Trues

The Little was sitting in a puddle of mud, grubby hands clenched around some muck-covered lump. Distraction is common with Littles. It is hard to keep them focused but the lessons are important, so I didn’t just give up when I got a Little who needed extra care.

“What’s that Little? I am speaking truth here; you need to watch closely.”

“Plastic goes and metal stays.” The Little said, her eyes fixed on the lump in her hands.

“Yup. That’s a True Little. Is that what you got?” I gave the rest my stay put look then got up to see what she was holding.

“I bit it like you said. No cracks no way. It’s gonna stay. What is it Tender?” The Little held the thing out to me as I stooped down to her level. Like all Littles she was small, maybe 5 – maybe not. Once they get to a certain size they send them to a Ten. Not that all groups have 10, mine only has 6 at the moment but 10 is the max so they’re all called Ten.

I took the object from her and smoothed away some of the gunk, my eyes going wide with surprise. I tried to think if I’d ever held something like this before. Doubtful. I’d been born after, and things are different now. We are New. We’d let go of so much to fix the broken.

“This is definitely metal Little. Good job. But it’s not safe for you to keep. It’s not allowed.”

“Not allowed.” All 6 of my Littles parroted and I nodded and shoved the thing in my pocket to deal with later, not caring that the mud and gunk would get on my clothes. I always ended up having to scrub them extra anyways on days I had to tend.

The Little I’d taken it from frowned but she nodded, a bit of fear in her eyes as she took my hand and allowed me to lead her back to the circle with the rest. I didn’t take them Upside every day. Just on days when I needed visible evidence to teach a Truth. Upside had plenty of broken things that made the lessons stick. For Littles that is the best way. Back before, when humans hadn’t realized how they were breaking things, they’d spent years studying how people learn. What worked, what didn’t. Then at the end when we’d started over we’d kept some of that. That’s a True. Keep what’s good, the rest let go. There’s a lot of Trues. Call it what you will, commandments, testaments, rules. Humans need them and we remember them when they’re true. Sticks with you like the scar that’s left when you pick the scab away.

The thing sat heavy in my pocket the rest of the day. A physical reminder of the why of things, and the importance of teaching the Littles. Of helping them learn the Trues. The type of people who made stuff like it, those were the people who’d broken the whole world. Broken it so bad we had to become New to get out from under it and survive. We are reborn every day in the Under the moment we open our eyes and come out of our homes to the metal sky. Just a picture keeping us warm and safe while we waited in the Under for the Reclaim.

We went back Under at the end of the day. I took the littles to their homes then took the thing with me to the Elders. The Elders had a hall near the Law Room, where they sat in the open teaching any adults who wished to learn from a person instead of a screen. I had to wait a bit for one to see me and let me speak. Then I took it out of my pocket and held it out for her to see. She took it from me and wiped away more of the mud and gunk to see it clearly.

“This here is a locket. Jewelry, kind of like your collar.” She said looking up at me from where she sat. I reached up and touched my collar, the soft metal ring we all wore around our necks that helped me breathe when we went Upside and let me talk to everyone in the Under, no matter how far away they were.

“What does this locket collar do?” I asked tilting my head and peering closer.

“It doesn’t do anything. See- it’s shaped like a heart. It was probably something someone gave to a loved one. A pretty token.”

“Beauty comes from nature- that’s a True,” I said and she nodded and smiled at me something that happened so rarely it was startling.

“Wanting things like this, having things like this was just a small piece of why we had to become New. It looks harmless, doesn’t it? But the metal had to come from somewhere didn’t it? Shaped like a heart. Such a pretty thing. Shine it up and it would gleam and catch the light like a star in the sky.”

She held it up, the mud-covered, tarnished locket. I couldn’t stop staring at it and knew I wasn’t the only one. My coming to see an elder wasn’t usual. I knew I drew stares because I am barely out of my own Ten and hadn’t yet gone to my Three. But I am technically an adult so I could come and ask and learn, and I needed to learn now. I wanted to touch it again but like my Littles, I was afraid it really was something bad. That it really was - Not Allowed.

“Gems and stones make the bones of the Earth.” The elder said holding the end of the chain in her fist and lifting the locket up so that everyone around could see it. The way she looked at it, the disgust on her face scared me. It was just a thing. A pretty thing. It hadn’t felt harmful in my pocket, but still, I’d known it was there. Maybe that was the point. The fact that I hadn’t been able to forget it. What if I had been wearing it around my neck like my collar? No one else had one, everyone would look at it. Look at me. I took a step backward understanding.

“What we are is special. What we take is not.” The elder heard my whispered words and smiled, tossing the locket onto the ground and nodding.

“That’s a True, Tender. That’s what makes it a bad thing. Those before took from Nature to make that. Then fought to keep that and the other things. That’s why it’s bad Tender. We will dispose of it properly; you were right to bring it to us.” I nodded and backed away, my eyes straying to the thing - the heart locket where it lay on the smooth stone tiles that made up the floor of the Elder’s Hall.