What the Deciders Decide

Her picture is beside mine. An undiscerning eye would think that it is me twice. But there is a freckle beside her left eye, and her ears stick out more than mine do.

The Deciders told father that my sister wasn't Viable when she was two. They insisted that the injection wouldn’t hurt. It feels like seeing the face of God, they said, the serum trickling into the baby’s vein.

I wonder if God has an angular jawline, sharp like the needle that shot into my sister’s arm. I wonder if God’s skin is brown like my sister’s eyes were. I wonder if he hates my sister because she didn’t get the same oxygen as me when she was born.

I always look at it before bed, my sister’s picture in the heart shaped locket.

They Decide again when we are sixteen, and I am fifteen. They say that if the Decision is not in our favour, we will go, and as we go, we will see the face of God. They don’t say if we will keep seeing the face of God after we are already gone.

And so, I have been growing my hair out, and I have been wearing the dress instead of my pants, and I have shown my face at church.

"We hope the Decision is in your favour," the elderly women at church say, their eyes are like cold stones.

After the sermon, I sit with the women, and they tell stories of forests. Before the Great Collision children would explore green temples, their laughter blending with birdsong. The forests were brimming with ancient trees that brushed against the sky. Now, we build churches from rubble left by the Great Collision, and we pray for plants to grow through cracks in the cement. I breathe in their memories hungrily.

One afternoon, father sends me to town, and Amira grabs me, pulling me behind the barn. I hold Amira's hands.

"Father is making me go to church all the time now," I whisper. "And I have to wear a dress".

She looks down, shakes her head. As we walk to town from the barn, Amira tells me that she misses the moon in my hair.

My father asks me why I take so long that afternoon, and I pull a ration of smoked fish from my satchel.

''I got the best fish, but the line was long,'' I tell father.

He turns away from me. I hear him mutter dirty heretic under his breath, but I say nothing. Father spends the days alone in his room now, shuffling in the dark amongst dusty books, and half finished paintings. He knows the Decision is coming.

I find Amira two weeks before the Deciders decide, behind the barn. Her lips meet mine. She runs her hand through my long hair, and then pulls it through the tangles at the bottom. She has come with a handful of carefully collected weeds and delicate flowers which look like freedom and truth in her small brown hands. I tell her that father calls me a heretic, and she says, tell that to the moon as it shines down on us.

When the day comes, I wear the dress, and my father brushes my long hair. He clasps my hand tightly all the way to town. Father whispers that I must do everything right.

There are many Considerations in the church today. The ones before me all return to their seats, their faces glinting. I walk slowly when my name is called, a hive of whispers behind me. There are always whispers, but for me, there are more.

"Quickly now," hisses a Decider.

I steady my voice, hold my hands still against the dress. I look into their unblinking humanoid faces and tell them with feigned confidence about my sewing and piano, and my volunteer work with youth at the elementary. They hum and haw behind their long table with its black cloth. Then, the Deciders turn to me together and say that they have decided that they would like me to Continue. They tell me to return to my seat. I walk lightly because my father has said that I must not be too confident.

When I am back, my father's shoulders quiver like a leaf in a storm. He puts his arm around my shoulder, and pulls me close. I hear grief roar from deep in her chest, but he composes himself.

Amira is called. Amira tells them about her work as a ferrier, and about her standing at school. Her voice falters, and I am hard and distant as she speaks. They Decide that she too can Continue, and I feel my face soak with tears, though I do not feel myself cry.

The Deciders ask if there are any objections.

A woman stands. She smooths her dress, and looks around the room before pointing a long, straight finger at Amira.

"That child is a sinner, a perversion, I’ve seen it," she says indignantly.

There is a din throughout the room. Then, in a matter of moments, Amira is ushered away by a Metal Arm, her face gripped with pain. Amira casts her head back to me, her gaze foreign from the one I know. I am hard and far away like a cast away stone.

A week later Amira is in the newspaper. Her picture is small, black and white. I cut it carefully with my sewing scissors. The metal from the locket is cool and acrid in my palm. I slip Amira into the other side of the locket, beside my sister. For a moment I imagine them resting, just like that, side by side, in God's palm.

And I wonder, I wonder what he would decide for people like us.