“We can’t be late tomorrow. We need to be ready to go as soon as we wake up.” There was more a sense of supplication in Mama's tone than there was sternness. We had to report to the MONOLITH charity building the next day to get medicine for Mama's illness. My sister and I climbed into bed. Mama kissed our foreheads.
“Hurry up! We will miss the train,” she shrieked the very next morning. Mama was tired. She was nearly bone thin from having to work through her illness. Up until that morning, Mama hadn’t been taking her medicine. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she couldn’t afford it.
‘THOSE WHO DO NOT WORK DO NOT EAT.’ That was one of the most recognizable slogans produced by MONOLITH. And it guided our conscience every day. Mama worked. She worked tirelessly. Two Jobs; one for rent, and one for our other necessities. She traded her life in for ours the day Dad died. She had to work, eat, and sleep. Nothing else; otherwise, MONOLITH would have taken us to the death house.
‘HOMELESSNESS IS NOT AN OPTION’ was featured on a big billboard. The sign couldn’t be ignored. It was enormous and plastered right outside the charity building door, almost as if to remind those down on their luck that their mortality hung on a thin line.
It was finally our day to see a charity representative for MONOLITH. By that point, Mama had been off of her medicine for a year. She had to pay rent to MONOLITH every month, and whatever was left over from two jobs’ earnings was set aside for groceries at the MONOLITH grocer. I'll never understand Mama's resolve; it must have been a mother's love for her children that propelled her tired feet forward. If you couldn’t pay rent, you’d be kicked out of your home, and according to MONOLITH’s laws, homeless people were sent to the death house.
“Please don’t say a word while we are here. Try to look happy,” Mama coached us as the heater from the building blasted away winter’s bites on our noses. Whispers in our community informed us that the charity workers would be more likely to help us if we smiled, but it wasn’t guaranteed.
Two years before, an illness broke out that killed Dad. Millions of people died or volunteered themselves to the death house to avoid the pain of the illness’ slow death. Mama fought the illness as long as she could, but she was starting to show the signs Dad did just before his passing.
When the illness emerged, MONOLITH coincidentally had medicine immediately available as well as a vaccine, but it was costly and required most people to take a second MONOLITH job to get it. Mama already had two MONOLITH jobs, though, so it was impossible for her to take on a third just for the medicine. That’s why we had to make haste; if we missed our chance to see a charity representative, we wouldn’t get another appointment for months, and the illness threatened to take Mama at any moment. If Mama died, no one would feed my sister and me. No one would pay our rent. We would have been taken to the death camps. That was the law; the MONOLITH couldn’t support people. You either had to work, or die.
The hallways in the charity building seemed endless to our malnourished legs. Mama trekked her way through shallow breaths. Her grip on our hands weakened with each step. Eventually, we made it to the counter.
"Good morning!” the charity worker chirped. Like most of her colleagues, the charity worker had full, beautiful hair and a perfectly polished presence. She smelled nice, too. Her clothes were pressed and it looked like this was her first time wearing them. That was when I noticed the stark contrast between people like me and the people of MONOLITH. She was an angel in front of a pack of dirty, ragged skeletons. She seemed to notice the difference, too; she looked at us as if we were grotesquely deformed creatures, like she would get dirty too if she stood close to us for too long.
The charity worker put on a brave face and spoke with us anyway. I was too young to remember the details fully, but I remember my mother explaining through a forced, on-the-verge-of-tears smile that she was a widowed mother with two jobs who needed access to medicine. The charity worker did her best to seem invested in Mama’s story. She even looked at my sister and me while taking a deep, sympathetic sigh, hand to her chest and all. This was for show, of course. The MONOLITH people could never understand. They were vaccinated from the illness. They never felt the sting of hunger at night. Their feet never blistered in worn-down shoes.
Mama must have been convincing enough. We must have smiled enough at the charity worker because she agreed to fill out the paperwork and file the forms for Mama to get her medicine at no cost. We were an anomaly; typically, the charity workers denied requests, but she thanked us and congratulated us for being so 'pleasant.'
We shuffled out of the charity building, our hearts a little lighter. There is no situation so grim that hope could ever be completely evaded, and for the first time in a long time we had hope.
It was only the next day that hope died. We were informed that Mama’s paperwork had a three-month-long bureaucratic wait time to process. Mama didn't dare contest; they might deny the process if she was perceived as confrontational or oppositional. It really was that simple to them. It was good for business when people went to the death house. In fact, MONOLITH had the death house numbers displayed in every city. It beeped everytime the tally climbed. It scared people into compliance.
Mama was taken to the death house two months later. She became too ill to work, which meant that rent went unpaid. Instead of eviction, MONOLITH would send their police to seize “the lazy” and take them to the death house. “Don’t cry,” Mama coached us as they lifted her frail body from her chair. The MONOLITH’s children’s workers had my sister and me by the hand, and it was well-known that they hated tears.
My sister and I were surrendered to the MONOLITH children’s holding unit. We were required to assemble packaging materials during our stay to earn our meals and bedding, and the MONOLITH adults would walk past our desks every hour to check our progress. My sister and I were good about making enough eye contact to encourage the other to work quickly.
Bedtime always came soon enough, but it wasn’t the relief from hard labor one would think. I’ll never forget having to console my sister every night after Mama passed. Crying children were punished, so we couldn’t afford to grieve. I nearly had to beg her not to cry while holding my own tears in. A child’s heart is only built to handle so much heaviness. It cannot carry a mother’s absence, yet we managed somehow. If in two weeks’ time no one adopted us, we would make our own journey to the death house. We were ready.
Miraculously, a revolution swept through and saved us. Mama always hoped for it. We did, too. There was talk of underground movements, but Mama was too sick and too busy to join.
Years passed. MONOLITH structures were destroyed, MONOLITH houses were burned, and MONOLITH people were imprisoned. We grew up into strong adults.
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As an adult, my job is to run the death houses for the MONOLITH people who were found guilty of crimes against the public. I try to not enjoy pressing the buttons for the rooms when MONOLITH people are forced through. I try to not enjoy the horror on their faces, their pleas for mercy. All I can think of is Mama’s inability to plead for her own health. How she had to smile at the charity worker. How she had to smile for her MONOLITH bosses through pained labor. How I couldn’t cry for Mama after she died.
Today is a day I will never forget. I see the very charity worker who filed Mama’s paperwork three months late during her critical moment of need. Absent is the sunny disposition she had back then. In its place is visceral terror, but I am generous. I give her a few extra moments to panic as she is ushered into a room. She looks back at me, begging me for mercy. I smile at her the same way Mama did those years ago. I push the buttons only after first enjoying the melody of her agonized wailing. Maybe there is no hope for humanity, I think to myself as her crying fades into silence.
I hope Mama would be proud of me.
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