Wastes

I run a finger along my jaw, tracing the seal of the poorly fitted respirator. My teeth are loose. My chin itches. Everything itches. Cutaneous radiation syndrome, they call it. Such a fancy name for a slow execution.

I lift the handles of my overburdened cart and begin to turn it. My muscles howl in protest at this labor, even though they should be used to it by now. My shoulders slump and I stare straight ahead at a jagged gray skyline.

I spend my days carting debris from one location and shoveling it into the bed of a truck, and then the truck takes it somewhere else. The containment center, wherever that is. When I first arrived, Jonas would help me scoop the heaps of poisoned soil from the wheelbarrow when I couldn't keep up with the others, and his reward for that cheap act of kindness was a hastier death.

I spend my nights curled into my scratchy gray smock, shivering amongst the other ulcerated and balding non-persons and gender traitors, massaging the striped, loose skin on my belly and remembering when it rippled with the gentle kicks of Gilead's babies. They are gone now and I am here.

I share my bed with three other women. They are Sarah or Susan or Sandra; it doesn't really matter. I do not know my own name. I was Oftom. I was Ofjeff. I was Handmaid. We don't talk much. Words are rare luxuries in the wastes and tears are an extravagance that only new arrivals can afford.

Did I cry when I first stepped off the transport? Probably. I think everyone does in the beginning. I close my eyes and try to remember, but fire races across my cheek, hurtling me back to the present. Instinct tells me to gasp and clutch my injured face, which causes the second blow to land on the back of my hand.

"A sluggard's appetite is never filled," the offender declares.

He beats me with a wire from the safety of his yellow containment suit and after several more blows, I am permitted to return to work. Though I know better than to cry, the pain insists. The salt of my tears mingles with the fresh cuts and old sores on my face, amplifying my agony.

I cough. The death in my lungs sends bloody spittle flying into the clear plastic respirator covering my nose and mouth. The yellow man sees it and I am sent to the infirmary, which is nothing more than a black tent in the center of the camp. There are no beds or supplies in the infirmary, only oversized plastic bags.

I am ordered to wait. I slump into the powdery dirt next to a wispy shell of a man. I am shaking. I realize I am angry. My atrophied arms pummel the ground. Writing is forbidden, but it doesn't matter now. My index finger finds a voice and traces lines in the ashen soil.

"I am Abigail."