Ugly Fruits and Vegetables

Aisha

I like living obliviously. There's a blissful sense of beauty in ignorance. Everyone can live in peace if they ignore all their problems - ignore the bruises that still occur, ignore the blasphemy yelled across walls that aren't thick enough to hide people's sins.

Everyone can still smile on the surface, just like what our government wants.

"Where are you going?" My first mother asks as I de-stem one last strawberry with a straw and place it into a container.

"The Library."

She sighs and runs her fingers through her dense curls, her sleeves sliding down involuntary, revealing fresh bruises blossoming across her forearms.

I give her a weak smile and throw the straw in the bin. "I'll be home before dark."

She nods absentmindedly and hastily pulls her sleeves over her hands as I swiftly exit through the glass doors of our home before she could ask any more questions.

It was a pity that I heard them last night. My second mother was angry that she found me crying in my room after my first mother scolded me for swimming yesterday. Usually I don't care about their arguments because it hurts when I care. But last night was different. Their yells were louder... and they were arguing about me.

I always thought they loved me. That's what we were taught at school, and that's what the government tells us every time we turn on the TV. Offsprings in Zenobia are always wanted. We are planned. We are never an accident... unlike before.

Maybe I wasn't what they expected, or maybe the experience of parenthood required far more responsibility than they expected. Either way, the reason I was here was certainly not because I was wanted.

Everyone here lies and I realised that to stop getting hurt I needed to lie too. Although lying can be suffocating so I try my best to tell half-truths instead. Like today.

The Library is located near the edge of the border which we call The Wall. Everyone stayed away from it which made it a perfect place for people like me. But today, the crumbling walls of the building didn't look as appealing as the lush trees of the Forest. The government decided to plant hundreds of trees before The Wall in a feeble attempt to hide it and they called it the Forest of Eve.

Before I could question my sanity, my feet had already made the decision to walk past the Library and into the serenity of the Forest.

"Que será, será," I smile as I run my hands across the smooth branches of the trees, lifting them up to remove them from my path.

"Whatever will be, will be..." I sing louder as I get closer to The Wall. To anyone who might be exploring the Forest, it would seem like I was just a stupid teenager singing carelessly, but to us, it was a signal.

"The future's not ours to see..." My smile widens as I spot the grey bricks stacked upon each other in a haphazard pattern that reached to the sky. It's an excessively intimidating sight; one that's meant to ward off the other in an attempt to divide the population.

I'd be lying if I said that it didn't stir the same fear in me as when I first saw it, but, there's a growing sense of giddiness spreading through my chest that seems to overcome the former fear.

"Que será, será..." I touch the rough surface of the bricks, feeling for the loose one that Nadir knocked off the first time we met. My fingers snag on the edge of one that is slightly poking out from the rest, and I pull, dislodging it from the Wall.

"Whatever will be, will be."

A gasp escapes my lips as his pale arm, sprinkled with chocolate patches, shoots through the gap bringing along a burst of colour in the form of a flower. It takes me a few seconds to realise that the gift is for me and I bite back a giggle as I take the flower from his fingers.

"What's this?"

Although beautiful, the smell is something to behold. The scent is pungent and sharp, halfway unpleasant, halfway alluring.

"A marigold".

My eyes widen as I see a note attached to the stem of the flower.

"Why a marigold?" I whisper as I tug the note off, my heart thumping loudly in my chest as I quickly unfold it. "It looks like a sunset."

"Yeah...and it reminds me of you."

I scoff at his response, my cheeks uncontrollably glowing at what I assume is a compliment.

His writing is surprisingly neat and can almost be labelled as feminine...but my amusement disappears as I read the words:

I'm in love with you.