Caged

1 - Beginning

I wake to rusty springs screeching mildly under the weight of something heavier than air but just barely.  My sister must be getting up.  She sleeps in all the time and complains when she can’t, except on days like these.  Never on days like these.

Days like these might be the only times when the people of Regere willingly climb out from under their warm covers to take a long walk in the cold to the Preside Building to be tested.  If you fit the Criteria and your legs are working, you will get off the couch or out of the factory and you will be tested.

It’s not mandatory –– but for some families, like my own, someone on the other side of the gates would think it’s so.  You know, if there is anything at all beyond intricate the wrought iron barrier besides miles of marshy, open grassland.

“Glara” my mother yells to my sister through the floorboards from the ground floor.  “Get up!  You too, Copious.”

I roll over onto my back and grab the pocket-watch from the nightstand and fiddle with it for a while.  It’s the only clock in the room, and it tells me that if I keep at this nonsense, I’ll have no time to get as ready as Glara will be for testing.  She always gets her hair all done up and puts on pounds of the makeup she’s been hoarding over the years, collecting powders and pencils whenever she’s had the change to buy them –– or the will to steal them.

Picking up the Criteria List, I once over it for the millionth time, looking for something to put me out of the equation.

CRITERIA –– TASK 72,173:

AGES 10-50
PHYSICAL ABILITY TEST MANDATORY
CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF 18 REQUIRE GUARDIAN’S SIGNATURE
APPLICANTS OVER 40 REQUIRE SIGNED MEDICAL NOTE FROM DOCTOR/PHYSICIAN
APPLICANTS WITH ANY HEALTH CONDITIONS REQUIRE SIGNED MEDICAL NOTE FROM DOCTOR/PHYSICIAN
IMMEDIATE, ON THE SPOT MENTAL EXAMINATION REQUIRED
ALL PHYSICAL APPEARANCES ACCEPTABLE
HEAD-SHOTS AND PROFILES REQUIRED
NO EXPERIENCE REQUIRED
SEEKING 1,000 MEMBERS THROUGH PHASE ONE, 200 MEMBERS THROUGH PHASE 2, 50 MEMBERS THROUGH PHASE 3

To be honest, this is the most lenient Criteria List I’ve seen in a while.  Sometimes they limit it to only dark hair and light eyes, or only twenty-six year olds –– absurd things like that.  And every time I don’t fit the Criteria, my parents get angry at me like I made it that way, or I could’ve chosen to be born with red hair and am able to become 6’0” at will but am choosing not to.

All they ever care about is that damn Criteria List.  I swear, we’re the first family in my town, Ecritica, to have it.  Since neither of them ever made the final cut for a Task whenever they were tested as kids –– unless you count little things like trash pickers and waiters –– they’ve been stopping at nothing to make us succeed –– along with themselves and the slim chances they have left to be whatever Regere calls them to.

When I put it that way, it sounds kind of nice, right?  But, oh, is it the opposite of that.  One time they dyed Glara’s hair auburn so she would fit the Criteria.  Once she was tested, however, the Panel was able to see very easily that she, and the rest of our family, are natural golden-blonds.  I would consider my home a prison, or maybe a gray-lit salon or training center.  Nothing homely about the cement walls and wooden floors that lock me in.  Not that spending my life in the factory is any more comforting.

But the only three things on the Criteria that worry me are how little people will make it through Phase 3 and the physical and mental examinations.  I’m strong, but I’m no Copious.  If a physical exam is needed, I’m not sure my family should have hope in me being one of the fifty to actually be a part of the Task –– the Phases are just extended parts of Testing leading up to finally being a part of the Task itself, which Members, or people who pass Phase 1 of Testing, and the rest of Ecritica aren’t to know about until the final list of Members of posted and the real Task begins.