LOVE BANNED

L•O•V•E - an intense feeling of deep affection.

I•N•F•A•T•U•A•T•I•O•N - an intense but short-lived passion or admiration for someone or something.

History books littered with our past world. Societal flaws get tattooed on the brains of people the moment they are born.

It is an ignorant wonder whether the unsanctioned emotions of people have been felt in the New World.

Though, I suspected it to be true. Our leaders played a good game of manipulating the definitions of those words into our heads. Never letting us forget they were punishable by death. Though, I don't believe all of our people fell for this scare-tactic.

My biggest secret? I, myself, have felt them. I lived them.

---

“Aria,” I breathed out, “I don’t think I can run anymore.”

Further ahead, she stopped and turned to face me. “Oh, come on, Fae. We are almost out of city sight. Plus, I stole a book from the museum yesterday we have to read.”

“At least let me feel like I’m beating you in the race there.” I laughed and took off like a lightning bolt.

Aria squealed. “That’s cheating!” She yelled after me.

We arrived at our secret spot about two miles outside the craziness.

Aria discovered it two years ago on our Day of Labor, where we officially become adults and get told our occupation of the next five years.

The leaders of this New World believe in re-evaluation every few years. That way we don’t grow fond of our jobs or their people, and so it keeps anyone from ever getting too comfortable.

Aria was a janitor in the museum of the Old World, which is how she had access to banned objects like books.

“So what’s this book about?” I asked sitting down next to Aria.

She smiled at me, the brightest of any I had seen before. “Oh, Fae, I think you’re going to freak over it. It’s supposed to be a love story by some guy named…” She looked down at the book in her lap. “Uhh, Shakespear? I think is how you say it.”

We got into our usual book reading position and I laid my head on her lap as she leaned against a tree. I closed my eyes and listened to the words of a world I could only dream of.

Love. Everywhere.

---

Today was my day off from teaching. On my off days, I liked to sneak Aria a snack on her shift in the museum. Today was no different.

I had stolen an apple and some crackers from the cafeteria the previous day in preparation.

I made my way through the city just as everyone else did—head straight-forward and eyes blank. We could show emotion, sure, but anything that seemed more than just a friendly smile was seen as possible treason. So, people made a silent agreement to avoid that at all costs. Consequently, our personalities seemed as bland as the white walls in every city building.

Aria always waited for me under the third-floor staircase. She smiled shyly when I came around the corner, apple in hand.

“Hi Fae,” she whispered.

“Hello, my lady,” I bowed as if in one of Shakespears books.

She nudged my shoulder. “Shhh, don’t make me laugh! You’re going to get us killed.”

“We’ve done plenty of other things that should have gotten us killed before that one, Ari,” I said softly, smiling.

Her cheeks reddened at my words. She covered them with her hands out of instinct. That reaction she has to me being the single reason we weren’t able to talk outside of a private space. It’s an immediate sign of one of the two banned emotions.

Both of us acknowledged the moment before sitting against the wall. I enjoyed her presence while we shared the apple and crackers. Together, we imagined we were allowed to be true outside of this dark room.

---

There was to be a full moon in the middle of August. Aria had asked me if we could find a spot to lay and look at the stars. She had read of people in the Old World doing this for fun and wanted to try it.

“Fae, they speak of this as if it was magic. Pure magic. Floating balls of fire. Millions of them. All you have to do is find a space away from city lights,” she said, her eyes full of wonder. “I also read that sometimes one of the balls of fire shoots across the sky. So fast that if you blink, you miss it.”

“A shooting star?” I smirked at her and put my arm over her shoulders.

We were on the way to our secret spot. Being two miles outside the city, Aria figured it was far enough away from the lights.

“Guess what else they say about the shooting stars?” She asked.

“What?”

She stopped and moved to stand in my path, facing me. “They say if you see one, you’re supposed to make a wish, and that wish will come true.”

I took a half step toward her. “Do you know what my wish would be, Ari?”

She shook her head slowly.

I took another step forward and placed my hand on her chin to steady myself.

She smiled, knowing what was coming next.

I smiled, too, before closing my eyes and leaning in to kiss her. Lightly, slowly, and careful to take in every infinity existing at that moment.

“I’d wish to do that in front of everyone without a care in the world. And I’d wish to do it as many times a day as I pleased.”

Flushed cheeks, she whispered the banned three words at me.

I took in all eight letters and stored them deep in my heart.

---

During my most recent time in the museum, I got lost and found myself in a storage closet. Inside was artifacts from the Old World. I found myself looking around before I could help it.

Buried on a shelf, I found a box labeled ‘Polaroid Camera’. Aria had read me something about these cameras before. How they were made to take pictures of things people loved, so they could be printed out immediately.

Lucky for me, this camera had one piece of paper left in it.

I stole it.

“What did you want to show me?” Aria asked the next day at our spot outside the city.

I lowered my head, partly ashamed for making her an accomplice in even more illegal activity.

“Please try not to be mad at me,” I said, looking her in the eyes.

She nodded, patiently waiting.

I took a deep breath and pulled the camera out of my bag.

“This is a—“

“POLAROID CAMERA!!” Aria practically yelled and grabbed it out of my hands. “Fae, where in the world did you get this?”

She lifted it up to her eye to look through the lens.

“Be careful, Ari. It only has one picture left, don’t waste it.”

Aria lowered the camera into her lap and looked back and forth from it, to me, in absolute awe.

“I got lost in the museum yesterday and found it in a storage room. I took it,” I admitted dryly. “Remember that magazine we read a few years ago that showed these cameras and all of the pictures it took of everything beautiful in the Old World? I figured you and I could create a piece of that world for ourselves…you know, steal some of that glorified love and amplify it here.” I smiled at her.

Aria said nothing to me for a long time, and tears had started to form in her eyes. I let her feel for some time, massaging her hand in between mine.

Silently, Aria grabbed the camera and lifted it up to face the two of us.

“Smile,” she whispered into my ear.

I smiled uncontrollably, always doing whatever Aria pleased. Then kissing my cheek, she snapped the lens and a flash shone in my eyes, blinding us of our broken world.

After a few seconds, the camera spat out a black square.

“I think you leave it alone and it becomes something, right?” I questioned.

Aria blinked. “I’m not sure, honestly. I never got that far in my understanding of it.”

Right on cue, the blackness started to lighten. Aria and I shrieked in sync.

Before we understood what was happening, we were looking at ourselves on a piece of paper. Her kissing my cheek, me smiling bigger than ever.

“It’s, well, it’s-“ Aria started.

“That’s love,” I finished for her.

Without a word, Aria reached around her neck and took something off.

“I have just the spot for this,” she said with quiet excitement.

Together we placed the picture in its new home. I took out my pocket knife, and we carved a message into the metal.

Before placing it back around her neck, I kissed the closed treasure.

Even in our broken world, I have a place among the greatest love stories of them all.

---

The stillness in my mind shatters when I notice the movement of my hands, slightly shaking, blood buzzing through them.

The mysteries of the society before this one left for me to interpret myself. There is virtually no evidence to inspect. They did not believe in love, which meant they didn’t believe in safekeeping objects.

I look down to the heart-shaped locket open in my palm, chain hanging at the ground. The only evidence I have from the Old World.

My Great-Grandma Fae sits in the center of the photo, a woman hugged tight to her side, kissing Grandma’s cheek. Both of them glowing with an intensity and a secret deeper than their society allowed.

I’d like to think it was all of their most ordinary, simple moments that led her to defy the law and pursue a banned love with this woman.

No government can take away our humanness. And she certainly didn’t let them stop her in the pursuit of love.

Underneath the photo is a small engraving: this is love.

I close the 100-year-old locket and store it away in my safe.