Michael Soll - Scorched

I went upstairs and found Spec sitting on his bed which we had placed beside mine. He had an old history book in front of him, but I knew he couldn’t read; instead, he sat, staring at the pictures.

“Are you better than me?”

“What do you mean?” For a moment, Spec and I had switched places, with my asking him what he meant.

“Are you a better person than I am?”

“No. We’re all equal here. All humans are equal.”

He placed the book aside and looked up and down my shelves. “Then why do you have a bigger house than everybody else?”

“Well, because some people make more money than others.”

“If everyone’s equal, why do some people make more money?”

“Because they choose to do harder jobs. Like my father is mayor and serves the entire town. It’s a lot of pressure, you know? A lot of responsibilities. Mr. Johnson is just the janitor. All he does is sweep up after the students leave the school so he gets paid less.”

“What makes being mayor harder?”

“Well, not everyone can do it. You have to make it your life and put others before yourself.”

“Could Mr. Johnson be mayor?”

“He could try, but he wouldn’t get elected.”

“Why not?”

“Because the people wouldn’t vote for him and even if they did, he couldn’t do the job as well as my father.”

“Could your dad be janitor?

“If he wanted to, of course.”

“So your dad and the janitor aren’t equal.”

“I don’t think you properly understand the concept.” I laid out some clothes for Spec. “Cotta’s coming over tonight.”

He walked over to the closet and pulled out a plain shirt. “I thought I could choose my own clothes for tonight.”

“You don’t like what I set up for you?”

“I do.”

“Okay. I guess that’s good, right? You should be picking out your own clothes.”

The dinner went pretty smoothly. My father relished the opportunity of hosting a dinner for the Wilkins while I hesitantly sat in my chair and watched Spec and Cotta stare at each other, communicating telepathically.

“Don’t you love what I did with his hair! It’s so pretty.” The little girl patted down Cotta’s flattened hair which had several bobby pins.

My father smiled, “I should have you do my hair next!” It didn’t matter how young she was. Some day she’d be older and that day she’d be a voter and every vote counted. “Did you see Kat’s tea set?

“You have a tea set?!” The girl jumped from her seat.

Kat jumped up as well. “You wanna have a tea party!?”

“YES!” The two girls hurried out of the room.

My father turned to me: “Why don’t you and Spec show Cotta around while I talk to the Wilkins.”

“All right. Come on guys.” We led Cotta up to my room where he stood by the door as Spec and I got comfortable. “You can sit if you’d like.” Cotta ignored me and looked over at Spec and the two had a staring contest for a moment.

Spec smiled and put his hand on Cotta’s shoulder. “Are you olbreando?”

Cotta nodded. “It’s brelombed with crultins.”

Spec laughed and said, “Yeah.”

I chimed in. “So, Cotta, how are you liking the city?”

“It’s great, sir,” he said, politely but robotically.

“You don’t have to call me sir.”

“All right, sir.”

The three of us stood silently for a moment, waiting for the next person to speak. I guess it was up to me to continue the conversation. “I see you’ve acclimated well.”

Cotta smiled and nodded. “Oh yes, I’ve learned all about modern society as well as the history of the city. Would you like to hear it?”

“No, that’s alright.” He looked at me with sad piglet eyes, so I caved. “Sure. What’d you learn?”

Cotta took a step forward as if he were reading aloud in class. “Before the surface burst into flames, the great minds of the time built the underground cities and constructed the sustainable methods to survive that we still use today. Only the smartest and most talented were allowed to come below and live in the haven known as Newbury. When the solar flare incinerated the atmosphere, the elevator that led the genius survivors from the surface to the below was forever sealed off.”

“Elevator? To the surface?” Spec’s eyes had widened. He listened intently.

I turned to him and responded the best I could, trying to remember my history classes when I was younger. “Yeah, everyone was taken in the elevator down below. An elevator’s a machine that moves people up and down. It’s behind the north district.”

“Is it functional?” he asked timidly.

‘Why would it be?” I said, “There’s nowhere to go but up and there’s nothing up but death.”

Spec looked past me, staring blankly at the wall. Silent until, “When people die, what do you do with the remains?”

“It’s not you , it’s we ,” I corrected him.

He reiterated: “What do we do with the remains?”

“Well, we bury them of course,” I said, watching him closely.

“And has that always been… our … way? Even on the surface?”

“Yes, I believe so. Why?”

“Well, it seems that if the dead are buried, then only life could exist up top, since death is the absence of life.

“That’s not how it works.” I instructed him.

“How does it work?”

“Things are the way they are and not everything has a reason.”

Spec’s eyes wandered for a moment, and then asked, “Do you mind if I talk with my brother alone?”

“I thought I was your brother.” I retorted.

“You are. You’re both my brothers.”

I looked over at Cotta who stood silently, waiting for me to grant them their wish of privacy. And then, I cracked like my fractured ceiling. The dirt tumbled down and I caved in. “Okay.”

I left my room and took a seat outside. I couldn’t go downstairs because my father and the Wilkins were there. I could’ve gone into the game room but for some reason, I wanted to stay right by the door.

I know I shouldn’t be upset that he wants to spend some alone time with Cotta. I get it. I want to hang out with my friends alone sometimes. For some reason, though, it upset me. I think I’m just irritable. I’m just tired and full from dinner.

In all honesty, I didn’t want to leave the room. I mean it’s my room. He was being rude by asking me to leave, but I felt obligated to be polite. My father always stresses manners. “Never show them anger unless anger is what they need to see,” my father would always say. “If they want you to be happy, be happy.” He had become so well adept at masking his emotions that I could never tell what was true and what he thought should be true. It wasn’t weak showing your emotions, it was weakness not having control of them.

There are so many circumstances in life that are unpredictable. He could not foresee my mom’s death and when it happened, he was sad. Everybody expected him to be sad, so I guess I really don’t know if he was upset or upset because they assumed him to be. He knew he couldn’t control the events, but the way he appeared to feel was in his grasp and he was brilliant at knowing how people wanted him to feel. When they told him stories they believed to be funny, he would laugh. When they told him stories they believed to be sad, he would cry. And it wasn’t just outside these walls, it was within as well.

And so, even though I was annoyed with Spec, I couldn’t show it because he didn’t expect me to be annoyed. And as long as I lived up to his expectations, he would like me and we would be friends.

To have as much success as my father, I have had to thicken my skin. I can’t just have knee-jerk reactions. I need to clench my leg and only kick it when everyone expected me to.