The world has never been a favorable place for the insects.
Permanently branded as a pest and a nuisance, they have faced an impressive array of threats to their existence, from flyswatters to pesticides to the soles of human footwear. Yet th...
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<Medical Record: see HEALTH DATABASE #475>
<Behavioral Record: see SOCIOLOGICAL DATABASE #373>
Purpose Of Written Study: Pre-MOLT psychological analysis
Time to MOLT 1: 3 wks
Intellectual Property of the Governance of MOLT, Freziere Division
March 18, 2254
Uh, hi? Hello? Esteemed Governance?
Sorry, I'm not exactly sure how I'm supposed to start this. You'll have to forgive me: this is my first time writing a pre-MOLT journal, or diary, or whatever the Governance is calling it these days. This is, after all, going to be my first MOLT. My first time changing my exterior to save what's inside. I'm going to try to be as honest as I can in here, because the whole point of this record is to tell the Governance what MOLTees are thinking before they go in for the big procedure, so pre-MOLT support programs can be improved in the future.
I'd like to know I've helped make MOLTing better for future MOLTees- that'd be a nice feeling.
Now, I have no idea how much the Governance psychoanalysts who'll be reading this will know about me, so I'm going to go ahead and introduce myself. My name's Wyn. It's not short for Gwyneth or Wynadora or any other eccentric name from long before the Great Fall. It's just Wyn Rivera- a nice, short MOLT name. Go Mom, making the Governance proud.
Anyhow, I'm 0-19 years old (that means I'm in the nineteenth year of my Birth MOLT, for those dummies out there), and my 1-0th birthday- MOLT Day- is exactly three weeks from today. That's why they've forced me *ahem* encouraged me to start writing this today. Hey, you asked me not to be afraid to show my personality, and my trademark sarcastic asides are exactly what you're getting!
Speaking of the Governance, it's probably one of the smartest concepts ever created, second to the MOLT, of course. It's not a leader: leaders are human. They have faces, personalities, quirks, policies, so many things to judge and to defy. But the Governance is nameless and bodiless. You can't hate it because there's no one to hate- there's only everything it does for us.
Genius, isn't it?
Now that I've successfully said absolutely nothing in the first 320 words of my 1000 word diary entry, I suppose I should get on with my actual feelings about MOLTing. No, I'm not trying to suck up to the Governance, but I feel genuinely grateful. My existence itself is a miracle: 20 years ago, as all of you MOLT 12's and 13's surely remember, an antibiotic-resistant strain of one of the crop-destroying bacteria from the Great Fall ripped through Freziere, and Childbearing Permits grew incredibly hard to come by. My parents applied for one at the same time as several of their friends, and theirs was the only application that wasn't denied before it passed the first stage. If that isn't lucky, I don't know what is.
Even after my legal birth, I wasn't expected to survive to my first MOLT. You're vulnerable in your Birth MOLT, the doctors told me. My genetic traits hadn't been rigorously selected for in a Governance lab- they were nothing more than a random combination of my parents' original genes. Not designed for eternal youth, or immunity, or strength, or eternal anything. I was just like the millions who had perished in the Great Fall- completely unprepared and unprotected.
I was the only MOLT 0 in my neighborhood then, and I still am. No one dared befriend me or even speak to me, because I could succumb to one of the hundreds of infectious diseases in the post-Fall air at any moment. Over the years, my quiet walks through the most deserted streets in town began to show me just why MOLTs don't like to have children. To be in one's Birth MOLT is to be a walking liability...something that no one wants to be responsible for.
Still, somehow, I survived (well, duh.) And I didn't just survive, I endured. Endure. That's the Governance's motto, isn't it? We grew too strong to be sustainable, and now we've fallen back to a position little better than that of an insect- we no longer control. We endure. Endure. Endure. It was the motto of my early life. Endure the silence around me, endure my parents' fear, everyone's fear that some twisted force of nature from the Great Fall would rip through Freziere's protective walls and I'd be the first to go.
The Walled City of Freziere is the headquarters of the Governance. That means it's basically the capital city of the Pitiful Remains of Humanity (no, that's not what we call the cities in my neighborhood. I just made that up on the spot so you'll think I'm funnier than I really am). I allayed my fears by telling myself that no invaders in their right mind go for the capital first.
It took me a long time to realize that nature doesn't work that way. It doesn't progress logically like we do.
Nature takes whatever the heck it wants whenever the heck it feels like it.
Now, don't get me wrong, Governance. There were a few bouts of sunshine in my miserable Birth MOLT existence: like when I graduated from Freziere's MOLT Educaciary as valedictorian... of a class of one. (It still counts...right?) Getting accepted into Governance Training was pretty awesome, too- I'm supposed to start as soon as I recover from the MOLT. I'm not sure what exactly what I want to do with my life yet, but I've always dreamed of being a part of the Governance. Serving the community- or what's left of it- you know? (The salary helps, too.)
To sum it all up, I can't wait to MOLT and finally start living my life. I've got a long 31 MOLTS ahead of me, and they can't possibly be any worse than the first. I'm looking forward to my meeting with you tomorrow to learn more about the process of MOLTing and my options going into the future. This is going to sound unforgivably cheesy, but thank you so much for listening, and for caring.
