Breathing In

Chapter 1

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Baton Rouge, Louisiana. "Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts"- Voltaire- He doesn't remember the bombs, but he can see the scars they left on the ground. The holes scatter the landscape like pockmarks, like blight. Signs of the disease that created him.

Sometimes they call him Dixie.

It's the only word the boy can remember, from his old life before he was surrounded by these towering fences. He thinks it could have been his dog; he remembers a very large dog. The others like new words, even if the words don't make sense or don't have any meaning that they know of. The men who own them named his sister "Jane" before she was adopted, but the boy likes the idea of creating his own name. They don't let him play and they barely let him speak, so it's the only thing he has.

The others treat him differently because of it...the boy has learned he can get things with words. He can trade them like currency for favors and toys, and all he has to do to keep a steady supply is listen to the men. He likes sitting there near their man house and listening to them talk, piecing together the noises they make with the words he knows until he figures out what they mean, like a puzzle. Once he has the words, he is rich. He can tell them to the others, and they give him things, but they also listen. He sounds smarter, like a man, when he says these expensive words. Someone who talks gets listened to.
No one else inside the fences knows as many words as him, but they know more things. Jojo knows things about the bombs...he says they came from Russians, during a war, and they destroyed houses and castles and kicked up so much dust that it's cloudy most days, even when it's hot.

Buddy knows things about the Collapse, when the king of America, whose name was The President, got chased away by people who were hungry because the bombs burnt all their food and the oil took all their money and left. The boy doesn't know what oil is but people say it a lot.

And everybody knows about being a rat. That's what they are, and it means doing what people tell you to, sitting behind a fence, and waiting for someone to adopt you. To be adopted means that a man will take you away, and Jojo says those men do bad, bad things to little boys and little girls. The boy dreams of never seeing pecans again.

A few men walk by the side of the fence, outside where none of the boys or girls are. This is not unusual; there are always men on the outside.

"You just... sell them?" one of them asks, glancing at the children. "Like dogs?"
      
The other man is the Black Haired Man; the boy recognizes him. He owns the boys... and the girls. He owns everything. "Well don't think of it like that," Black Haired Man chuckles. "We call it an adoption, and you'll be payin' an adoption fee. People take 'em into their homes and we...we just don't ask any questions. These kids got nothin' and nobody, anyways, since the government collapsed."
      
"Huh," the other man nods with a knowing look. "You know my own kids were at the park the day the president was chased out of the White House? His cars drove from DC like the devil was behind him right past their playground. Collapse was a terrible thing; no oil, then everyone on was out of work. Mailman was out of work, teacher was out of work, the neighbor was out of work. Everybody."
      
"Everybody except us," Black Haired Man grins, throwing his arm around his friend. "Traffickers get on just fine without the government."

The other one laughs. "Well you've always been the type to prosper in the anarchy, Oscar." He shifts his eyes around until they land on the boy, and then cocks his head in interest. "Is it true they can't talk?" he asks.
      
Black Haired Man nods and they stop right across the fence from the boy. "They know a few words. But we don't teach 'em sentences or anything... that way they can't talk back."
      
After a few moments of silence, his friend kneels down in front of the fence and stares at the boy, making him uncomfortable. He has to stand when the big men look at him, and it's awfully hot and buggy to stay standing doing nothing. "How old is the redhead?" the man calls back to Black Haired Man.
      
"Around eight," the trafficker shrugs. "But we get 'em young; don't know his exact age."