Testing Times

It’s going to be another boring day. They’re always boring these days. Waking up again to the sounds of my brothers fighting. It sounds like Ben had eaten Frank’s chocolate again last night. I don’t really care who is right and who is wrong. Chocolate is a luxury and I can’t remember the last time I had any. Frank keeps squandering the little money he earns. Relies too much on the rest of us. I need to get up. I hate my job. My stupid auto assigned job. I fail one test in 17 years and this means I’m stuck to a mundane life of warehouse work.

Shit. I have half an hour to get there. I miss cars. It used to be so easy getting places. It will take me twenty minutes alone just to walk to work.

Mum’s saved me some rice porridge. I’ll eat it while I walk. I know she wishes I would get up earlier and eat with the family but I hate it. How can we continue on pretending that everything is fine and dandy? They say no one knows why all technology failed, but it did, and now we live in homes that used to be connected by phones and internet, we still have the microwave, like a shrine to when we could eat easy, hot, delicious food. Everything is so boring and mundane now. With no connection to anywhere else in the world (apparently), is it just us, left without? Or did it fail everywhere?

Mum says I’m too cynical. She’s just an accountant though. Blindly following the leaders. Trusting that they tell us the truth. Lucky her knowledge of budgeting and keeping records allowed her to keep working and earning decent money. Only now it’s all old school ledgers. I don’t think they tell us the truth. Grandma didn’t either. I feel Grandma’s locket bounce against my chest as I walk. She used to wear it everyday, a little gold heart shaped locket with an emerald stone in the middle. It wasn’t my style, but I’ve grown to adore it. She gave it to me the day she died. She knew without technology her fall was fatal. Once it would have been a blip in a long healthy life. Now people die of the stupidest, most mundane things.

I hate these walks. I think too much. Packaging food rations is depressing. We’ve all forgotten how to feed ourselves. Relying on industrial agriculture made us lazy. Not for the first time I thank Grandma for our veggie garden. For teaching me to make things from scratch, like sourdough and jam. It’s so hard to get it right though just using fire. How prehistoric cooking is now. We’ve almost run out of her jam. I hope we get a lot of strawberries this summer, then I can try to make a batch. Hopefully, I can squirrel away enough sugar by then. Frank always eats it all. Maybe I’ll spend a little of my savings for an extra bag.

Some days I wish I lived alone. I wouldn’t have to share Grandma’s veggies and I could bake just for me. If only my turn to take the work placement test wasn’t the day after grandmas death. They say the test was to ‘create order’ and to ‘make sure important roles were filled with the right people’. Sounds like a load of bullshit to me. Everyone I know does mundane labour tasks, except those like Mum, keeping the books. I’d argue that’s worse though. I don’t know anyone in a role that might actually know anything of real use, or do anything to help solve the technology crisis. I don’t believe that no one knows why it all failed simultaneously. What stumps me is that it wasn’t just electricity, all the batteries failed at the same time too. It’s beyond weird. I never thought people would just blindly trust the authorities in these situations. But they do, just one big game of Simon Says.

“You look dirty.”

“Hi Carol. Nice to see you too,” I reply, rolling my eyes once she turned away.

I hate washing my clothes by hand in the river. It’s so... Victorian. But I should have done it yesterday on my day off. At least she’s seen me today. I can’t believe she told the boss I was an hour late on Tuesday. I was here! Just because she’s old and can’t see me doesn’t mean I wasn’t.

“Oi! Amy!”

“Morning.”

Oh Jeezzzzz, Adam looks good today. He’s definitely embracing this post apocalypse environment.

“I see you’re purposely dressed like were fighting zombies now.”

Why does he pull of the all black, combat boot thing so well?

“Why not Amy? I might be distributing soap rations but I can pretend like my purpose here is more badass. Anyway, did you hear? Apparently so many people have complained about their assigned job that they are allowing people to retake the test once a year. We should do it! Get something more exciting.”

“No.”

“No? Why? You hate this place?!”

“Yeah it sucks.”

“I don’t get it. Why not then?”

“A-TEAM. GET TO WORK.”

“God I want to punch Barry.” What is it about old white men that makes them think they can just assign people nicknames, yell at them and then think we all love them?

“I hate that he calls us that.”

I look to see Adam giving the finger behind Barry’s back. I giggle. I giggled? What is wrong with me. Now Adam’s looking at me weirdly.

“Anyway...” he says, “so why won’t you do the test?”

I shrug.

“Some people get assigned to work elsewhere and we never hear from them again.”

“Yeah! Exactly! They get to leave this shithole and probably do something exciting and important.”

“And what if they don’t?” I whisper. “What if it’s a coverup?”

“Barry’s coming back, I’m off before I have to listen to his drivel. You’re too paranoid, Amy.”

Watching him walk away is both a treat and depressing. Fast walking away from Barry pretending I didn’t see him, I head to my pack station to grab my assignment for the day. Maybe Adam is right, maybe we should retake the test. But what if they seperate us? What if he goes and I stay here, left alone, bored and still stuck in this fucking job? But what if I get to actually work on something interesting? I was pretty good at school before, I wanted to be an engineer. I wanted to create things to make our life better. What if I could still do it?

No. I’m not going to let Adam drag me into his fantasy world. Grandma always said being warm and well-fed made a happy life. I’m warm and well-fed and so I should be happy with that. It’s more than most. Let someone else be the hero.

Playing with Grandma’s locket as I work, I feel it snap open. I rip it off my neck. It’s never opened. I thought it was broken. I don’t understand. There’s two pictures inside. It isn’t grandma... it looks like me? And is that Adam?! We look old though. I look down and see a note that had fallen out.

“Time-travel broke the earth as we knew it. I sent this to make sure you get on the path to help fix it. Take the test.”

What. The. Actual. Fuck.