I was back home over the holidays and finally went through some old boxes. I found this old story I wrote for a class in college 12+ years ago. Pretty dark for me, even then, and kinda nonsensical, but I thought it was fun enough to be worth digitizing and sharing.
It is the 164th day after christmas and I am sitting in my cell with the taste of cranberries in my mouth. Every day is cranberries, gelatinous in their slime. They come in by the truckload, overstock of the grocery stores, the product of overproduction on the part of the company that makes them and shortness of demand on the part of the consumers. I wouldn't eat them, but for the taste of the food we are served otherwise, which is equally as appalling. The combined flavor is too much, but enough to keep my mind occupied for a short while. At least it's better than fruitcake, I tell myself. We've all heard the stories of transferred inmates from other production camps, the ones where they make the food people feel is needed on the shelves but that almost no one eats. There they get the first loads of overstock product of their hands, now fuel to continue the process. Here we only get cranberries. The fruitcake is burned for heat.
From my cell, I see out the large plate glass windows to the production facility and beyond that to the packaging and distribution centers. The windows are large to allow as much light as possible to come into the Hold. This far north we're lucky to get a fews hours of sunlight a day, and keeping the cost of heating and lighting down is paramount, not that we get much of either. I can still see workers making their way back to their holds from the cafeteria, hidden from this viewpoint beyond the distribution center, all wearing the uniform of a worker: green boots made from recycled fake christmas trees and wreaths; brownish pants of recycled nonsense; a green coat, the outer material made at the same camp as the boots and stuffed with shredded wrapping paper; and hat of more of the same thing. Cold as it is outside, we generally leave the uniform on at all times. The combined rustling of it's wrapping paper stuffing and the tinsel stuffing of our blankets was almost unbearable.
I go and sit down on the edge of my bed and repeatedly run my index and middle finger over the splintered edge of the squat maple bookshelf. It's comforting to me to feel the imperfection over and over again. My last cellmate caused the splintering, broke of a whole corner actually. He didn't like wood, thought it was unnatural. I've worn it mostly smooth after that first cautious touch I made that day, fascinated at how the material is made of small fibers that make up the grain that make up the wood and make it strong. I can only imagine how one would assemble something as sturdy when I can see no interlocking pieces or evidence of glue. It must be incredibly old.
My grandfather could have told me how it was made, I'm sure. I used to love to sit with him and listen to the same stories his grandfather told him as a boy. He must have been well over 10 years old, but still strong enough to pick me up and to laugh. He died soon after, young for his age and not old enough to go. Years later I was surprised to learn from various books, the few old enough that still exist outside of private collections, that dying at age 136 would have been absurd only 100 years ago, when the average life expectancy was somewhere around 80. I've heard that it's about the same now, actually, but the statisticians aren't allowed to publish the number of suicides.
The bookshelf holds only two books of interest to me: one is a collection of British plays and the other is a book called the Bible. The first reminds me of my mother and the second helps me sleep. My mother was a college grad, creative writing major, and she loved the theater. We used to go to plays in the city when I was younger. She would dress up and take my hand and not let go until we had reached the theater. The scent of her perfume transferred from the touch of our hands would lull me to sleep when I was a young child.
I pick up the worn volume and turn it over in my hands. It's the old kind of binding, classic, almost like a tight fabric is glued to the board underneath. It's frayed and somewhat fuzzy and it tugs on the rough, caloused skin of my hands. I open it to the bookmark, The Importance of Being Earnest. It was the last play I saw with my mother. She hated it and so I hated it. Not that I understood why at the time. All she ever said about it was that she goes to plays ot escape reality, not watch it.
But then she died. Was killed, rather. A riot, complete with burning santas. My father drove me home from the hospital to our small two bedroom apartment. It could barely be considered furnished, but I loved it dearly despite the fact, especially the wood floors. I used ot get splinters all the time, til I decided that wearing shoes could solve the problem. I never hated the floor for its age, though. It made the most delightful squeaking sounds. Dreadful and delightful
Those were the last sounds I heard my father make. Right after I love you and during his last step before the floor turned to carpet outside the door. I never heard his name mentioned again.
I was 17 when I took part in my first riot, a little under a year after I lost my parents. A car exploded and glass embedded itself in my left thigh just below the hip and between my last two ribs. We couldn't go the hospitals, our faces were public, so I still walk with a limp and have trouble breathing. It's worse when it's cold. That's why I moved up here, I joke. Had to keep up the christmas spirit, we all joke. Every day is cranberries here.
I've read Earnest a few times since and I understand now why my mother hated it. It was life: fake and broken. I used to say it would never get this bad. I dealt with 34% unemployment, the absurd socioeconomic gap, and my friends and neighbors living in poverty with smiles on their faces. But then independent groups, while there was still such a thing, released the Numbers.
The Numbers changed everything. They became the myth, the truth, the curse word that became a slap on the wrist with handcuffs and a bag over your head. The Numbers went way back. Generations. We know there was a recession, worse than any before. Someone somewhere knows why, but they're probably eating cranberries right now too. At any rate, somewhere someone thought that the collective psyche of the States was the cause. The christmas spirit had been spreading slowly for decades and soon it was decided it was the cure. Christmas all the time. Christmas everywhere.
People bought. People gifted. The economy thrived. Millionaires were made overnight. People were happy. Unemployment went down. Homelessness was eliminated. Monopolies made for cheaper goods and were allowed. Recycling became the biggest export of the States. Packaging the biggest import. Wrapping paper was as valuable as gold. The petroleum needed to make it sent prices soaring. Shipping and travel became impossible. Oil resources worldwide dried up. The war started. The lines between the manufacturers and the States became more and more hazy. The word "power" exited the mouths on the TV and manifested itself in high ROI. Unemployment soared. People were devastated. Millions went hungry. Millions more died or killed themselves. The economy collapsed. Gifting became regifting. Buying became obsolete. The outward appearance of happiness became more important than putting food on the table. The economy collapsed. People stopped having kids. People stopped going to school.
When the cost of importing goods became too high, so did the cost of recycling. Waste was disposed of. Twelve short years folowing the Second Recession, marine life was mostly extinct. Drinking water was deemed unsafe in urban areas. Disease became epidemic in many parts of the world. Somehow, some semblance of life remained for most humans, however. Routine became routine, as it does, and though the fear of Santa Claus coming down the chimney at any second became as real as clowns are terrifying, causing childhood disorders of all kinds, the emptiness society concealed became the only thing holding it together. It had held for over 100 years, but everything has a breaking point. That's when I threw my first brick through a Macy's window.
Now it's cranberries. Cranberries and toys, for that's what we do here, here in the North. We supply society's poison, the very thing we all fought to destroy, at costs low enough to keep the collective shit of the world together. For now at least. For now I will sit and polish the bookcase in the corner with my own hands. For now I will read as one age's farce becomes another age's spitting image. For now I will remember.
I remember the frosts vividly. It was beautiful in the mornings when on my way to school I would walk across the grass field in front of my house, my backpack full and my mothers goodbyes behind me. The way it leached the color and life from each blade, soothing each in preparation for what was to come. It would crunch and depress beneath my feet and I would leave tracks so that I could see where I came from. On clear mornings I would stop and listen to the soft rustling made as the many lives I had trod on pushed back towards the morning sun and pretend I was the only one around. I remember the intense concentration I felt on those mornings, the distraction, and the detachment.
For now I will remember this. For now I will live.