The necklaces came in different
colors. Actually the only choice we had in the whole matter was to choose the
color of our liking. Of course, we couldn’t make that choice the moment we were
born. But once we grew to be five years old, they accepted our requests for
colors. That way, kids would compare their necklaces in school and change them
every few months during the puberty. When that was done, the change was done
every two years, in order to download some content and replace it if it was
needed.
Nobody really remembered when the
necklaces were put into place. Some say, the reason we don’t know the exact
date is because they have wiped out our brains of memories. Not all of them, of
course, but the ones that are important to the government. They say the
necklaces are there to ensure our safety and, to be fair, even top officers use
them. Of course, theirs are much more beautiful than the normal ones, some even
made of different materials and adorned with jewels or other beautiful things.
But in the end, same as ours.
It has been like this for a long
time and we just live alongside the whole thing. Our necklaces record our daily
lives and all of that is passed on to the government in order to decide who is
loyal and who is not. We are taught that’s a good thing because we cannot have
rebellious people around. The yare the ones that could hurt us the most and
they sometimes do. The explosions and attacks that happen sometimes are all of
their doing and its because they don’t want us to keep living like this.
To them, this system is wrong and
we are also wrong because we let it exist. But the truth is that most of us
don’t make our lives being like this at all. We just wake up in the morning and
then go to work and then comeback to our families, like every single person has
done for thousands of years. The necklaces don’t make any difference in our
lives; it’s just an accessory that we have to carry from the moment we are born
to the moment of our death. Not more than that and we accept it.
Rebels, people say, are people
that want everything to be as it once was. We are taught in school that the
world was chaotic in the past, filled with war and poverty and hunger. We don’t
have any of that to today and we fail to realize why some people would like all
of that to come back. Back in the past, people fought for everything that we
have now, so why would we even remotely agree with a rebel that just wants us
to fight and fight and fight, with no end in sight? They are crazy people and
they have to be detained by the government, the only ones that actually care
about us.
Once a year, there are public
showings of a movie shot by drones that fly away to other areas of the world.
Our country is large and prosperous but some others were actually destroyed in
the wars of the past. They want us to see all of that for ourselves because the
truth is more important than anything. The footage is always different but the
message is always the same: we cannot keep rising because when people do that,
other people, less fortunate people, suffer all of the consequences. And that’s
what happened.
None of us remember the wars.
None of us remembers when the bombs were dropped from the skies and from the
blackness above us. What we do know for sure is that some of the people, those
that survived to create the government, they hid for years in deep caves,
eating only canned goods. Nowadays, we have all the fruits and vegetables that
we would ever need. We don’t buy them, because they are delivered to our houses
and distributed equally among the populace. We don’t have to suffer anymore.
Rebels, apparently, say that the
government keeps most of the food for themselves. But they don’t understand
that we don’t really care. Because we are able to eat what we want, we can ask
for it and it will be delivered. Only a few things are commonly rejected and
it’s due to the low amount of some resources. But we understand that. We have
learned that oil and coal and so many more things became almost extinct after
the wars. So we have learned not to ask for any of that. Actually, we have
mostly replaced it all.
Complaining and complaining. Not
wanting to fit into a society. That’s what’s wrong with those people, with
those rebels. They just don’t want every single one of us to be happy. They
want to create chaos because they are the kind of people that love to kills
others and see the world burn. They do what they do because the amount of order
in this world makes them mad. They cannot bare to think that we have peace,
that we finally have a world in which we can be ourselves, just by giving up a
little bit.
And yeah, we do. We give the
government access to our lives; we keep our necklaces because we have agreed to
live in peace with everyone and everything else. And they cannot understand it,
they are furious every single day because a bomb hasn’t killed a whole family
or a soldier has not been slaughtered with a knife. They find chaos amusing and
they thrive in it, as if they were flowers fed with blood. Deadly flowers that
have nothing pretty about them, they are only poisonous and looking to kill us
all, slowly. Rebels are that type of scum and we don’t want them here.
Sometimes, not too often, a
billboard is raised to announce the number of rebels leaving the country to be sent
to a specialized facility where the government can take care of their kind.
Some people say its located on one of the caves that our ancestors used after
the war. Some others say it’s an island just a few kilometers from the capital
city. Well, of course most of us don’t know where it is or what it’s like
because we are not rebels and we haven’t done anything to deserve that kind of
punishment.
The idea is that rebels are
stripped of their ideas there and then the yare sent back to the country, in
order to be valuable members of our society. Most of us think that’s a great
idea but we know it doesn’t happen very often. The few times the military makes
raids, they kill all of the country’s enemies and we celebrate it by applauding
for a whole minute at home. We do it to make our boys and girls in uniform for
their fantastic job. Without them, it is quite possible that the world would be
lost.
It’s not common to see one of
those rebels that have become a member of the community once more. They are
rarely seen in the cities and, people say, they are mostly used in the large
farms that feed all of us daily. It must be a nice change of pace, from
carrying weapons and killing people, to milk cows and planting rice in the
fields. Maybe they don’t deserve it, or maybe they don’t, but the government
gives them a chance and that’s a lot more than they deserve, that’s for damn
sure.
We also partake in an event
called the Games, every four years. In the Games, we face each other in different
sports. The idea is that every single member of society should have an ability
to exploit. The Games are most important for teenagers; because that’s the way
they find out what their jobs will be in the future. Adults participate too,
but it’s more like training and a gathering of different people to share
experiences and get to know one another. It’s not something we do a lot and its
fun sometimes.
Something curious is the moment
we loose our necklaces, when they are being replaced for one reason or the
other. It is then when we all change a bit. It is a very short moment, a
glimpse in time. But we all react differently when we are disconnected from our
government. It is a very peculiar thing.
Some of us scream, as if we were staring
at a monster. Some other start crying profusely and others even laugh their
heads off for a few seconds. We all do something. Or at least most of us. They are
some, not many, that do not react to loosing their necklace. They don’t move or
make a noise. They just wait.
