The Walls That Separate Us

Requisition: denied.

Requisition: denied.

Requisition: denied.

He saw those words every single day. Every time he closed his eyes. Every time he opened them. Every time he passed the growing, dusty stack of envelopes, squirreled away in the shed that he didn't bother opening anymore, knowing them to contain only those same words stamped on their shell in that off red ink, like dried blood, or blood about to dry, sticky and congealing and impossible to scrub clean.

This morning was no different. Twelve years after the walls had gone up, still all he cared for, felt for, despaired for were those words. His assigned companion snored in a room upstairs. It drove him crazy at first, the incessant nocturnal rattling thrum, but it eventually dropped to a mere background buzz. The new white noise of his life.

They passed each other like ships in the night, he and The New Girl. He still called her The New Girl in his head, and felt certain she returned the favour, though they'd been paired for ten years now. She had lost her family too. He wasn't angry with her. She wasn't angry with him. They just weren't interested in each other. They'd both lost their real families, their real lives. This was barely a facsimile.

She gave up hope seven years ago, three into their pairing. He felt the exact moment it happened. She had been staring incessantly at the wall above the mantelpiece, where you could still see the outline of the picture that had hung there before; a lighter square patch, starkly present, impossible to ignore. A picture of the family that lived here first, taken down to face the wall in the hall, because how could anyone continue to make eye contact with the ghosts that lived here before?

Then he returned from his work to find her frantically painting the wall where the outline was, getting more panicky and frustrated as the new paint came out lighter than the old, making the patch even more noticeable no matter what she did. Paint, like everything else now, was rationed strictly, and he knew she must have spent at least half of their weekly allowance on the tiny pot that now lay on its side, scraped clean of every last drop, as she continued dragging the now dry brush over the wall. The noise of the brittle, dry bristles being raked across the wall made him shudder.

He pulled her to him gently, massaging her white knuckles until the tightly clamped brush was released from her hand and tumbled to the floor. He held her to his chest as she screamed and sobbed and heaved deep, ragged breaths. He murmured soft words and stroked her hair, an act of intimacy that was almost alien to them, so deeply had they drawn the invisible lines that kept them apart.

Her breathing started to calm and that’s when he noticed shards of glass scattered across the threadbare carpeting, once a deep blue, now a dull grey. Some were large, wickedly sharp and jagged, some small and glinting like diamonds. Portrait glass. They had none of their own.

He pulled away, strands of her hair and fluids stretching from her tear sheened face to his now sodden shirt, and gestured towards the mess, both his question and his sadness clear in his eyes.

“I would give anything,” he murmured, “to have had those memories myself.”

She met his eyes, and he expected to see anger, sadness, resentment, even rage, after the cataclysm from which she had quieted.

But her eyes were empty. Devoid even, of feeling or humanity, despite the flush still visible in her cheeks and the streaks marking her face. She turned her gaze, unable to face the sadness in his eyes.

“They're not coming back.”

She broke his embrace with a sharp shrug, and walked slowly and carefully to her bedroom, picking her way over the littered glass, left for his attention and paused to speak before closing the door.

“Just accept it. This is our life now.”

She’d been like that since that day. Going through the motions. He understood. How could he not? Their every happiness, their every joy, had been stolen for twelve long years.

Twelve years with no word from outside the ten mile radius in which he was now, permanently it seemed, enclosed. No news, no television except mandated programming, no internet. Phone towers and the like seemed to have been immediately disabled.

He had been staying in a motel when it happened, only a hundred or so miles away from his family. A snap decision that he regretted every day; too tired to drive the distance, he opted to stay the night in the small town where he had spent the day guest lecturing at a local university.

His chest still ached when he thought of Tessa, his pregnant wife, the most beautiful person he'd ever seen, the goddess at whose altar he worshipped every day from the moment they met. Their yellow lab, Charlie, an endless ball of goof, always available for some cheer or a snuggle or an overly...wet kiss to the face. Waiting for a return that would never come to pass.

His child would be twelve now. He didn't even know if it was a boy or a girl. Charlie would be dead by now, even if pets were still allowed. Tessa must have given up hope too. He closed his eyes for a moment, fighting the ever present stream of images. Tessa, lying dead eyed as some chump pounded away on her. Or somehow worse, Tessa falling in love again. His baby calling another man Daddy. He screamed into his balled up fists, trying to keep the noise in. The snoring snuffled, halted for a second, started again. The New Girl didn't think he had tried hard enough to come to terms with their new life. But how could he? How could anyone come to terms with this? Other than by losing hope, like The New Girl did.

No one knew what happened. They still didn't. Residents and visitors alike were roused and driven from their homes and hostelry in the early grey hours of that fateful day, into town halls and meeting rooms, churches and school gymnasiums, anywhere that could hold their numbers.

Helmeted soldiers in plain black armoured bodysuits pointed guns at their heads as their new laws were read to them by another faceless soldier, distinguished only by a single red stripe on his breast.

“Walls have been erected every ten miles. Civilians are no longer permitted under any circumstances to enter or leave their designated zones. Certain professions have strictly regulated exemptions. Those who work in approved, necessary jobs will continue their roles. Those that don't will be reassigned. Those placed from out of area…”

His ears pricked with hope for the first time.

“...will remain here and be allocated homes from those who were not in residence today.” He almost fell to his knees, clutching his chest, his stomach, unable to breathe, steadied only by the firm grasp of the man next to him, who looked in his eyes and then at the men with the guns, and then back to him. Don't make a scene. Don't make a fuss. Don't draw their attention.

The message was clear as day, though the man spoke not a word.

So he straightened his back, locked his wobbly knees and clung for dear life to the hand of the stranger beside him, tears streaming silently from his eyes, despite his best efforts to contain them.

A woman at the front would not be similarly placated.

"My baby! My husband! My life! You will take everything from me! Why? WHY?! Who are you to do these things?! Who??"

Red Stripe gave a nod, almost imperceptible, and the soldier to his right stepped forward and in a movement so fluid it could only be borne of repetition, shot her cleanly between the eyes.

The crowd gasped and tried to pull back, turn away, but were met with lines of guns at their backs. Red Stripe cleared his throat, a mild, almost polite sound that belied the meaning of his next words.

"We don't care for questions. It doesn't matter who we are, it matters what we are. And. We. Are. In. Charge."

Red stripe fired his own pistol into the air, once, twice, three times, his preferred form of punctuation. A deathly silence fell over the crowd, interrupted by only the occasional muffled sob.

"My men do not need permission to discipline or execute you. I recommend you follow their direction."

He turned on over polished shoes, nodded to the man on his right and disappeared into the throng of soldiers behind him.

They made them form three lines. The medically unfit and those over 70. Then the displaced. Then the remaining residents.

The remaining were told to return to their homes and await further instruction. The displaced were given direction to their new homes. The others were never seen again.

Darren's new house was fine. There was information waiting for him, explanations on rationing, how his chosen career, lecturing at universities was now defunct, how NOT to break the rules. That took up a big portion. He paid particular attention to that. It didn't seem like the new regime gave second chances. His new role would be assigned in due course, as would his new mate. He still felt sick at the memory of reading those words for the first time.

A year later he got another information packet. Requisition requests. In response to The Displaced's needs to have knowledge of those they left behind, the new regime would allow a certain number of requisition requests a year. These would not supply information, but would allow you to request an item belonging to the deceased in the event that they had passed away. It was the only way he could find out if Tessa, or their baby, had died.

So he started making them. Near enough every two weeks, the minimum time allowed between requests. The response always the same. A single small envelope, brown, a plastic window with his name and new address visible, and the words, Requisition Denied, stamped in bold, bloody letters across the front.

He used to open them, see if there was discernible information to glean, but there never was. After a year he gave up on opening them, though he never stopped sending them.

He always tried to wake before The New Girl, get to the mail before her. She didn't approve.

"What's done is done," she would say, briskly, coldly. "This is our life now. Time to let go of her. Of them."

She didn't understand. He did though. He understood her need to close off, to survive. He wasn't there yet. He didn't think he ever could be. They were the meaning of his existence. His everything, even now.

And so it was that morning, he stumbled to their door, eyes blurry from sleep, grabbing the little bundle of post and taking it with him to the kitchen table while he made his one allotted cup of coffee of the day. He didn't notice that one envelope seemed bulkier than the rest.

He was filling the kettle and pulling out the mugs when he realised there was no tell-tale red visible on the pile either.

He turned, slow as mud flows, mug in hand, and stared at the small pile, mostly made up of leaflets containing rule updates, announcements and the like. He dared not touch the pile, not yet, but he couldn't see it. No brown poking out, no red ink. But there was something, something he hadn't seen in a long time, a white, puffy envelope, likely with bubble wrapped lining, used in past days to enclose smaller items for sending. A slash of stamped ink, lurid, venomous green today rather than the usual rusty, bloody red.

A flash of relief so intense it almost stopped his heart was quickly drowned by a wave of horror. If the requisition was granted, then surely Tessa must be dead. And Tessa couldn't be dead. The mug in his hand was in pieces on the ground, but he didn't remember dropping it. Despite the ringing in his ears he could hear The New Girl moving around upstairs and knew he had to move, to take it and run and be alone, when he opened this envelope of hope and of horror.

He slid the package from the middle of the pile, noting briefly the words, Requisition Approved, before he bolted out the back door. He made a beeline to the little shed that The New Girl didn't like coming into. It had spiders. She hated spiders. He didn't used to be a fan, but things change.

He turned the package over in his hands, dust mote laden streams of light poking through the threadbare wood that formed the structure, so intense they illuminated the package, transforming it from off white and lurid green to shimmering gold with emerald lettering.

The light shifted, and it became once more unremarkable, except for a lump gathered down one end. He tilted the package, and whatever it was moved with a slither to the opposite end.

Hands shaking, he slit the glued end with his thumb, slicing into the quick in the process. He paused, unable to force himself to take that final, tiny step, eleven years in the waiting. The blood pooled in the bed of his nail, welling over the quick and sliding, achingly slowly down his thumb, until it dripped onto the unblemished white of the envelope. Blood and death. The words flitted through his mind unheeded. Tessa would always treat wounds, even the tiniest ones, with the utmost care. "No infections please!" she would announce, holding out her hand expectantly but smiling so gently, so she could clean and dress it. He didn't mind. He loved it when she touched him. He wished she were there now. He always wished she was there.

He tipped the bag, and out slid a locket. THE locket. The one he gave to her all those years ago, when she showed him the positive test. The proof of their union, the life they created from their love for each other. Their dates of birth inscribed on one side, with room for a third, and a picture of the two of them on the other. Solid silver, ornately engraved, and heart shaped. The symbol of his love for her, and for them.

Moisture dripped onto the engravings, blurring the intricate swoops and whorls, and he looked up with ire to find the source of the leak that would mar this precious gift, then realised his eyes were pouring tears as he wiped at the locket with an, as it turns out, even bloodier thumb. Cursing and rubbing at the silver with a rag and some spit, he finally got it clean, and slowly, gently, popped the clasp.

On the left, as before, were his and Tessa's dates of birth, as well as those of presumably his child. Only two weeks after the walls came down. Six weeks early.

Folded on the right side was a picture. Not him and Tessa, but Tessa and what he realised must be his little girl. She looked just like her, all delicate curved bones, big brown eyes, upturned nose and delicate rose of a mouth. Not a hint of his harsh bone structure, the straight lines and rigid angles that always made him look grumpy, even at his most happy. Tessa always joked that he looked like he was attending a funeral in their wedding pictures. He only shone in the reflection of her light, and in it was made handsome. He plucked it out and unfolded it with reverence, drinking in every detail of both beautiful, perfect faces.

When he was able to look down again, he realised there were words, scratched into the right side, hidden behind the picture.

First there were numbers, dots, letters, in a distinct pair. GPS coordinates, he thought, dimly, a spark kindling deep in his soul. Then the words that set it aflame:

'Find us, Daddy.'