Why Can't We Just Learn To Give Up?: Part One

Momma didn’t like the idea of Katlyn being at our slum. “I want her our of here within a week.” she told me the day I brought Katlyn to our slum. I decided that she was right, and that I should probably leave as well. I was 16 now, I was way overdue to go out into the world and get a place. We decided to go around the city and look around for somewhere to live. We looked at all of the old rummy buildings that were still usable, but the only ones that we could live in were too far away from the main road. There were very few buildings still available though, so we had to scrounge around. We finally found somewhere safe, manageable, and in a very good location. It was on the main road, and was not hit as bad as some other slums. There was a problem though, someone already lived there.


His name was Leo, and he was taller and older that both of us. His hair was brown, and his eyes were a bright red. The red eyes came from a genetic mutation though. Momma once told me that there were no red, purple, gold, silver, or pink eyes before the nukie hit this town. She said that our human bodies were not supposed to have those color eyes. He was really friendly, and seemed like he wouldn’t mind sharing the place. More and more people were starting to share their slums because of the building shortage.


“So ladies, are you sure you want to share a slum with a man?” he asked us when we started to look around the place.


“We don’t mind,” I replied. “As long as there isn’t any funny business around here.” I eyed him suspiciously, hoping that he would get the jest of what I was talking about.


“Nah, there won’t be. Not if you ladies don’t want there to be.” He winked at Katlyn, who then tried to make herself smaller.


I said goodbye to my momma a couple of days later, we were both pretty sad. I wouldn’t be able to hear her stories anymore, wouldn’t be able to hear her voice anymore, or see her every day. I packed my few things and left her slum forever.

* * *
A meeting was called about Katlyn a few days after we moved into our new slum. She was 18 now and hadn’t had a man yet. Usually, if they called a meeting like this, the outcome was one of three choices: they made her have a man, they sent her to do labor duty, or they offed her. The offing one was kind of extreme, but it was used in some cases. The labor places were starting to fill up recently because of all of the old women who couldn’t have anymore babies, so they would have to rule out putting her in labor work.


The day of her meeting, Katlyn broke down in our lounge room. She was laying on the floor, sobbing at what was about to happen. Leo and I comforted her while she was having her nervous breakdown. “I don’t want to die, Luna, but I don’t want to give it to a man, either.” It was hard for her, and for me. I would one day have to go through the same thing as well. I hated the fact that we had to have one than more mate in this world. It wasn’t that I had an objection to having sex, it was that I just didn’t want to just yet. I mean, the act should be meaningful, like you care about the person. Not all about just having a baby. I wanted to need the person, not to just do it because others say I should.


We walked her to the meeting spot that her trial would be held in. IT was an old run down place that was once called a “courthouse”. No one, not even momma, knew what it was.


No one was allowed in the meets when the council was deciding the fate of someone. Leo and I waited for her outside the building. “What do you think will happen?” He asked me.


“Well, they’ll probably make her give it to a man.” I said feeling crestfallen. I hoped that she would be smart and just take it like a woman, but secretly, I hoped that she stood by what she believed. We both believed that women shouldn’t be treated like this.


Leo rolled his eyes at me, “Honestly, I don’t know what you two girls have against men. Why can’t you two just do what you’re designed for?” I stared at him, appalled that he would say such a thing. Didn’t he realize what women were going through? Most women would have a child as soon as we were able to, and a third of them died in childbirth. I remember stories that momma would tell me. She would say that before the nukies, and the psychos, women didn’t die when they had a child. That humans used to have the technology to keep a mother from dying while giving birth. I stood up off of the concrete and walked some feet away and sat back down on a patch of dirt with my back to Leo. I didn’t want to die, not yet, and he didn’t realize that. There was so much for me to do, and I wasn’t going to let my life be extinguished by some thing that I didn’t even want, not yet. I wanted to wait. He stood up and walked over to where I was and sat down beside me. “I’m sorry Luna. I really didn’t mean to offend you, it’s just that I don’t get you two. I’ve never met a pair quite like you.”


“Exactly,” I said “we are different. I don’t want a man to dirty me before I am ready. Women should have the right to wait. I don’t want to die just yet.”