You are sitting on a box on a porch. The sun is full noon and the wind causes the wooden clackers to move (clack, clack, clack) with rhythmic beat.
Your box is white- your porch is white. Vining ivied blossoms climb the trellised porch walls. Flowers, blue as the sky and yellow as the sun, sit in black dirt, their wilting leaves brushing their white container.
Strangers on the street pass by you, call out greetings to each other. Their clothes are white- as white as the porch, as white as the sidewalk, as white as their skin is dark.
They tred on the grass- the perfect green grass, not a shade or hue deviated from the utter greenness that is the only shade of green that exists. Anomalies do exist of course- you’ve heard of them, the green grass turning to something that once was called yellow. It’s unnatural- even you agree with that, you, an anomaly yourself.
You are hot- steaming, literally watching the sun pause straight overhead. You ignore that, do your best to think of the grey walls that cover the inside of every house in the city, the walls that do not perspire but instead remain, never changing, stagnant-
No! They are not stagnant. Stagnant reflects a negative tone, gives claim to decay and parasites, creeping backwards in time to the place of chaos where colors were not certain and everything was different, varied, multihued pinwheeling entropies that gave claim to independence-
NO. Independence is good. You have independence- the choices surround you, comfort you, never overwhelm you with the craziness that once drove man to murder.
You see their point- the reason for their… Yes, you see that you are wrong, that your mind must be melted in this heat, melted so as to be reshaped, repaired with all of the cracks that leak and let in that which is wrong- wrong words, wrong answers.
Wrong DNA. Born different, not normal, not the same.
Born in a jungle, of all places, born the natural way (no, that is an archaic word, you know this- it is not natural, it is the chaotic, painful way), the bad way. Killing- no, murdering your mother, your cries alerting the enemy to your father.
You are wrong- born bad, completely- not made, made in a test tube- it shouldn’t have happened inside your mother- you shouldn’t have been allowed. But society does not murder, and so you were allowed, your parents told you would be cut out of the anesthetic cloud that floated over your mother.
You are wrong- you know this, looking at your pale skin, your blond-brown hair, your hazel eyes.
Different-wrong. Pale is wrong- not white or amber or golden or black but pale. Blond is bad- not golden. And blond-brown- every time you tell them you hair color, confirming what your identification card knows, every time you see their confusion turn to sneers- every time you ask them why they must live with you, why they cannot let you go, change you.
You know why, of course- you’re already unnatural. To place a chemical in your hair, a cream on your skin- to add genes to your genome.
They do not hate you- but to change you from unnatural to… bestial, to change your very self as they do with plants and animals, to make you more efficient- bestial cannot be ignored. Unnatural can.
Two acquaintances pass you by as they walk with all due speed, something you cannot yet manage. Walk- 5 miles per hour, run 10 miles per hour. A hurried rush, once in a while and don’t you dare let an Official catch you, is a nice steady 8 miles per hour.
One of them stops. The sight threatens to unleash something inside of you. He is older than you- always, always, always has a kind word for you. But it’s more than that. He is regulation; the word perfection hovers on the edge of your mind but that is why you are here and he is not. No body is perfect, only regulation.
It truly is more than that. He was made in a test tube, both parents alive and having two little sisters, their regulation bodies made unique by the fact that they came from one but were born two.
He is not you- he is you. Blond hair that is so close to yours but is in fact golden- skin that is golden as well, not in between but exact no chemicals involved. Eyes that are straight grey, not leaning towards one color, a stopped pendulum.
He speaks to you. “Do you wish to join us on our walk to the store?”
You look first at him, then at the other acquaintance. White skin, raven hair, regulation brown eyes. He appears to have no hesitation, no anger or worry.
You open your mouth, glad of the stock words of acceptance- you stop, shake your head and turn away.
You know you are being rude- you know that you should decline politely with the truth. But the truth hurts you, makes you ache on the inside.
They walk away, still regulation with your rudeness, your nonregulation answer. You stare at the bucket that rests against the house, ready for the pump; stare at anywhere but their retreating backs. Feeling rebellious, you leave the porch and fill it up, returning with water on your clothes, just another sign that you are wrong.
You stare into the water’s depths, a wasted luxury, words and conversations coming to your mind, drawn from the various pasts like dust being sucked up a vacuum.
“You may not ever have children.”
“We want you to accept yourself. You are not regulation and that is not all right. You are wrong- you must accept this with no hatred of society. This is not our fault.”
“We will be attempting to change you. Past studies have indicated that continuous exposure to heat enacts change in an organism. We shall see how this affects you.”
You stare at yourself, reminding yourself of the facts.
You are Unwanted- this is the name that beckons you to the dinner table, wakes you up in the morning with the regulation greeting. It is you in the truest sense, and so it is what you are called.
You have breathed the air for five years- five years of life, 60 months of time spent with tears and anger and sadness that makes your bones ache with the wrongness of the sorrow of being wrong.
You are not dressed in regulation white- only those who are normal may dress in white. Rather, you are dressed in black- the regulation mourning color, the sadness that you never really were, just simply someone else who you should never have been.
You are not allowed- you are not wanted. You are bad- evil.
You are not natural.
You are wrong.