A Hole in Time

The Hole - Chapter 20 - Birth Day

John and I collect our bags at the base of the stairs and walk out the door. The colourlessness is draining. Gray bags, filled with gray clothes, carried by gray-clad people, along a gray street, with gray houses and gray lamp posts. I am starting to notice the lack of colours around me. I look around at the gray mass of living robots and I marvel that they all look the same. They all have brown hair. The boys have really short hair and it never moves. The girls all have long brown hair and it just flows down their back. 

It strikes me that John and Scarlett are just as different from everyone else as Liam and I. They have blond hair and blue eyes. Everyone else has brown hair and brown eyes. It almost looks like Liam and I sucked the brownness out of our twins hair before we were born and that is the reason our hair is black. It is ironic. Our history books said that twins are normally the same, not able to be told apart. But now, it is the other way around. Everyone looks the same, but the only two sets of twins are the ones that look different.

I wonder why we do not learn history all year round. It is so interesting to learn about those that came before us and what happened before we came into the Dome. But then, that is probably why we do not learn is so much. We only study history for the first term every year and It is always the same as last year. Only the bad things about the Outside are taught in school. We never learn about all the good things that used to happen on the Outside. Like, people helping each other, or  parents taking care of their children. No, we learn about the wars and the problems, the famines and the droughts. What is that sentence in the beginning of my favourite history book? "Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it." I think that means that unless we learn the lessons of the ones that came before us, we could end up in a war that destroys the world. 

I stare at my feet for the long journey. Cutting straight through the centre of the Dome is faster than the walk Liam and I follow around the perimeter, but the pace of the others slows us down. We move at the same time, each foot going down at the same time, echoing through the empty street with a promise to shake the ground with the volume. I allow the steady beat to enter my bones, carrying me along, barely conscious of my own feet, thoroughly caught up in the motion of the group. I barely even notice when the ground beneath my feet turns brown. We have entered the Unionists area of the Dome. 

Everything here looks the same as it does in the Healers area, the only difference being the colour. Instead of gray, everything here is brown. Not a nice brown like the dirt in the field, but a sickly, washed out version of everyone's hair colour. It might have been a nice colour 15 generations ago, but now it looks terrible. The Hierarchy area of town looks very similar, only in black. Why did the Designers have to choose such horrible colours? Why could not something be green? Oh, I would really be happy if everything was green.

I catch myself smiling just as we reach the Hierarchy centre. It would not be good to be caught now, so I wipe my smile off my face and walk through the brown doors. I take my place in the line of Healers girls and find myself right behind Scarlett. The lines move rather fast and soon I am holding my new wardrobe. It is slightly heavier than the one I just gave back, but that will be because of my wedding outfit. I go quickly into the available rooms and change out of my special outfit. I dress in my new special outfit, basically the same, but there is a number on the sleeve that says 17. It must be to remind people that I will marry next year. 

I find and follow Scarlett out of the building, meeting up with John and Liam somewhere along the line, and we all rejoin the gray-clad mass to trudge home. I find myself wondering about the wedding outfit that is in the bag I am carrying. It will most likely be gray, but I wish it could be green. I wonder if I could somehow rub grass onto the outfit and colour it. I fell over on the grass once and I got a large green smudge on my pants. Maybe that would work. 

We get home a lot faster than we got to the Hierarchy centre. I want to talk to Liam, but that can wait for a few minutes. We have time to put our clothes away before we are allowed to go for a walk with our future spouse. I make myself walk slowly. I am eager to do a few things. First, look at the wedding outfit. Second, get my backpack so I can show Liam the equations. And third, I want to spend as much time as possible with Liam. 

When I get to my room, I empty the clothes onto my bed and then hang them up in my wardrobe. The school uniforms are the same as normal, so much so that I wonder why they make us change them. I stop when I see the wedding outfit. I think they used to call this a dress. It is almost like a long shirt. The sleeves are patterned like flowers, with spaces in-between the petals. The top half of it is fitted and covered with material like the sleeves. The bottom half is light and it flows from my hips. I wish I could try it on, but that would not be a good idea. I am happy about one thing. It is not gray. It is the colour of my paper. I think they called it white.