{Down with the Shine} (Scourge)

I a g o
I z a r – M c C l a i n e

•••

{What is important}
{What's really important}
{Am I not to know by my name}
{Will I ever know silence without mental violence}
{With a ringing it might go away}

•••

How can you tell a good man from a bad one?

[/color] We toss about the terms as though they’re so easy to distinguish, this good[/color] and others bad[/color]. The easy way out is to say that it’s relative—you can’t so much as distinguish between the good and the bad inasmuch as the situation tells. Like a dog to its vomit, a bad man can't keep himself away.[/color] My father tells me this today as we go through the record books of the crops that have been brought into the silo. He has been given the very important job of counting and recounting. He marks the numbers in a big leather tome with a cursive script. Names dot the edges—men and women from the district—and their haul from fields for the day. He sums up the totals, his fingers sliding down the yellowed pages until he reaches the bottom. He scratches a number before licking his thumb and reaching to flick to the second page.

If you’re always changing your mind, how you ever going to firm up?[/color] He says this to me. I’ve spent the last few months helping him to count and recount the crops. I used to talk to the men and women as they brought in their keep, but my father warned me against this. The lot of them will get chatty because they want to get to know you. Let them get too close and they’ll think that you’re friends. And the last thing you want to do is give the impression that you’ll bend the rules for anyone. I watch the men with their dirty yellow nails and the women with sweat hanging off their upper lips as they parse through the facility. They don’t even seem particularly brave. Most of them stare down at the floor when I catch their gaze. It’s rather pathetic. Being submissive won’t get you anywhere in this life, other than a coffin.

Today my father caught a man cheating on his deliveries. He had gone through several weeks of records and found that the numbers simply didn’t add up. He went over them a few times with his nose pressed against the page. Clicking his tongue, he drew his pencil and scribbled notes on the margin of the page. I sat back against the wall and helped lead people in and out of the causeway. He called me over to give the numbers a second look. I stood for just a moment, and hunched over the pages. If I agreed with him, the man would certainly be taken away by peacekeepers for cheating the capitol. A lesser boy would’ve ran with his tail between his legs and refused. Not me, though. Those that break the rules must be punished.[/color] How are we to survive if one of us keeps too much for ourselves? When I glanced at the figures on a single page I could see already he’d reported too few and then far too many—an obvious cheat. I glanced up from the page to my father and nodded my head. He’s guilty,[/color] I said, the words flicking off my tongue and into the air.

My father let out a heavy sigh and crossed his arms across his chest. It’s the same sort of sigh he gets when he sees the farm hands sitting on their butts, not plucking fruit or cotton in the fields. It wasn’t long after that he told me to go—he wouldn’t let me stay around to see what was going to happen. Not that it’s a secret. The man would be given a chance to tell my father what had happened and why the numbers were wrong. Then he’d be placed in handcuffs and dragged away to the justice building for questioning. People probably wouldn’t see him again for a long, long time. It was admirable that my father had the strength to make things right. I imagine a lot of men wouldn’t be able to do the job he does with any sort of efficiency.

I start out along the road heading further out of town. We live closer to the edge, where life looks as though it’s just about to drop off into nothing. Our house is a big old white wooden paneled thing, with blue shutters and a copper plated roof. A few lengths from that is the general store, and after is when the road turns from asphalt into gravel and dirt. I don’t usually go much further than that because the people out that way aren’t much to talk to. The only time I ever head out towards the big farms is when we have to go see my cousins, but we haven’t seen them since Benat’s funeral. My mother did the most she was to do, being the only one of us that’s a full Izar. I clomp my boots down on the wood before opening the screen door of the store. It lets out a shriek as I amble inside.

I take a small basket and start filling it up with what we need. A jar of preserves for the pie my mother will make later, a bag of flour, two cans of beets, potatoes, carrots, and a hefty slice of bread. I stop to eye the canned meat products. My mother swears by making food with the squishy spam—a product of some backward pig farmers in district 10 no doubt—but I can hardly stomach the stuff. I spend a good bit of time debating whether or not to take a can. On the one hand, my mother would be peeved, on the other, I wouldn’t have to force the moist meat down my gullet. I shrug my shoulders and let out a sigh. I brush back some hair and squint as a shadow falls over the can I’ve grabbed.

“Do you mind?” I say with a start. Probably not, they never do.[/color] I put a hand on my hip and turn to face the—no doubt in my mind—rough handed districter blocking my light. “Some of us are trying to shop.”[/blockquote][/size][/justify]