hair, tucked under caps for working. Mine is an unruly kind of wavy that is infuriatingly neither straight nor curly. I may be smaller, but none of the others can be called fat. Overeating is not an option, and we are all kept physically active. My heart-shaped face and fine features give me a fragile look, which I have always disliked. The faces around me vary from shades of mocha to pale cream, and nothing sets me apart there either. I’m one of the paler girls, but I blend in.
No, an outsider would not pick me out for looking different. But still, an outsider is likely to be able to tell that there is something strange in the way I am treated by the other workers - an aloofness, a distance. It’s as though there is an invisible barrier separating me from them. Not invisible, I realise. Just on the inside of my wrist. Completely visible, if you cared to look.
I shake my shoulders, bundle my clothes into a locker, punch myself out and stride off into the brilliant sunshine, leaving behind the animated women and the dark thoughts that threaten to wash over me.
The path leading from the cheese shed to the hub – our little cluster of community - is pretty well tended, as the road is used every day. Many of our roads are not as good as this one, but still I have to pick my way around potholes and puddles. I gaze longingly past the willows and flax along the path. The rain has washed the world clean and left the sea sparkling. Far out in the bay, little white caps form, skim across the water for a way, then disappear. They look like they’re playing, and with that ridiculous thought, a smile flickers on my face.
I turn off up the cliff track rather than heading towards the hub and home. With a new destination in mind, my pace quickens and my step lightens. As I climb, the wind begins to pick up. It pulls at the dark tendrils of hair that have escaped from the knot under my cap, and at the hem of my tunic. I pull off my cap and shake my head, allowing the unruly locks their freedom. The breeze carries on it the familiar scent of salt and seaweed. I feel calmer already.
The clifftop allows an expansive view.
On the far side of the bay, the remains of what used to be a busy port can be seen, all containers and creaking iron. Over the decades the area has been raided time and again for metal to be reworked, but a few of the old cranes still punctuate the sky with their arthritic fingers. They teeter at insane angles; you’d have to be either desperate or crazy to go near them.
Ships have neither arrived nor departed this port for many generations. Grandad says that when the Isolation was first declared, any activity along the coast was taken as a threat. Craft were sunk on sight. Of course that was a long time ago, even well before Grandad was born, but keeping away from the water has become a way of life here. I am the only person I know who even swims. I’ve seen Polis soldiers get in the water on hot days, but they hardly count.
Near the port I can see the red roof of the recycling plant, which runs 24/7. The ancients left us mountains and mountains of the stuff, plastics and metals and glass, all tied up in tidy cubes. It’s been nearly two centuries since the Isolation, and we have hardly made a dent in the abundance of resources which they saw as rubbish.
The bay reaches round in a wide arc to my right. It is truly the picture of peace; a perfect curve, blue water lazily sweeping golden sand. Above me, gulls wheel and soar, their plaintive calls carried to me on the wind.
To my left, to the east, the unknown. The wide expanse of open ocean, going on forever and ever, and eventually melting into the sky.
I look long and hard, as I have so many times before, waiting to see something appear on the horizon and wondering what would happen if it did. My eyes watering from the chill in the breeze, I finally tear my gaze from that blue desert and I see Grandad making his way up the cliff track towards me.
I realise
No, an outsider would not pick me out for looking different. But still, an outsider is likely to be able to tell that there is something strange in the way I am treated by the other workers - an aloofness, a distance. It’s as though there is an invisible barrier separating me from them. Not invisible, I realise. Just on the inside of my wrist. Completely visible, if you cared to look.
I shake my shoulders, bundle my clothes into a locker, punch myself out and stride off into the brilliant sunshine, leaving behind the animated women and the dark thoughts that threaten to wash over me.
The path leading from the cheese shed to the hub – our little cluster of community - is pretty well tended, as the road is used every day. Many of our roads are not as good as this one, but still I have to pick my way around potholes and puddles. I gaze longingly past the willows and flax along the path. The rain has washed the world clean and left the sea sparkling. Far out in the bay, little white caps form, skim across the water for a way, then disappear. They look like they’re playing, and with that ridiculous thought, a smile flickers on my face.
I turn off up the cliff track rather than heading towards the hub and home. With a new destination in mind, my pace quickens and my step lightens. As I climb, the wind begins to pick up. It pulls at the dark tendrils of hair that have escaped from the knot under my cap, and at the hem of my tunic. I pull off my cap and shake my head, allowing the unruly locks their freedom. The breeze carries on it the familiar scent of salt and seaweed. I feel calmer already.
The clifftop allows an expansive view.
On the far side of the bay, the remains of what used to be a busy port can be seen, all containers and creaking iron. Over the decades the area has been raided time and again for metal to be reworked, but a few of the old cranes still punctuate the sky with their arthritic fingers. They teeter at insane angles; you’d have to be either desperate or crazy to go near them.
Ships have neither arrived nor departed this port for many generations. Grandad says that when the Isolation was first declared, any activity along the coast was taken as a threat. Craft were sunk on sight. Of course that was a long time ago, even well before Grandad was born, but keeping away from the water has become a way of life here. I am the only person I know who even swims. I’ve seen Polis soldiers get in the water on hot days, but they hardly count.
Near the port I can see the red roof of the recycling plant, which runs 24/7. The ancients left us mountains and mountains of the stuff, plastics and metals and glass, all tied up in tidy cubes. It’s been nearly two centuries since the Isolation, and we have hardly made a dent in the abundance of resources which they saw as rubbish.
The bay reaches round in a wide arc to my right. It is truly the picture of peace; a perfect curve, blue water lazily sweeping golden sand. Above me, gulls wheel and soar, their plaintive calls carried to me on the wind.
To my left, to the east, the unknown. The wide expanse of open ocean, going on forever and ever, and eventually melting into the sky.
I look long and hard, as I have so many times before, waiting to see something appear on the horizon and wondering what would happen if it did. My eyes watering from the chill in the breeze, I finally tear my gaze from that blue desert and I see Grandad making his way up the cliff track towards me.
I realise
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