"To Make It Better"

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Ult_Sm86
Dread Pirate
Dread Pirate
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Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2007 7:59 pm
Title: Passive Antagonist
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"To Make It Better"

Post by Ult_Sm86 »

To Make It Better...

by Tyler Duggan


 Nora licked the envelope and slapped it down on the hard wooden table she had inherited from her parents many years ago. She then used her thumbnail to carefully remove a postage stamp; the price of which she still could not believe, and pinching it with the same wrinkled hand's forefinger brought it to the top, right corner of the envelope and pressed it on firmly. Satisfied, she added this envelope, her twenty-eighth, to the pile. She needed Three-hundred and twenty-two more. 
She growled in the base of her throat, as her father used to when he was irritated with this same procedure, and she began her next letter. It had only been a few years that she was doing these letters herself, but she can remember a time when her parents would sit at the table writing these same letters for the neighborhood. They would write them out, pass them to each of their children, and like a a factory-line worker the kids would implement their assigned role, be it licking or stamping, and pass it to the next child to the right of them. The last child, which was her for the longest time, would slip the envelopes into the shoeboxes which were organized by the last name. This system made the delivery for her father significantly easier. 
After her mother died from the virus, Nora became resentful of the letters. They didn't seem to do anything. Now, she sat in her chair determined to get the same number out as her father's record. If she was swift enough, she could break it. It was horrible living in a place where people's rights were trampled on daily, where free speech, and even free thought, were relics of the past. Disease was rampant, violence from authorities even more so. It was grueling for her to live in such a place and be so helpless. 
She remembers her mother dying of the virus. They crowded around a laptop camera to say good-bye to her because they weren't allowed into the hospital to be with her, due to the unknown variables around the disease's infection rate. A nurse in the hospital, a kind woman who had immigrated from the Caribbean with her sisters, was there to hold the phone and video-conference in her dying patient's family. After Nora's mother had passed, the nurse and the family became close. Nurse Toya attended Nora's mother's funeral and even a socially-distanced Christmas caroling session after that. 

The old bony fingers locked up more than they did when Nora had first re-started the letter campaign. Her father would have been proud. She pushed on the stamp of letter thirty-five and considered calling her brother. He lived outside of the country with a family that kept him secret for years until they could successfully get him new papers. Now, as an expat, he resided somewhere in Northern Canada. They had to call each other on one of their burner cells and due to the costs of data and minutes that the Supreme Leader's Congress had allowed on the National Data Plan, their conversations were fleeting. 
Nora's brother was more than a spitting-image of his father, he also came complete with the same poise and rhythm in his voice when he spoke. His name was Jude, like the song, and in memory of his mother (who loved the song so) Jude had a set of the lyrics tattooed on his forearm. 
The song is banned in Nora's state, now. She only hears it in the background when she calls him. He always puts it on so she can hear it and think of their parents. 
Their father died with the other two siblings during The Reckoning. The Brown Coats had marched on the National Mall in Spring of the year after the election. It was the year they had sent the most letters ever; 1,245. Her father had been so proud to connect with the people of his city, but when their candidate lost, Nora was devastated to see her father's rigor and passion melt away. He sat, transfixed at the TV. 
Nora knew someday she would have to continue the letters and she resented the hell out of her father for giving up and leaving that on her. 
•••
At the kitchen table in her tiny apartment, she hummed an old song and folded up letter six hundred and seventy-eight. 
She knew the letters would get to the right people, but she had wasted two days. With the next Supreme Election coming up, it was time to make the appropriate change. Their politicians had formed into some sort of monarchy, each generation inheriting the role of leader from the last and each generation that much less deserving. It was unthinkable to her that her home had taken such a poor turn toward hatred and oppression. But, she supposed as she licked her stamp, that's white-privilege for you. 

 She considered calling her brother again to discuss the best strategies for moving in the city at night, at her age. She remembered when he and her siblings and father went to the National Mall to counter-protest the Brown Coats. The local police had arrested Nurse Toya and her husband for being "dirty immigrants from shit-hole countries" and locked them up. It was only weeks before their lawyer, who was representing many like Nurse Toya, wound up in a river after a sudden accident with the steering on his self-driving car. Her father and siblings had been so furious they took their family bus all the way to the capital. Nora stayed home with the cats, she was "too young."
Nora's telephone rang. She let it go for three rings before picking it up. There was no use in having cellular as her residential phone number because anyone with ears could hear the wire-tapping more clearly in the old corded phones. As she answered she could hear slightly clicking and a faint sound of white-noise, almost a secret hiss of the snake that looms under the leaves before you in a path.
"Hello," the disturbingly pleasant female-voice said "this is a recording from SUPERIOR BANKS. Your STATE-OWNED TRANSPLANT HEART is set to expire in ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY HOURS unless payment is made before that time. Please stay on the line so our customer service can help you."
Nora hung the phone up. What right did they have to withhold health care from an old woman like her? 
As she stumped back over to her letters and dropped her weight slowly into the wooden kitchen chair, she resentfully recalled the death of her father and the other two siblings. On the National Mall, on live television, they were shot at by the Brown Coat Militia, now known as The Soldier Supremes. They were a truly twisted and uneducated lot of fools. 
Nora sucked in her breath and proceeded to push through on her letters. 
••••
It was two days later and Nora had completed her task. She had 2,500 letters. She had surpassed her father's record and though her tongue was dry (and sliced a bit, but thankfully some saltwater helped with that) and though her fingers ached with arthritis and her back and neck hurt from being hunched over, she was so proud she could dance. 
Stuffing the old shoeboxes into her car, Nora locked her apartment up for the last time and turned on her tiny, ancient, lime-green Prius. After a night of charging (she didn't mind paying the electric car tax of $90 a night to charge) she began to slowly drive down her neighborhood.
Like any elderly woman on the road, Nora took her sweet, sweet time. She waved to the Accountability Officers and the Transparency Keepers. She even nodded to Sheriff Bob Glenn, even though he gave her a citation for flicking him off just two months prior. 
Nora got to the end of the 14th and Harrowett block, popped her trunk and took out two shoeboxes. She began knocking door-to-door. As individuals answered they were shocked to see an elderly woman, without her face-mask, smiling at them with wide eyes and shiny teeth. 
"I'm Nora," she said softly "and I have a letter for you about a little meeting we're having tonight. I'd love for you to pass the message on to anyone in the household who isn't addressed in the letterhead."
Each individual received the letter, their mouths agape (under their face-masks) and even a few said thank you. She watched them begin to open it as they closed the door. 
Somewhere between 26th and Harrowett a young woman ran out to the street calling for Clara by name. The young woman had exceptionally frizzy hair, a Jamaican-flag designed face-mask, thick eyeglasses, and an adorably small nose. Clara was delighted to see her. 
"Why, yes?"
"Is this real? Are they really going to meet and try to-"
"Yes, young one." Nora's smile beamed. "They will. We will."
"Will it change anything?" the young woman asked as she fought back tears that Nora recognized. Tears of hope mixed with preparation for disappointment. "Will any of this make things better?"
"It will, and it shall," she persisted.







End.
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