God's Country (inspired by The Handmaid's Tale)

Rachel, the Sinner

The last stop was always the worst. Rachel parked the truck and sauntered up to the pearly white gates of the Compound, glaring as she rang the bell.

The gate slid open. A man rolled out a cart stacked with cubes of crushed garbage. His eyes flickered up to Rachel's forehead. Ignoring him, she took the cart and rolled it to the back of her truck, pressed a button, and let the truck suck up the cubes. She returned the cart to its steward and was back in the truck before the gates had securely re-closed.

She drove back to the waste disposal facility as fast as the speed-locked truck would allow. She was sure the Officials had assigned her the Compound out of malice, to remind her of everything she had lost. They wanted her to miss the clean bedrooms and the fresh fruits that had made up her childhood. They wanted her to feel shame.

Well, she would not. She would only feel hatred. She stewed in this emotion as she backed the truck into the furnace's receiver, pulled the lever to dump the garbage cubes. Then she drove the truck to the lot, fastened her gas mask over her mouth and nose, and began the long walk to the dormitories.

In the darkness it was impossible to identify the faces behind the breathing masks--not that Rachel would have stopped to say hello to anyone. Instead, she kept her head held high and listened to the whir of the mask filtering out the ashes and toxins from the burning garbage.

She yanked open the metal door to the living quarters. Many of the workers were clustered in the common room, and they all looked up as she passed, glancing at her forehead. They started whispering. She stopped short and glowered at them. "You have something to say?"

"Power down, whore," a man laughed at her as he lounged on the couch.

"I am not a whore," Rachel growled. "I chose to have sex with someone I loved. This--" She jabbed her finger at the red mark tattooed on her forehead. "--Is a lie to reinforce the government propaganda!"

"Drop the entitled jabber," he sighed. "You're one of us now."

"Stop whining about things you can't change," the woman beside him mocked. "Poor Rachel, the evil government made her infertile, just like everyone fucking else."

Rachel lunged at the woman, but someone grabbed her, held her back. "Fuck you, Natasha!" she screamed, struggling against the restraining arms. "They took her away from me before she even had a chance to live!"

"You made that choice, you got yourself kicked out!" Natasha spat back, as the arms dragged Rachel away and shoved her into the bathroom. She fell hard onto the tire floor.

"Cool off," the man scoffed and shut the door.

Natasha lifted her hand to her face and found tears on her cheeks. She let out a shaky sigh. "Fuck you," she said, too late.