Halcyon

The Bubble

The sound of a wet brush against linoleum is maddening. The scraping of the bristles against the cool, hard floor is the kind of sound that climbs in your head and sticks with you late at night when your thoughts are unfathomably jumbled and all you want to do is sleep. So I lay awake in my bed, eyes wide open. Albeit, they can't see anything, but they're open anyway. I shut off the nightlight that my sister uses, like I do every night. She's ten and no longer afraid of the dark, but she insists on using it anyway. Eventually, sleep finds its way to me. 

This morning, I'm working at the Holden Household Unit. It's my job to clean the surfaces. I don't pick up laundry. I don't do dishes. I scrub and scrub and scrub. Floors, counters, sinks. The Deployment Bureau wouldn't let me do anything else. Secretly, I've always wanted to be a computer programmer. I learned how to code basic scripts when I was seven, but women aren't allowed to program computers in The Bubble. Finding a job when you're disabled is hard enough here, but finding a job as a disabled woman? I was lucky to have a friend in maintenance management. 

I was scrubbing the floors when Amberly Holden ran in, screaming my name.

I immediately got up and ran to her, using my fingers to check her for scrapes and cuts. She had a vice grip on her younger brother, who she was clutching to her chest. I pushed his hair back from his forehead and called his name. When he stirred, I let out a sigh of relief and moved onto asking Amberly what had happened. She told me that she had been shopping in the local market district for fabrics, when a bomb went off a few tents from where she was standing. She trembled as she told the story. When I asked who the authorities thought did it, she froze. She had seen the flag of the Freedom Fighters waving at the tent just moments before it happened and not thought a thing of it. 

The Freedom Fighters. Just the name resonated with me. They were an organization that had been actively protesting the systematic oppression of a variety of social groups since the beginning of The Bubble. They had never done anything like this, before, though. As Amberly continued to sob and retell what had happened, I began to wonder what would happen next. If the Freedom Fighters were behind the bombing, what would happen next? More violence? Would they win? 

I pulled Amberly to the bathtub to help her wash the blood of innocent people off of her skin. My mind was racing. My heart was racing. I am a blind woman in The Bubble. To live without The Bubble's control would mean everything to me. To live a life unsheltered by The Bubble. Just to know what living was. But at what price?