Suprise! : Part One

Yea, there was I once loved a man. He was the most wonderful person I had ever met. As a matter of fact, I even bore him a child, or two. We didn’t have separate mates, we only wanted each other, but the council found out about him, and separated us. They said that I needed to have more mates than one, and that if I ever went back to him, they would off us both. I haven’t seen him since.

-Momma-

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. A man seeing Raski? It’s not possible, how could it be? It was only a myth, a legend, nothing real. “Prove it.”

He squinted his eyes at me, “And how do I know you won’t tell the council that I’ve gone lopsided and have them off me?”

“Because, I want out. I’m just not sure if it’s out there or not.” I said honestly.

“Ah, I see.” he stood up from his pallet and walked to the lookout hole, then outside. I started to get up to go after him, but before I could he said, “If you really want to know, then I can show you, but you must be willing to believe me. My dear, have you ever seen a photo?”

I said that I did, remembering one of the stories that my momma once told me. He turned around, his face a reddish purple, and his eyes a blackish blue, “Where? Who had that knowledge? Get out!” He pulled me out of my sitting position and dragged me to the front door. I tried to squirm out of his grasp, but he had an iron grip on me. “Get out, get out! You nasty little spy! How dare you come into my home and-”

“No, my momma, she told me. She knows a lot about the rummy days.” I was able to say.

He stopped dead in his tracks, “Your mother told you these things?” I nodded my head, hoping he would let me go. His fingernails were cutting my skin open. He pulled me to my feet, grabbed my shoulders, and looked me in the eye, “Quick girl, who is your mother.” I told him who my mother was. His eyes glazed over, and he looked like he was far away in a different world. He smiled and said “How is she?”

“I don’t know, I left her slum a few weeks back. Why do you want to know?”

He snapped out of his trance, “No reason, I was just seeing if she was real.” He gave me a once-over and said “Alright, sit down and I’ll show you Raski.”

He walked over to a small pile of debris on the floor that was once the roof. He reached into the pile and pulled out some paper. He walked over to me and handed me a piece of thick, folded paper. I unfolded it and looked at the picture on it. The photograph showed a dirtless sky with a hill covered in little pink, blue, and red dots. “What is this?”

“That is Raski. That’s what the sky is supposed to look like. Those,” he pointed at the dots, “are flowers, and that green stuff is grass.”

“Why don’t we have it here?”

“The sky doesn’t let us have enough sun. The dirt in it is greedy.”

I had never seen anything like it. “So, this is what it was like before…before…the wars?”

“Yes, it was.”

I felt a sudden and swift rage come over me, “You liar! How can you lie to me like that! This is not the Earth! This is not anything but a madman’s painting! This isn’t real! This isn’t there! No one deserves this kind of beauty, no matter what!” I felt hot tears on my face, but it didn’t matter, his man was toying with me. He was leading me into a trap. He was lying.