Birds and pennies

Siddhi: Part 1

The rich get richer and the poor got poorer. That was a phrase that I heard too often in our war torn country. The aftermath of a war was not pretty, especially the society that had come out of it. We stood divided, the rich had a small bird tattooed on them just above their collarbone to symbolise freedom. The middle class had circles tattooed on their necks and finally the poor has three small vertical lines just above the collarbone to symbolise a prison. The rich were nicknamed the heirs, the middle the mids and the poor were the pennies.

Siddhi

I looked down at the ratty shoes I wore, I had no money to buy new ones. "Oi, penny" a man screamed at me in the middle of the street and started making rude gestures. Penny was slang for the poor. The mids and the heirs liked to belittle us, they were fortunate. I was supposed to be starting work today. A maid. Thats what all pennies became. Why would they care about the name of a penny? My name is Siddhi. I'm not even sure where my name came from. I walked down the cobbled street face down. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the worse off on the street, their clothes torn up and faces ragged. I kept walking faster and kept up my pace, this was the shadier part of town, I'd heard all too many stories of women being raped here and god forbid if you thought you had any power and reported it to the Yaats. The Yaats were the secret police, well not that secret. They were our guards, they were put there to apparently keep us safe. When women reported rapes and sexual assault, all they did was throw you in prison and then there the guards would rape you over and over again. It was a vicious cycle.
The country blamed women for everything, they blamed us for the war. Iravati was a woman who was once leader of this country. She was powerful, she had a way with words, that is until she drove our country into war. Our country starved for decades and then President Cane murdered her and took over. He reformed the country but he made sure Iravati's supporters paid for their crimes. He built the heir, mids and pennies system. The pennies had no voice. I looked at all the posters on the walls of this downtrodden street, most pennies lived her, I lived on the other side of town which was moderately better than this part. President Cane's face was plastered everywhere and he had a glassy stare. I finally reached the nicer part of town. Pennies had to travel by foot, we weren't allowed on public transport and the buses never really came through the poorer parts of town unless they really had to.
I finally got to the house where I was going to be their maid. The large black ivory like gate opened up for me and I didn't know what to feel. I dragged myself to the door and a girl my age answered. She was quite striking if i'm being honest. My mother hated heirs with a passion but how could I hate this girl who looked innocent? Maybe she wanted no part in the system. How would I know though? I only just met her.
"I'm Ayla, President Cane's granddaughter"

Of course, with my shit luck, of course I was the maid to the Cane family. How did I not recognise Cane's granddaughter?