In Dystopian Future, 'Daughters' Fight Back
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story [2008-6-25]
Tag : metal canister
My name is Sister. This is the name that was given to me threeyears ago. It is what the others called me. It is what I callmyself. Before that, my name was unimportant. I can't remember itbeing used. I will not answer to it now, or hear myself say it outloud. I will not sign to acknowledge it. It is gone. You will callme Sister.
I was the last woman to go looking for Carhullan. It was a wetrotting October when I left. In the town the leaves had begun todrop and their yellow pulp lay on the ground. The last belts ofthunderstorms and downpours were passing through the Northernregion. Summer was on its way out. The atmosphere felt as if it wasfinally breaking apart, and at night and in the mornings somethingcooler had set in. It was a relief not to wake up sweating underthe sheet in our room in the terrace quarters, coming out of somehot night-mare with milky dampness on my chest. I have always sleptbetter in the winter. It feels like my pulse runs slower then. Thisfreshness seemed to cleanse the town too. The bacterial smell ofthe refinery and fuel plants began to disperse at night when theclouds thinned and the heat lifted. Each year after the CivilReorganisation summer's humidity had lasted longer, pushing thecolder seasons into a smaller section of the calendar, surroundingus constantly with the smog of rape and tar-sand burning off, andall of us packed tightly together like fish in a smoking shed. Thechange of temperature brought with it a feeling of excitement, analertness that went beyond nerves or the heightened awareness ofthe risks I knew I was taking. It was restorative. The coolreminded me of my childhood. Back then the weather had been moredistinct, separated. Some older people in the factory where Iworked said of all the English traditions to have been compromised,the weather was the saddest. As if there had been a choice of somekind, a referendum for these semi-tropics.
I still recall the fresh ticking of hail on my face in March as Istood to catch the bus for school. And autumn blusters, whenobjects large and small were bellowed back and forth. The deep-veinchill of January; my hands and feet numb under fleece and wool. Youdon't fear possibility when you are young. You don't believe theworld can really be broken or that anything terrible will happenduring your lifetime.
Even the rain is different now; erratic, violent, not the constantgrey drizzle of old postcards, jokes, and television reports. It'srain that feels wounded. There is seldom any snow on the fells,though people in the town look for it out of habit.
Where I was going the altitude was high, it was remote, and part ofme hoped that if I stayed there long enough I would see those whitedrifts again.
I left at dawn, so I could get out of Rith without being noticed.My rucksack was packed light enough to carry a long distance, thenon, up into the mountains. I was not bringing much away with meclothes, boots, some tins of food and squares of rusk, a canisterof water, a medical kit in case the regulator could be taken out ofme, though I didn't know if that would be possible. And I had anold Second World War rifle, packed between the jumpers andwaterproofs; its stunted barrel nuzzled against the top flap. Thiswas what I planned to bargain with at Carhullan.
I had hidden the bag in an alleyway behind our building theprevious night so I could get down the stairs without the extraweight, without bumping and scraping the walls on my descent. Itwas pushed into an alcove behind the main chamber of the rain tankwhere it was dark and dry. I'd put it there while the families inthe other quarters were eating dinner, and before my husband gotback from his shift, checking the void first with a stick to makesure there were no rats' nests.
In the early morning I left our bed without waking Andrew anddressed quietly in the communal bathroom. I'd stowed a plastic bagin the pocket of my trousers to collect the items I needed. Therewas a new packet of soap on the shelf belonging to the family inthe next room, and I took that too, slipping it into the bag withmy toothpaste, deodorant, a razor and some blades. I paused for amoment before opening the little medicine cabinet they used. Therewas some aspirin, a packet of sanitary towels, and a sachet ofpowder for treating cystitis that was long out of date. I gatheredthem up. Then I made my way along the hall and down the stairs.
Outside the door of the building I waited a minute or two to besure that Andrew had not heard me leaving, trying to be calm. Myheart was sending fast volleys of blood up through my chest. Icould feel the contact and back-turn of pulse in my fingertips. Itold myself it would be OK. In the last month I had trained myselfto wake early and had practised this departure. Always I'd made itout silently and safely, then I'd walked around the dark town,careful to avoid the patches where the feral dogs roamed, beforecoming home again. But this was not a dry run. I breathed deeply,blew the air out, and waited. The last thing I wanted was to haveAndrew following me down, calling me crazy, creating a fuss andwaking the people above. He would never have let me go off with apacked bag, out of the official zones, even though we were at oddsnow, hateful or silent towards each other.
I was tied to this building. He knew it, and I knew it. There wereno other options for us. And if he'd discovered me, he would havepulled me back upstairs, or held me down in the road as Istruggled, until a monitor from the Authority arrived, perhapsmaking an excuse for my behaviour, saying I was high, or had had anightmare. He would have told me to wait it out, saying no matterhow bad things were now, we could get through it, and then we couldpart company when everything was less fraught, less dangerous.
I leant on the terrace wall and listened for his footsteps thislast time. The only sound I could hear from above was the waspishhum of the energy meter on standby. I looked up. The sky was thedun colour of bitumen, like the shale turning in the vats at therefinery where Andrew worked. There was a white smear of moon, aridged and filmy ulcer in the lining of cloud. There were no lightson yet in Rith, and none would come on until the morning powerallotment at six, when people would have time to heat water andfood, and could watch the early news for bulletins from one of thefronts and the lottery numbers. By then I was planning to be longgone.
After a few minutes I went to the alley and collected my bag. Iknew I had to move quickly now, without over-thinking. Usually thetown was dead at this hour, but it was possible to run into anAuthority cruiser. The thought of it made me sick. I wouldn't standa chance of explaining myself to them. And I didn't want tocontemplate what I was doing, and falter in it, though I was surenow that I would not. Not after the last few weeks. I walkedthrough the town, away from the combined residences, past the oldshopping centre with its boarded windows, and the turbine warehousewhere the metal hulls were stacked up waiting for dispatch, as theyhad been for years. The streets were deserted and everything wasquiet. Only the glaze of the old red masonry, the slates, and thetarmac reflected any light, showing a version of the settlementthat seemed ghostly and unmodern.
It was hard to imagine all the people behind the bricks, sleepingtwo and three to a room, or lying awake, talking softly so as notto disturb the other families. Some of them crying, being comfortedor ignored. Some not caring who heard them through the walls,pushing away from a sore body as the hits of cheap ephedrine beganto wear off. Each time I had ventured out in preparation, thesedawns seemed to have an atmosphere of reduction, as if there hadbeen a cull, not a condensing of the people.
On the end of each row of terraces were the silhouettes of meters,small buzzing cysts that had been designed to read the flow ofenergy from photovoltaic tiles. Now, they were being used toregulate consumption from the old domestic power grid. There hadbeen few improvements made after Reorganisation. The ten-yearrecovery plan was becoming a hopeless myth. It was hard not to lookbehind me, back the way I had come, to see if there was anyonethere, following, or just watching me go. I made myself not turnround. I told myself the best way for me to keep going was to givemy eyes one simple option forward.
There was a soft crackle in the sky and the drag of thunder to thewest. I knew it would rain sometime soon, that I'd have to stop andput on my waterproofs. But I could not afford to pause while I wasstill inside the perimeter. Maybe later, when I was clear of theplace and warm from the walk, I would strip down. I knew that Iwould dry more quickly than my clothing.
For years I had not been out of Rith. No civilian had, unless theywere being transported to a detention centre. The zones did notallow for transference. The original register bound people to theirareas at the time of the collapse. Only government agents and theAuthority had any need to travel, or the means to do it, and thenit was usually by train.
It was my hometown and I was familiar with the surroundings thesteep streets and welter of roofs, the Beacon Hill, and opposite,on a twin tor, the castle. I kept on, along the old motorwayflyover. Beneath it were heaps of scrap and rubbish, and I couldhear rustling animal sounds. Past the settlement border, in thelower areas, the roads had deteriorated. They were much worse thanI had imagined. In their years of redundancy they had sagged andrucked. Whole sections had been pulled away by the floods. Theyfelt loose underfoot, like scree. In places there were smallcraters full of rainwater; I stumbled into them, soaking mytrousers up over my boots to the knee. I realised it was true whatpeople said at the factory and in quarter meetings. Nothing wasbeing repaired except the arterial routes used by the Authority.
To begin with I jogged where I could, concentrating hard so as notto trip or turn an ankle, and pacing myself for what would be along hard day. After half an hour I reached the rise where thewhite tollhouse stood. Its windows were out and the roof had givenat one of the gables. I remembered from a local history lesson thatit had been burnt down twice by the Scots, then rebuilt. Now it wasalmost a ruin again. The owners must have long since moved intoRith, with all the other outer-lying residents.
Down the hill, a little further on, the old Yanwath traffic bridgewas still intact. I had driven over it many times before the travelban. The signal that had once controlled it was dead; the glasslights black with dirt and its post askew in its concrete bed.Where the road dipped down before rising to the bridge's abutment,water pooled and eddied. There was debris afloat in it, mostlyindistinguishable, perhaps lumps of render from the housesupstream. I forded it, walked to the middle of the span and peeredover the parapet. Below, the river Eden was brown and swollen andslipping past with frightening speed. In the half-dark I saw thebright movement of its edges, the backwash of white caps andwhirlpools. It had broken its banks in the rains, spilling into theditches and gardens on either side. I could hear the lower branchescreaking as the trees along its sides were stripped of leaves.
The cottages next to the bridge were window-deep in the current.There was a strong odour of wet mortar, fabric and silt. It was thefamiliar smell of flooded homes; the riverbed slurrying up housewalls, rotting curtains and carpets. It was the smell I had wokento over a decade ago, when I had come downstairs to find my housefull of litter and sewage.
"I knew the road on the other side of the bridge led away through asmall empty village, into the green abandoned wilds of what used tobe national parkland — the place my father's generation hadcalled the Lake District."
My name is Sister. This is the name that was given to me threeyears ago. It is what the others called me. It is what I callmyself. Before that, my name was unimportant. I can't remember itbeing used. I will not answer to it now, or hear myself say it outloud. I will not sign to acknowledge it. It is gone. You will callme Sister.
I was the last woman to go looking for Carhullan. It was a wetrotting October when I left. In the town the leaves had begun todrop and their yellow pulp lay on the ground. The last belts ofthunderstorms and downpours were passing through the Northernregion. Summer was on its way out. The atmosphere felt as if it wasfinally breaking apart, and at night and in the mornings somethingcooler had set in. It was a relief not to wake up sweating underthe sheet in our room in the terrace quarters, coming out of somehot night-mare with milky dampness on my chest. I have always sleptbetter in the winter. It feels like my pulse runs slower then. Thisfreshness seemed to cleanse the town too. The bacterial smell ofthe refinery and fuel plants began to disperse at night when theclouds thinned and the heat lifted. Each year after the CivilReorganisation summer's humidity had lasted longer, pushing thecolder seasons into a smaller section of the calendar, surroundingus constantly with the smog of rape and tar-sand burning off, andall of us packed tightly together like fish in a smoking shed. Thechange of temperature brought with it a feeling of excitement, analertness that went beyond nerves or the heightened awareness ofthe risks I knew I was taking. It was restorative. The coolreminded me of my childhood. Back then the weather had been moredistinct, separated. Some older people in the factory where Iworked said of all the English traditions to have been compromised,the weather was the saddest. As if there had been a choice of somekind, a referendum for these semi-tropics.
I still recall the fresh ticking of hail on my face in March as Istood to catch the bus for school. And autumn blusters, whenobjects large and small were bellowed back and forth. The deep-veinchill of January; my hands and feet numb under fleece and wool. Youdon't fear possibility when you are young. You don't believe theworld can really be broken or that anything terrible will happenduring your lifetime.
Even the rain is different now; erratic, violent, not the constantgrey drizzle of old postcards, jokes, and television reports. It'srain that feels wounded. There is seldom any snow on the fells,though people in the town look for it out of habit.
Where I was going the altitude was high, it was remote, and part ofme hoped that if I stayed there long enough I would see those whitedrifts again.
I left at dawn, so I could get out of Rith without being noticed.My rucksack was packed light enough to carry a long distance, thenon, up into the mountains. I was not bringing much away with meclothes, boots, some tins of food and squares of rusk, a canisterof water, a medical kit in case the regulator could be taken out ofme, though I didn't know if that would be possible. And I had anold Second World War rifle, packed between the jumpers andwaterproofs; its stunted barrel nuzzled against the top flap. Thiswas what I planned to bargain with at Carhullan.
I had hidden the bag in an alleyway behind our building theprevious night so I could get down the stairs without the extraweight, without bumping and scraping the walls on my descent. Itwas pushed into an alcove behind the main chamber of the rain tankwhere it was dark and dry. I'd put it there while the families inthe other quarters were eating dinner, and before my husband gotback from his shift, checking the void first with a stick to makesure there were no rats' nests.
In the early morning I left our bed without waking Andrew anddressed quietly in the communal bathroom. I'd stowed a plastic bagin the pocket of my trousers to collect the items I needed. Therewas a new packet of soap on the shelf belonging to the family inthe next room, and I took that too, slipping it into the bag withmy toothpaste, deodorant, a razor and some blades. I paused for amoment before opening the little medicine cabinet they used. Therewas some aspirin, a packet of sanitary towels, and a sachet ofpowder for treating cystitis that was long out of date. I gatheredthem up. Then I made my way along the hall and down the stairs.
Outside the door of the building I waited a minute or two to besure that Andrew had not heard me leaving, trying to be calm. Myheart was sending fast volleys of blood up through my chest. Icould feel the contact and back-turn of pulse in my fingertips. Itold myself it would be OK. In the last month I had trained myselfto wake early and had practised this departure. Always I'd made itout silently and safely, then I'd walked around the dark town,careful to avoid the patches where the feral dogs roamed, beforecoming home again. But this was not a dry run. I breathed deeply,blew the air out, and waited. The last thing I wanted was to haveAndrew following me down, calling me crazy, creating a fuss andwaking the people above. He would never have let me go off with apacked bag, out of the official zones, even though we were at oddsnow, hateful or silent towards each other.
I was tied to this building. He knew it, and I knew it. There wereno other options for us. And if he'd discovered me, he would havepulled me back upstairs, or held me down in the road as Istruggled, until a monitor from the Authority arrived, perhapsmaking an excuse for my behaviour, saying I was high, or had had anightmare. He would have told me to wait it out, saying no matterhow bad things were now, we could get through it, and then we couldpart company when everything was less fraught, less dangerous.
I leant on the terrace wall and listened for his footsteps thislast time. The only sound I could hear from above was the waspishhum of the energy meter on standby. I looked up. The sky was thedun colour of bitumen, like the shale turning in the vats at therefinery where Andrew worked. There was a white smear of moon, aridged and filmy ulcer in the lining of cloud. There were no lightson yet in Rith, and none would come on until the morning powerallotment at six, when people would have time to heat water andfood, and could watch the early news for bulletins from one of thefronts and the lottery numbers. By then I was planning to be longgone.
After a few minutes I went to the alley and collected my bag. Iknew I had to move quickly now, without over-thinking. Usually thetown was dead at this hour, but it was possible to run into anAuthority cruiser. The thought of it made me sick. I wouldn't standa chance of explaining myself to them. And I didn't want tocontemplate what I was doing, and falter in it, though I was surenow that I would not. Not after the last few weeks. I walkedthrough the town, away from the combined residences, past the oldshopping centre with its boarded windows, and the turbine warehousewhere the metal hulls were stacked up waiting for dispatch, as theyhad been for years. The streets were deserted and everything wasquiet. Only the glaze of the old red masonry, the slates, and thetarmac reflected any light, showing a version of the settlementthat seemed ghostly and unmodern.
It was hard to imagine all the people behind the bricks, sleepingtwo and three to a room, or lying awake, talking softly so as notto disturb the other families. Some of them crying, being comfortedor ignored. Some not caring who heard them through the walls,pushing away from a sore body as the hits of cheap ephedrine beganto wear off. Each time I had ventured out in preparation, thesedawns seemed to have an atmosphere of reduction, as if there hadbeen a cull, not a condensing of the people.
On the end of each row of terraces were the silhouettes of meters,small buzzing cysts that had been designed to read the flow ofenergy from photovoltaic tiles. Now, they were being used toregulate consumption from the old domestic power grid. There hadbeen few improvements made after Reorganisation. The ten-yearrecovery plan was becoming a hopeless myth. It was hard not to lookbehind me, back the way I had come, to see if there was anyonethere, following, or just watching me go. I made myself not turnround. I told myself the best way for me to keep going was to givemy eyes one simple option forward.
There was a soft crackle in the sky and the drag of thunder to thewest. I knew it would rain sometime soon, that I'd have to stop andput on my waterproofs. But I could not afford to pause while I wasstill inside the perimeter. Maybe later, when I was clear of theplace and warm from the walk, I would strip down. I knew that Iwould dry more quickly than my clothing.
For years I had not been out of Rith. No civilian had, unless theywere being transported to a detention centre. The zones did notallow for transference. The original register bound people to theirareas at the time of the collapse. Only government agents and theAuthority had any need to travel, or the means to do it, and thenit was usually by train.
It was my hometown and I was familiar with the surroundings thesteep streets and welter of roofs, the Beacon Hill, and opposite,on a twin tor, the castle. I kept on, along the old motorwayflyover. Beneath it were heaps of scrap and rubbish, and I couldhear rustling animal sounds. Past the settlement border, in thelower areas, the roads had deteriorated. They were much worse thanI had imagined. In their years of redundancy they had sagged andrucked. Whole sections had been pulled away by the floods. Theyfelt loose underfoot, like scree. In places there were smallcraters full of rainwater; I stumbled into them, soaking mytrousers up over my boots to the knee. I realised it was true whatpeople said at the factory and in quarter meetings. Nothing wasbeing repaired except the arterial routes used by the Authority.
To begin with I jogged where I could, concentrating hard so as notto trip or turn an ankle, and pacing myself for what would be along hard day. After half an hour I reached the rise where thewhite tollhouse stood. Its windows were out and the roof had givenat one of the gables. I remembered from a local history lesson thatit had been burnt down twice by the Scots, then rebuilt. Now it wasalmost a ruin again. The owners must have long since moved intoRith, with all the other outer-lying residents.
Down the hill, a little further on, the old Yanwath traffic bridgewas still intact. I had driven over it many times before the travelban. The signal that had once controlled it was dead; the glasslights black with dirt and its post askew in its concrete bed.Where the road dipped down before rising to the bridge's abutment,water pooled and eddied. There was debris afloat in it, mostlyindistinguishable, perhaps lumps of render from the housesupstream. I forded it, walked to the middle of the span and peeredover the parapet. Below, the river Eden was brown and swollen andslipping past with frightening speed. In the half-dark I saw thebright movement of its edges, the backwash of white caps andwhirlpools. It had broken its banks in the rains, spilling into theditches and gardens on either side. I could hear the lower branchescreaking as the trees along its sides were stripped of leaves.
The cottages next to the bridge were window-deep in the current.There was a strong odour of wet mortar, fabric and silt. It was thefamiliar smell of flooded homes; the riverbed slurrying up housewalls, rotting curtains and carpets. It was the smell I had wokento over a decade ago, when I had come downstairs to find my housefull of litter and sewage.
"I knew the road on the other side of the bridge led away through asmall empty village, into the green abandoned wilds of what used tobe national parkland — the place my father's generation hadcalled the Lake District."
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