They Shoot Handmaids, Don't They?

My name is June Osbourne. I was a writer. I was an editor. I was a wife and mother. I was a Handmaid of Gilead.

Aside from the last, I hope to be all of those things again one day. There's something I need to do first, though. I need to record the story of my escape from the so-called Independent Republic of Gilead for all those who care. I may not know anything else about you, dear scholar, but if you're reading this, you care.

The first thread in my most important weave came as I lay on my bed in the attic room I had been confined to by Mrs. Waterford, more commonly known amongst Our Manifest Superiors as Serena Joy. That was not her real name, of course, any more than my real name was Offred. I never did learn what she went by before. But that was what we were called, on pain of- well, pain.

My first assignment as a two-legged womb was with Commander Fred Waterford and his wife Serena. I was repeatedly told, by many people, that I should appreciate being taken in by two of the most valiant heroes of the Righteous Revolution. The Waterfords were the archetypical Gileadan couple, the High King and High Queen of this brave new world. I doubt they believed me when I assured them that my gratitude knew no bounds.

That background should help you understand (especially if you're reading this in a normal country) how I came to be imprisoned in an unlocked room in a house of horrors, one of many lining the pleasant, shady streets of a city of horrors. The specifics of what I did to incur Mrs. Waterford's wrath aren't important. I did, and the word of the Wife of the House was sufficient to prevent me from daring to creep an inch past the threshold.

The shutters that had been installed over my windows to protect me from jumping to my death allowed in slivers of light, slivers I used to mark the passage of time. On the second day, I broke off a chunk smaller than my pinky nail from the front window. It became my keyhole to the world.

When I tired of peering through it on the third day, I took to wearing a groove into the floorboards. I paced until dizziness forced me to sit with my head between my knees.

The fifth day is when time starts disappearing. A few moments I can recall with HD clarity, but it's hard to connect them across the gulfs of static. I remember tracing lopsided shapes on dusty surfaces, clapping and giggling like a child. I remember being fascinated by individual hairs on my arm. I remember getting down on my hands and knees and putting my nose an inch from the floor as I rubbed at the seams between the boards.

Based on what I've managed to put together, it was most likely the tenth day that I decided to explore every centimeter of the inside of my closet. That was where I found the words carved next to the doorframe, just above the floor. "Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum."

I didn't even know what the words meant at the time, yet they are what saved me from poop-flinging idiocy. I could sense the defiance they had been invested with. It bled from each crude gash and soaked into the woodwork. The message must have been put there by the Waterfords' previous handmaid, the woman who had hung herself from the now-absent chandelier that had hung over our bed. The mere act of putting it here, where it would be seen only by another desperate handmaid, signaled its intent.

I reached out with a wobbly finger and picked at the sawdust still clinging to the edges of the letters, tangible evidence of how little time had passed before she was replaced. That's one of my HD moments. What could she have used to carve them? Handmaids are watched closely around weapons, more to prevent us from doing exactly what this one did than out of fear of escape.

I was thinking about that as I lay on the bed, working a splinter out of my fingertip. Maybe that's why the thought occurred to me. Maybe it was because my brain, starved for stimulation, had begun to do new and strange things with everything around me. All I can tell you is that as I gazed at the disused fireplace across the room, just as I had done a thousand times before, I saw something different. I saw the brittle antique mortar between the bricks. When I scratched at it, it came away as a fine powder.