The Silent Rhymes of a Snowflake, Page 2

  What am I supposed to say? A hundred standard greetings come to the surface of my brain.

  “Hi, how are you?”

  “I’m fine.” He says before he even thinks. He doesn’t look fine. Is he lying to me or is he just saying the only thing he knows is a right answer?

  “What’s your name? Can you tell me what’s going on?” I ask him.

  “My name is…” He looks distressed.

  He wants to answer, but can’t find it in his memory. He’s struggling so hard—fighting a war with his own consciousness and demanding to know something of himself. I can see it instantly and now I know I’m not alone.

  We share this confusion for a few moments. I had hoped that he might know something, but now I see that my suspicions were right, at least. All of these people are just as clueless as I am. So I just smile in a weak effort to reassure him…somehow.

  Nervously, he walks up to the desk when it’s his turn. As he reaches the desk, he suddenly spins around as if spooked by something. I didn’t hear anything or see anything to cause such alarm. I’m more and more convinced that we’ve been committed to some sort of insane asylum.

  “Your name is Silas 6-103-13.” Esther tells him. “Because of a birth defect and irregularities in your memories you will be assigned to kitchen staff. Here’s your packet. You may take this to the next desk.”

  He turns to me and smiles worriedly. “Silas. I guess that’s my name. Defective.” He says matter-of-factly. He moves on and now it is my turn with Esther.

  The beep.

  I hear it now as I’ve reached the desk. But I don’t look around because I already know that no one else heard it. I look at the floor instead and see a strip of tape covering a wire just at the threshold of the desk.

  Esther offers the same kind of patient, maternal gaze and her eyes are warm when she says, “Your name is Genesis 6-103-14 and you’ve been assigned to the diamond program on Erimos. Take this folder to the desk on your left, please. Next!” She waves to the person behind.

  Genesis 6-103-14? Really? It sounds like a name for a robot. I’m not even sure what made me think that. How should I know what a good robot name would be? Maybe I have gone crazy. Or maybe I’m a robot.

  I stand in bewilderment for a second before I realize that I am holding up the line by arguing this nonsense with myself.

  I try to recall everything she just told me. Something about diamonds. A quick look back calls to my attention that everyone behind me shares a similar characteristic--we are a very hairy group. Every man has a beard and every woman has hair almost to her knees. You could mop the floor with us.

  I remember going to orientation for a new job once. I don’t recall what it was for, but I was given a packet and sat in a room surrounded by other—normal looking people.

  I remember chatting with a friend, although I can’t quite see his face. I remember the feeling of new possibilities—perhaps it was an exciting career change or promotion. I remember feeling excited. Not like this.

  The somber looking man at the wooden desk makes me nervous, and my breathing is sporadic as I wait for him to tell me about who I am. The moment of truth is here and I’m so ready for some answers.

  He is a small dark-haired man with glasses that he repeatedly pushes back up on his nose. He takes his time sipping coffee and reading my file before looking up with a dramatic pause.

  I can tell he has given this speech a hundred times today, but whatever he has to say will be the news I’ve been waiting for so I stand there full of hope. He finally folds his hands on top of my file and states, “Genesis 6-103-14, you have been carefully chosen to be part of a program we call ‘Snowflake’.

  Chapter 2

  *

  Genesis

  The man with the glasses doesn’t say anything else. He just looks at me. Is that it? Is this the big secret about who I am? Surely he isn’t finished. Maybe he is just waiting for me to ask.

  “What is ‘Snowflake’? What you told me--that doesn’t explain what’s happened to me.” I say flatly. “There must be more to it than that.”

  Still holding the file I handed to him, he looks up, considers me for a moment, and then starts matching my numbers to a packet in a file cabinet next to him. He pulls it out and folds his hands over it on the desk again before he exhales, and spits his explanation at me like a rancher spews his chewing tobacco on the ground.

  “You work for an organization called Camp Global Commerce or CGC as it is referred to. The planet Earth is in the recovery stage of a total nuclear holocaust. CGC was designed to assist Earth in replenishing its resources. We have evaluated your medical details and propensities and have determined that you are best suited for the diamond program.”

  He pauses and hands me the large brown envelope. “Your packet contains the key to your dorm and locker, a map of the planet and complex, and some brochures to help you adapt.”

  I think about walking away when I realize what he just said.

  “Wait…did you say planet?”

  “Yes. You are on the planet Erimos.”

  “That’s crazy. This can’t be real.” Rage flares up inside me. I know when I’m being lied to and taken for a fool.

  “Is this some kind of mental test?” I persist. “I know there are no other inhabitable planets besides Earth. I don’t know much right now, but I do know that.”

  “You are young. What you think you know may be incorrect. Keep that in mind. You’ll have to become accustomed to trusting the people here even if it feels a little foreign at first. You certainly can’t trust your own thoughts right now and it’s normal for you to have a time of…er, confusion. Your memory has been wiped of all personal aspects of your life—all relationships and many other details that could harm your emotional state if recalled. Don’t fight against the gaps. Over time they just fade away as you create another life here.”

  The man with the glasses sips his coffee again and stands up. “You may feel some mild disorientation for a while, but you should be able to function in the society of Erimos fairly well. If at any time you feel that you cannot, you may contact a staff member. We will be happy to give you a clean memory to work with. Sometimes the mind has glitches, but a helpful reminder for you is that you volunteered for this mission and your signature is on the form inside your packet as proof. You will now be sent to the tagging room.”

  “Wait.” I tell him. “What did I volunteer for?”

  He sighs as if I have already taken up too much of his time and he’s ready to move on to his next victim.

  “Genesis, I am a very busy man. We have provided you with the information you need to know. You volunteered to save Earth. That’s a noble thing.”

  He places his hand on my shoulder and makes an attempt at a compassionate expression, but something in his eyes is more of a warning. A warning not to ask any more questions.

  There’s also a hint of something in his face as he stares at me and I refuse to look away. Surprise perhaps? It’s there for an instant and gone as quickly.

  This information has hit me with such quick force I can’t absorb it all. I try to work out the implications of what I’ve just been told. Completely confused, I walk in the direction that the man pointed.

  From the looks of it, the “tagging room” is just a fancy name for branding. We stand in lines waiting for the next tattoo artist.

  My memory triggers an image of an ink parlor. The man in my mind is heavy set and has piercings all over his face.

  He wears all black and some kind of eyeliner. I guess it’s eyeliner--surely no one is born with eyes encircled in black like a raccoon. His black tank top is too tight and has a hole in it. He is covered in ink and spikes from head to toe and one of the tattoos in particular stands out to me—an unnaturally proportioned woman who wears skimpy clothes and graces a flabby bicep. It makes the woman jiggle when he moves and for some reason I want to laugh out loud in disgust.

  But here the tattoo artists are dressed in white
coats and look supremely professional—like what they specialize in could be considered a branch of medicine. Instead of being leery, the emotion I feel is pure fascination. The beauty of art on a person carved in indelible ink—it carries a beautiful allure in a risky and permanent sort of way.

  The line has moved up ever so slowly. Some conversations have broken out amongst the volunteers. As I look around I notice that everyone appears to be roughly the same age. A few details about me have been listed on a bio form in my folder. It says I’m from Atlanta, Georgia. I don’t remember being there. And I don’t remember my parents. You would think I would have some picture in my mind of them, but I can’t find anything. I do know some facts about Atlanta, though.

  Atlanta is a large metropolitan area of the Southern United States. Famous for peaches and a soda factory, people there are known to be hospitable and have an accent that is not native to the rest of the country. I wonder if the city is still there. The man with the glasses mentioned something about a nuclear holocaust, but I wonder why I agreed to let them erase all memories of my former home. Was it so bad that remembering would be too awful?

  My birth date is listed as April thirteenth, but there’s no year attached and it doesn’t tell me how old I am. From where we are standing, I can see projections on the wall just a few feet down.

  I turn toward it a little more to get a better look and I have to crane my neck around a crowd to see what it says. It lists things like the cafeteria menu, schedules for events, the temperature outside as well as the time and date.

  Today is April thirteenth.

  So today is my birthday. The movie in my mind is there again. This time, a child wearing a brightly covered hat has a cake set in front of her. Her friends and family are singing as she blows out candles and everyone claps. Then they give her presents. She looks elated.

  Everything makes sense to me except I don’t know who this child is and I don’t know why they have set her cake on fire. It didn’t seem to bother her, though. I wonder if I can expect a celebration like that one?

  Boredom sets in. My mind has been working for what feels like millennia even though I know it’s only been an hour at the most. But my brain is exhausted. At least now I know enough about me to have a decent conversation with someone so I turn to the girl behind me.

  “Long line, huh? What’s your name?”

  The short skinny girl with the dark hair looks at her folder and then replies, “My name is Stephanie 6-103-26.”

  She answers matter-of-factly.

  “Do you remember anything?” I whisper and look around to make sure no one’s listening.

  “Not really.” She says.

  “Do you trust them?” I am shocked that she is showing very little emotion right now.

  She shrugs. “Why wouldn’t I? They handed me a paper—I guess I should trust that.”

  Trust. Funny that we’re being asked to trust people who won’t trust us enough to tell us the truth. Still, I wonder if we chose this life because our old ones were that horrifying. Maybe I should trust the decision I made for myself when I signed that paper. I try to talk about something else.

  “So…Stephanie, tell me about yourself.”

  She laughs and hands me her packet. “Read it for yourself. I don’t know anything more than that.”

  Her file says she’s from Seattle, Washington.

  “Do you remember anything about Seattle?” I ask her.

  “The sun never shines. It rains a lot. That’s all I know.”

  Her voice sounds as gloomy as I imagine the weather being. It is disheartening that she only knows as much about her hometown as anyone else does.

  As I keep reading, we shuffle our feet while the line moves up slowly. Something I read jumps off the page at me. Today is Stephanie’s birthday as well. That can be no coincidence.

  “Stephanie, did you know that today is your birthday too.”

  “What do you mean ‘too’?”

  “My packet said my birthday was April thirteenth. Look at the projection.” I point in the direction of the screen.

  When Stephanie sees the projection with the current date and time her face goes a little white, but then she resumes her past expression.

  “I don’t know why that should bother me. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.” She assures me.

  The tattoo artist might be just the person to ask all the questions I have come up with since leaving the desk and the man with the glasses. There are about twenty-five artists in the room and they are all busy “tagging” the volunteers. My artist appears to have just finished up and I’m called over. When I step through the doorway I hear the beep again and look around. There’s nothing on the door and I can’t figure out why I’ve heard that sound again.

  The tattoo artist gives me a shot of something that stings into my right cheek and tells me that I won’t feel the process now. She’s a young woman in a lab coat who seems friendly enough so I strike up a conversation with her. I can’t help but notice that she is not “tagged” and I wonder why, but I don’t ask.

  “Tagging--it sounds a little bit like branding. Like we’re cattle or something. What’s the purpose?” I ask her.

  “It is the only efficient way to keep up with so many people in the project. Tagging serves three purposes, it identifies you to the rest of the CGC staff, it gives you a sense of identity with the others who live here, and it’s decorative!” She pops her head up with a smile as if she assumes that being force branded had ever been on my bucket list. I can tell she’s said the same thing many times and still has not found a way to make it sound appealing. Perhaps she’s hoping the force of energy she puts behind those words will help me swallow them better.

  I’m not completely opposed to being tattooed, but something tells me this is the sort of thing I should have a choice about and I think that if I could choose any design to be “branded” with it would be a tree.

  I don’t even know why, but I can picture a tree tattoo that I liked once. I remember seeing it on a girl’s ankle at the mall.

  No one asked me what I wanted, though and everyone in front of me has been tagged with a blue snowflake so it seems my options are limited.

  “So why do we all have the same birth date?”

  She pauses and responds with “My, you’re a quick one. It takes most volunteers longer to catch on.” She picks up some metal instruments and starts laying them out. I can feel my pulse beginning to race.

  “In an effort to streamline the program” She continues, “we’ve organized volunteers by date of birth. Half of them will be sent to Pavana after being tagged and half of them will stay here.”

  “How long has the program been running?”

  “This is the sixth year of ‘Snowflake’. You can figure it out from your coded last name. Today is the one hundred and third day of the year and you are the fourteenth recruit for today. So your new last name is 6-103-14. The year, the day, and your number. It seems like a complicated system, but the CGC is all about efficiency and they have a lot of people to initiate each day.”

  “What’s my real last name?” I ask quietly.

  She gives a shrug and brings the buzzing needle to my face. Instinctively, I flinch, but I can’t feel anything unpleasant so that is a kindness at least. Although I can’t see what artwork she has begun, I doubt it will be anything but a snowflake. I can feel that we will be here for a long time so I keep asking questions while trying not to move the right side of my face.

  “So I was told I would be assigned to work on Erimos. What is that?” The question comes out mumbled.

  “We’re on Erimos right now. It’s a planet. Earth was already depleting its natural resources so it was a breakthrough to find two more planets that could sustain life. Pavana is our sister planet and it is also run by CGC. It’s a paradise compared to this place.”

  She takes a quick break to stretch her arms,

  “Doing this for hours on end every day will make your hands cramp. Give
you carpal tunnel syndrome.”

  After a good stretch and flexing her fingers back and forth for a few minutes, she settles back in with her needle and starts in again.

  “Erimos and Pavana are part of a solar system on the edge of what we call The Second Galaxy. There are five planets, but only two of them have an atmosphere that makes them livable. Pavana is further from the sun and it gets cold there. That’s where the farming and agriculture centers are. It is also made up of lots of water. Erimos is really hot and dry. You’ll see what I mean when you go outside for the first time. It is pretty close to our sun. Oh yeah, by the way, the sun? —It’s blue. That might freak you out the first time you lay eyes on it. The atmosphere is thick, but you’ll still be struck by its brightness and the sapphire color of the sky.”

  I’m about to ask another question when the woman needling my face answers it for me. It’s like she’s communicating on autopilot.

  “There are six main facets of Snowflake—asprosium, diamonds, militia, water, construction, and harvesting. And then, of course there are support staff jobs beyond that—pilots, janitors, and chefs. Six main facets of the program—and six points of a snowflake. Tada!”

  “Ok.” I’m sure I still sound confused and overwhelmed, but I really am trying to keep up.

  “Our two planets are made up of a wealth of things that Earth is running out of so it is nice to know that you are making a difference. I’ve got a family back home and it just puts me at ease to know that I can be here helping.”

  “Did they wipe your memories too?” I probe.

  “No. When I left, I was just an army nurse. The United States was in the middle of an economic crises and CGC told me if I came on this covert mission, I could make a lot of money. I did, and in that time, war erupted and nukes were going off everywhere. They told me to stay here. I worried for weeks. I was just sure my family was gone. But, they brought back letters from my sweet husband and little boy. They said there wasn’t enough food to eat and that people were killing each other for a soda. So I stayed here. I’ve asked to go back several times.”