Chance to Change

“Something is different about you, Madelyn Gregitor. I don’t know what it is. Wait, just wait one minute, I know what it is. Your hair has grown!” said the woman at the desk, looking at the poor young girl with smug satisfaction, “you know that is not allowed. You have to keep it maintained, exactly the same.”
“N-n-oo I-II-I d-dd-i-ii-d-d-dnn-n-n’tt–t mm-ee-e-a-nn-n t-tt-oo-o”, stuttered the girl. But it was too late; the guards rushed into the building and grabbed the girl by her small, frail arms.
The lady must have pressed the kill button located under her desk. I had one as well only it was never touched. They dragged the girl, a child really no older than sixteen, as she kicked, screamed, and begged. They threw her through the door, the iron door, the one that when closed behind you never opens again to set you free only to continue feeding the fire within.
“Change,” said the sergeant as he turned around to look at us, “is not for us. Remember that. Always remember,” he said that every time, like a recording. It went over and over again, never changing. Which made sense, I guess, since they were brain-washed, drained of the ability to have original thoughts or actions. They were like robots. They were mindless, heartless, and programmed to be that way.
I looked around my desk, at the people who stopped staring and trying to help, the people, who gave up when people were “fixed” by the government. I realized I had gone silent. I looked at my client and smiled, or at least I tried.
I said with as much false joy as I could, “You are female. Married. No children. Your hair is black and pulled back into a ponytail, your eyes are blue, and almond shaped. Your clothes, a plain black t-shirt and jeans, black sneakers and one ring on your left hand. All right everything looks the same. Now go over to photo and get your picture taken. Oh and remember any change must be requested and approved before applied.”
She had it better than most, some women chose clothing that had cartoons and children’s designs on them, when they were sixteen. They had to live with that the rest of their lives.
Requested and approved before applied was the standard procedure for change, any change. As a child your parents paid for what you did, any change you made, how can children know to request a change? At four I cut my hair, by accident really. My father was at work and my mother, my poor mother was taken to The Records. She was killed for my change. My father, who was a Recorder, saw it all, saw is lovely wife murdered for the change of a child. He told me once that he saw a young mother come through The Records. Her son had fallen out of a tree and cut his cheek. It was forming a scar, a change. The mother was killed on sight and the child given to new parents.
This world wasn’t fair, but at least I had my father to care for me.
I looked the exact same for three years, all my requests to change denied by Emperor Magnus. I worked the same job, lived the same life since I was sixteen. At sixteen you have a chance to change, to become someone your own, but after that you stay the same. I was a Recorder like my father was. I recorded the lives of others and made sure nothing changed. Their houses, rooms, and decorations, they themselves were checked once a month.
“Raylie Jamston! Good Lord! Your phone is ringing,” said Jansime, my only friend in this cruel world, as she peered around the wall separating us, “pay attention.”
Startled I said, “Sorry, I must have gotten lost in thought.”
“That’s a new one,” said Jansime sarcastically as she focuses back on the computer screen.
“Jerk wad…” I mumbled.
“Heard that!” said Jansime with one of her rare laughs.
“Thank you for calling The Records, this is and always will be Raylie Jamston, how may I help you?” I asked.
“Raylie Jamston…. Such a beautiful name. It very much suits the owner of such a name. Much like your wonderful mother, Rosemary. Yes I remember her. Anyway back to the moment. I should like to speak to you. In person, perhaps. If you do not come of your own, you will be forced and I highly doubt you will enjoy my methods. They involve your father. What do you say?”
“Who are you? Where am I to go? When? What am I supposed to do?” I was frantic. I didn’t know what I had to do, what I could say, to make it go away.
“The first three answers are easy enough to answer as for the last. It is up to you. I am Emperor Magnus. And yes I will pause so you can express your admiration. Speechless are you? That’s quite alright. Awww yes the second answer. You are to meet me at the sanctuary the one called Never Change. You know the one. And now for the third. Meet me at sundown. That gives you an hour to think of your answer. I will be waiting but not for long.”
“Let me talk to him. Please.” I whispered.
“Fine. Since you say it so prettily”
“Ray, honey, it’s your father. You have to get out, leave. Don’t listen to them. Run. Do whatever it takes. They are—”
“Dad? Daddy!” I whisper into the phone frantically but it has disconnected. How was I supposed to get out? Where would I go?
“Who was that?” asked Jansime.
“No one.” I whispered. She looked at me funny but didn’t question it. I sat and thought.
Suddenly the guards walked in and talked to Mr. Auderby. He pointed toward me. It felt as if it were moving too fast. Had it already been an hour? One second I was with a client, and then guards were after me. I felt like I was suffocating or drowning or both.
“What is this about!” yelled Mr. Auderby as the guards rush toward me.
At that moment I knew how that poor girl felt. I fought back but they grabbed me and I knew I was headed for the iron door. I didn’t change a thing, why were taking me away? I could feel Jansime staring with shock and fear.
The captain put a nasty rag in my mouth and tied it at the back of my head, tangling it in my hair; he pushed a hood over my head, covering my face. I couldn’t see or speak, I could make sounds but what good was that when there was no one there to care? They pulled and dragged me. I stumbled and fell, but they kept pulling. I didn’t want to move anymore. I didn’t want to fight. They shoved me into a van pushing me all the way to the back. Terror inched up my spine. I felt my surrounding change from city to van then from van to forest. I tripped over roots and cut my arms and legs on the sharp branches and leaves. I was roughly thrown to the ground. The guards talked loudly.
“The emperor is going to tell us the rest of the job when we get back with the body right?”
“Of course, he tells us everything. We are his favorites”
“Wait did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Shut up a moment, would you?”
The hands that held me captive were suddenly ripped away and the guards, who, a minute ago, were talking loudly, were eerily silent. The hood covering my face was ripped from me and I saw a boy and what was left of the guards.
The boy must have been a “changed”. He had one blue eye and one violet eye. He had red and blonde hair, like fire a top his head. He had a strange scar from his ear to the corner of his mouth and his eyes, though different colors seemed haunted and angry.
“Well your safe now,” he said gruffly as he walks away and dug into a hole in the tree.
He pulled out equipment and supplies and other strange looking object. It’s weird. I hadn’t ever seen those things before.
Suddenly, out of the tree above me, dropped a girl with blue hair, she put her hand out to be shaken. “Sorry, you must be very confused, I am Lokilay.”
The girl, Lokilay, had orange, cat eyes. She looked about twelve but you never know with the changed. I grabbed her hand to shake it but notice a weird feeling. I looked down to see that her hands had scales on them. I dropped her hand. There was a place I heard that you could go to change, it was illegal but the place was illusive. No one knew where it was, only if you went to the right people. They never got caught.
She giggled and said, “Sorry you’ve never seen a changed, have you? Well don’t worry I don’t bite. Much.” Then she smiled and of course all her teeth were shark’s teeth. Now I understood why changing, to the government, was bad.
“Don’t worry when we change you, you can choose what you want, oh maybe antlers? What do you think do think of antlers?” asked Lokilay. A sudden terror spilled into my blood. Maybe these people were worse than the government. “Where are my manners, I didn’t even ask your name,” said Lokilay
“She doesn’t have a name, she is job 0065071 that’s all,” said the boy, well he was more of a man; he looked about twenty or so.
“Tezzin, be nice!” said Lokilay.
“My name is Raylie,” I told the girl just because the man, or should Tezzin, said that my “name” was a number. I was named after my grandmother not some number.
“See Tezzin, its okay to know their names,” Lokilay told Tezzin. She then stuck her tongue out. It was a snake tongue. The Lord, and only the Lord, knew why it had to be a snake’s tongue.
Tezzin rolled his eyes and said “Loki shut up, and you 0065071, come over here.” I sat exactly where I was. “I said get over here”
“It's okay Raylie, we just have to change what you look like” said Lokilay.
“No, no I am not changing.” I picked myself up and ran.
I didn’t know where I was going only that I had to get away. I couldn’t disfigure myself. I just couldn’t. I was sore all over because of the way the guards treated me. Running was not helping.
Tezzin dropped down in front of me. I fell and scrambled back as far away as I could get. “Did you really think that you could get away from us? We own this forest. The government just doesn’t know it yet,” said Tezzin as he smiled at me. He wasn’t so scary when he smiled.
“I am not changing,” I said as firm as I could, my voice only shaking a little.
“Look, you can change as much or as little as you want. Some people with the freedom of change go a little overboard with the change, take me for example. My mother and I were playing in the trees, when I was younger. I fell out of the tree. That’s how I got this scar. Our Records appointment was the next day. When they saw my face, they killed my mother. Fortunately I was given to a family of secret renegades. They let me change and I went crazy, worse than Loki. I have toned down a lot since then. You think this is bad? You should have seen me then.”
“I’m scared,” I whispered. I can’t believe the government, the ones who were supposed to save us, hurt that poor little boy who was this man. Wait, wasn’t I told this story by my father?
Tezzin bent to help me up, “can you walk?”
“Yes,” I was sore but I wasn’t going to be a baby. I limped and hobbled. I tried to hide it. No such luck.
“Liar, you are so hurting,” said Tezzin as he picked me up like a baby. The baby I didn’t want to be.
At first I struggled then he looked at me with a quelling look, I guess I was going to be still. I settled in and lay my head on the stranger’s shoulder and fell asleep.
I felt water dripping on my face and I let my eyes lift. Well if you can call it lifting, they sort of just cracked open a bit. I was inside a redwood tree; it was big enough to be a house. The changed were milling around and talking. The inside “walls” were lined with metals, the “ceiling” as well. Only some panels have fallen off to reveal the tree that was actually there.
“How are you doing?” I looked up and saw Tezzin looking at me.
“Fine,” I took a deep breath and made a decision, “I am ready to change.”
He looked shocked but then he smiled. “What do you want to do?”
“You change me,” I said because I just didn’t know, “make it a surprise.”
“Alright in a minute, let’s get you something to eat first,” said Tezzin.
While we ate, we talked. He asked me questions, things like favorite: hair color and style, eye color and shape, and facial feature I would hate to lose. But he skillfully snuck them into the conversation, so that I didn’t notice. Before I realized it, I had told him exactly what I want to look like.
He and Lokilay, well Loki as she told me to call her, got started.
Looking in that mirror, I decided that change in moderation was good. In fact, it was great. I had red hair cut into the bob style and wide green eyes with long lashes. My face was more round, not fat just not square anymore. I looked beautiful. I looked like my mother, not exactly or too close, I mean I still looked like me.
“Come on, guys. It’s time to move, we have a new assignment. Aren’t you coming Ray?” asked Loki.
“She isn’t even trained yet. What would she do? Well, I guess she could come and watch,” said Tezzin as he looked at me with a look that spoke of acceptance.
“Thanks, but what are we doing?” I asked
“Well we are going to save someone else from the terror of unchanging-ness,” said Loki as she jumped through the "door".
“What she means is that there are others out there who need to be saved from Emperor Magnus,” said Tezzin.
He grabbed my hand and pulled me through the tree. Off to a new adventure as a fugitive. Forever running from the law until the law was gone, until everyone had a chance to change.
“That was what it was like for us in an unchangeable world,” I tell the children at my feet, surrounding my chair.
“What happened next momma?” asks my little girl of fourteen.
“Well obviously we changed the world, but we have not changed bed time, so it’s off to bed for all of you,” I say to my four children.
I hear the usual four whines.
“But mommy we not tiwerd,” says my youngest son, who probably hasn’t even heard a word I’ve said all night
“Listen to your mother kids,” says Tezzin, my husband, as he picks up the two younger ones.
I gather my older children, twelve and fourteen, and my husband and go up the stairs to go to bed and tomorrow I will wake up in a free world. One of freedom. One of change.

Imprint

Text: This book belongs to Alayna Turney
Publication Date: 07-15-2012

All Rights Reserved