Skin Nation Read online

I sat at the table in my kitchen-spoon in one hand, T.V. remote in the other-gazing into the colors that make up the screen and nothing more. The only sound I process is the sound of the crunch in the depths of my mouth from my cereal. Then, a fearful instinct surges through my body forcing my eyes to gaze down at my glass resting in my right hand. Crap. All out of orange juice.

  “Morning.”

  I looked away from the empty glass over at my mother grinning ear to ear as a somewhat familiar body trailed out of the bedroom behind her.

  “Mother,” I rolled my eyes.

  “Bleu.”

  “Frank.”

  I stared Frank down and followed his tracks to the front door with my eyes. I hated the guy-he was so wrong for my mother. The way he spoke, the way he smelled, how he ate, his everything! Yet he stood six feet five tall, with his dark shaven face, dark brown eyes, crooked off white smile and thought he was the ish on every girl's wish list.

  “So, I'll see you around, I guess?”

  “Um, at work. Um, yeah, definitely.”

  They would see each other around, but I knew I wouldn't see Frank's dumb face ever again. I didn't mean to auto hate every guy my mother brought home, I just became aware over the years that she has poor taste and judgement in men. You learn to pick up quick on people when their span in your life ends after three days or less.

  They whispered and whispered at the door and the moment I saw their lips about to meet, no one could've held me back from fake choking. My mother immediately ran to my side. I shooed her away dramatically and the moment between us grew weird. Following my lead, my mother shooed Frank out the house and brought me the carton of orange juice from the fridge.

  “You don't like him,” she frowned as she leaned against the counter I sat at in the kitchen.

  “Mom, he talks like a Futurist.”

  “Is that so bad?”

  I almost double took to make sure that I was having this conversation with my mom. “Yes, especially when every other word coming out his mouth is um.”

  My mother ignored my comment with a bite into her apple our delivery boy brought with our boxed b-fast that morning and voice commanded our T.V. to rise in volume.

  “Oh, look. Another Xi capturing,” I said as I rolled my eyes and stabbed my spoon into my blue disposable cereal bowl.

  My mother adjusted her lean on the counter with her own glass of orange juice and I tried with all my heart to pay attention to the news report. The week before, a report came out that we were progressing-which really meant more people in The Nation were becoming illiterate idiots with low attention spans. I bit my lip as I tried to think back on the new report and realized there wasn't much I could remember about the stories after it ended. It frustrated the hell out of me because it was short spoken for lags around The Nation who couldn't pay attention to a falling leaf. It made me paranoid that I was slowly turning into one of them.

  By then, the house, full of every kind of technology The Nation recommended and protected by brick and large glass windows, had been a total wreck for weeks so I threw the last good glass we had left of our cups to the ground and headed for the front door.

  “Bleu, you can't just destroy crap and leave.”

  “Why? Is that a new short unspoken law?” I snapped.

  My mother rose to stand up straight and I turned toward the door again. Even though more than half of the kids in my class had dropped out of school since freshman year, I still went. Screw the future! There were a lot of protestors and followers of The System. They'd been trying forever to change our way of thinking and now they had done it, all for money and control. Seriously, people are idiots though, to even cooperate with the foolishness passed. I slammed the door as loud as I could and wanted to hear someone yell about the noise. Of course, no one did. Since 2023, The Nation's hearing level diminished by half. Unless you were, at most, seven yards distant of a sound occurring, all you heard was silence.

  Luckily, The System still maintained certain areas, depending on the province. The trees around my community, unlike the ones a few streets over, were a healthy green, the sidewalks were always tan, and the roads were always black. Landscape never changed-just the idiots who tended it. With nothing but trees, sidewalk, road, and ashes from the house that burned down across the street to look at on my walk to school, it became a pretty boring one until...

  “Bleu!”

  I looked over into the small silver car slowly drifting alongside me and kept walking.

  “Hey, sexy, you need a ride?”

  “Not today, low life. I've gotta walk off some pounds.”

  Seriously, Bleu, c'mon. You comin' or not?”

  “Um...no.”

  “I'll drive off.”

  “You won't!”

  “I will in the next five seconds.”

  I looked over at Josh and he couldn't even keep on a straight face. I couldn't either looking at that tight curly brown hair of his. He drove off fast and I gasped at the surprise of his leave. “Josh!”

  I started running as he waved a hand out of the window of his car.

  “You jerk!” I screamed as I ran faster to catch the car. I ran up to the car in the street and Josh slowed down when I got a grip on the door handle. “You freakin' jerk!” I exclaimed as I entered the passenger seat. Josh stopped the car to laugh until he turned pink.

  “That was great! That was absolutely what I needed to start the day!” he laughed madly.

  I punched him hard in the arm and he put the car back in motion. “You know, I'm actually kind of proud of you. I didn't know you even had the balls to do something like that.”

  “Whatever, Bleu,” he chuckled as he looked over at me putting my hair up into a loose bun. “I am full of surprises though. Haven't you heard around school?”

  “Trust me, I've heard plenty.”

  “Good things?” he looked over.

  “You want the ego killing truth or a beautiful lie?”

  He slumped down in his seat. “Surprise me.”

  “One name: Blythe.”

  “Blythe, Blythe...” he laughed and laughed. “You've heard great things!”

  “For about a minute. I left the table.”

  “Couldn't take the deets, huh?”

  “No, I could. Just not when they're involving you,” I replied what's that word...sarcasmly?

  He caught on to my sly comment quickly and stuck his tongue out after mocking me. I got a hold of his bushy hair and pushed him away when he tried to lick my face. I have no idea how we survived the drive to school together every day.

  “But seriously, Bleu, when are we gonna do it?”

  “When are you gonna stop asking me every time we're alone?”

  “Okay, new plan...we'll go back 100 years in time and go see a movie first.”

  “There's nothing wrong with old traditions, Josh.”

  “I'm not saying that, I just mean...is it wrong of me to just want you? Really?”

  “Uh, yeah! It matters to me and that's all that has to matter. I want the fairytale!”

  He laughed and laughed again. I looked out the window and scoffed under my breath. He didn't have to agree with me. It's my V-card we're talking about here.

  Another downside of this new utopia I live in called the New World? Some idiot named Carl Dickens suggested in his world famous book-which pretty much became the New Century's bible-that teenagers should start early in their sex life to know what they want faster in their future, also guaranteeing higher wages in their profession in the same chapter. He says his whole vision of the book was based on one simple quote that came to him while he was working at his psychiatry office one day: Satisfy Self, Satisfy Wealth. Of course, his book led people to seeing it the opposite way and adding more to it.

  The quote sparked the interest of humanists and businessmen everywhere and they convened with Carl to create the new ideas that everyone (the Followers) have obsessed themselves over.

  I don't know why I'm friends with Josh, rea
lly. I knew he would be one of them if he wasn't such a hard basher against Rule #1 of the Dicken's Tri-Life Theory. There was once a counter theory for the Tri-Life. It was thought up by Sydney Freeman who believed in purity. Pure Body = Pure Soul, which meant abstinence, no alcoholic or drug consumption, yadda yadda. I've been a Purist since the first Xi capturing but I kept that on the DL, even from Josh. Mainly because I wasn't the greatest Follower of the second rule.

  We arrived at school and my heart sunk.

  Great. Less cars than yesterday, I thought.

  “What time is it?”

  I looked down at the digital clock in Josh's car and school started an hour ago, an hour the digital clock that holographically appeared as my first sight in the morning just struck. Trust technology, not past college degree my butt.

  THREE