The Daughter

This is our world. Where your mistakes are counted, your love is forbidden, and you are constantly paying a price to live. There was a time when this wasn’t the case, though it was so long ago I can barely remember it. I can no longer speak freely, but what does it even mean to speak freely? Even if I could speak freely, what would I have to say? I don’t have my own ideas or values...I know I’m thinking as part of the collective, but how could I not? I have gotten comfortable–well, maybe not comfortable–but I guess, used to this world. I don’t know any other way to live.

There is one thing I do remember that I can look back on. I was probably around 4. I was with my dad and mom in our New York City apartment. The television was on, the sun was setting, dad was in the kitchen making dinner, mom was sitting on the couch reading a book, twirling a necklace with her fingertips. She was constantly reading. She had a job at the library and practically had to read for a living. Though, she loved it. I can’t picture her without a book. I don’t know how she survived without it if she ever did survive.

I am one of the lucky ones. I know how to read and write. I haven’t in a while, but I can.

But this picture just stuck in my mind: dad in the kitchen, mom tugging on her heart-shaped locket, the television on, sun setting. Simple. Maybe it’s because it was our routine, but I don’t really remember anything else. It’s odd how you can remember the smallest of events...if you could even call it an event. More like the most ordinary of things that grasp onto your memory and won’t unstick. No matter how hard you try. I would like to un-remember too many things to name, especially from the beginning. Or, maybe this everyday occurrence, this beautiful painting in my mind wasn’t so perfect. Or, maybe it’s fake and I don’t remember this at all; that I made it up and believed it was true.

I’d like to think it was real. But, there is no one to confirm the story. It helped me through some difficult times, the memory of what once was. Even if it wasn’t perfect, even if it wasn’t true, it was still beautiful.

But now, this picture encompasses the early years; the years before the government was overthrown. When there was such a thing as family. Now, my so-called family is “faith in our government”...not even people, just an idea. At least that’s what they tell us it’s supposed to be. It has never felt that way for me. I haven’t felt a sense of family since then.

***

I don’t like to get into it much–how things were before. At this point, there is nothing that resembles the past. I suspect my mother or father could pinpoint different locations across the city on their daily walks. That building used to be the supermarket, the other a movie theatre. But it is all displaced to me. I have nothing that ties me to the other world. I guess I don’t like to get into it much because I can barely describe it. I am mostly just met with the films they show us of how we have ‘progressed’ as a society since then. I don’t see it that way–as progression. Nevertheless, I don’t exactly think I would change it.

In these films, they show us women in power with men depleted to nothing. The men walk around with targets on their back, while the women stab them with their high heels. It is highly overdramatized. They have these sorts of films for other things too. To make us fearful.

To keep everyone in line.

It keeps the Commanders in power, and the government can continue to play God. I guess I do have some of my own morals, I don’t know. It works though. It has kept most people in. It has kept me in.

There is particularly one film they show quarterly, that sends shivers down my spine. It is of the colonies. Sometimes the film is updated, sometimes it’s the same. All the handmaids watch intently while looking for people they recognize.

The colonies are where the unwomen live. It is mostly women, but some men. If you commit a crime you either get sent there or the wall. This makes me want to stay. This makes all of us want to stay. We know what they are capable of. I no longer dream of a life beyond America, I am merely trying to survive.

***

Today, I set off with Ofmark for shopping. She doesn’t speak. She hasn't muttered a word since the day she arrived.

It's been 4 weeks now. 4 weeks since I noticed that the figure approaching me wasn’t the Ofmark that I knew. It wasn't the woman who had been walking by my side for 2 years. I still don’t know what happened to her. I don’t think I ever will.

***

This was when things started to change for me. Although the new Ofmark didn’t talk, I knew that she was different. It was the way she looked at people, the tenseness of her body. It was as if she knew something. Frankly, I didn’t want to know if she knew something. I didn’t want to be endangered.

But, I was. Just by being in her presence.

One day, Ofmark’s stature shifted. It was when we locked eyes for the first time. She looked at me and sharply but silently inhaled.

At this point, she had never seen me, only knew what I sounded like. We have these hoods that keep our eyes focused on what is ahead. From the day she replaced my friend, she didn’t dare look at me. I snuck a few glances at her though. I guess she hadn’t trusted me yet, or something worse. Something I couldn't yet grasp. This was why I started to think she had a secret in the first place. But I was right. It was worse.

She said under her breath, “I know who you are.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. What does she mean she knows who I am? No one knows anyone. On impulse, I asked, “Who?”

She didn’t respond.

Not until we reached a point far away, where there were no guards in sight. That was when she mustered up the courage to say, “Meet me here before dawn.”

There was no way I was meeting her here before dawn. I have never stepped out of line in my life. I was not about to do it for some person who I didn’t trust, who hasn’t even said a word to me until today. She could rat me out. Get me sent to the colonies. If we got caught, we could be sent to death, hung up on the wall for everyone to see. And yet, something about her made me go. Made me want answers I didn’t know I had questions to.

So I went.

***

An hour before the sunrise, I snuck out of the building, throwing a rock to distract the guard outside the door then taking the back exit. I tiptoed on the cobblestone road, crouching behind the sparse bushes. Luckily, it was dark enough to be unnoticed. I was worried this would not be the case on the way back.

When I arrive, Ofmark is already there lurking by a tree. She nodded at me, allowing me to come close to her. I could feel her warm breath on my cold nose. I had never gotten this close to anyone but my Commander.

Suddenly, she grabs my hand and places a heart-shaped locket in it, and whispers, “Mayday.”

I had no chance to ask her any questions, to ask what this word means, where she got this necklace, where she came from, who she is...but there was one thing I knew to be true.

The image in my mind was real after all.