time out in the open air.”
“Yeah, with cows pooping on your head. At least if I’m a teacher, there’s less chance of that happening”
The truth is that I want to be a teacher so that I can leave the farm.
YOU ARE READING
One Hundred
Science FictionOne sun, two separate worlds. Aida is a sub, or a human who has not been genetically enhanced. She lives in the Old World with her grandfather on his dairy farm. Her fate would dictate that she should become a dairy farmer, her luck takes her elsewh...
