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Reader, a warning: I am about to leap across several years using mere paragraphs as my footbridge. Without this warning, later on in my story you might wonder, “What was the point of Chapters One through Nine? She could have saved me time by cutting to the chase, couldn't she?” Fair and honest questions, reader, and I admit I asked myself the same upon reaching this point. To assure both of us that I am making every attempt to use our time wisely, I must now make an explanation. I will try to do so as poetically as possible.
A conscience, I am convinced, is much like a garden. A person might grow up with gardens in her own back yard and as a result take for granted their fresh greens and soft blooms. Then, she inherits a garden and does not care enough to maintain it, much less make improvements.
Another person might not have a garden of her own, not even a flower box outside her window, but over the fence she does see the neighbors' meticulously trimmed hedgerows, their rose trellises, their beds of irises. So she searches her environment for a suitable square of earth. She draws diagrams, chooses the seed. She works hard. She tills and trowels and sweats to make it a garden she is proud to call her own.
Still another person grows up in a desert, knowing only baked rocks and gritty winds, innocent of even the existence of such things called “gardens.” This person at birth has no such desire to know what it means to plan and plant, to trim and tend, to sow and reap; her surroundings never offered her that option. Then one morning, she awakens and finds an estate has been left to her. An estate with a garden.
She could choose to ignore this plot of land. She could let it go to seed. She could even let it rot and go about her desert life. Or out of sheer reluctant duty she might consider the garden as a sort of memorial to maintain. Duty bound, she might first snip a few shriveled buds and clear some dead weeds. Then, perhaps, something magical might happen. She might see how clearing away dead matter brings on new life. She might taste the joy that comes from the hours of stinky mulching, the dirty fingernails, the insect bites, the risk of skin cancer that comes with the sunburn. She might, in short, make the garden her own.
And, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the extra work required by this inheritance, her life might never—will never—can never again be the desert it once was.
ˆˇˆˇˆˇˆ
Providence spared me the simultaneous loss of both people who were dearest to me; Bhenji Nealingson was counted among the two adults who lived. Bhenji Fleuvbleu was the other. After the Kamchatkan Incident, as it came to be known between those of us who survived it, the UN descended upon Naomi. There was an investigation. UN Forces broke down the locked door in the school's courtyard. Behind it, they uncovered unspeakable wealth: gold and other material riches, taken from Naomi's customers as backing for all the contracts we girls wove for them and traded between them in secret. Dr. Brock Woolthersham was tried in UN court and found guilty of fraud, international tax evasion, child neglect, slave trafficking, and more.
Through the investigation, it was brought to light that both Preeti Kaur Nealingson and Aoi Marie Fleuvbleu had been two of Naomi Brock-Woolthersham's first students. Shortly after naming Bhenji Nealingson headmistress, the school's foundress had died. With control of the foundation in the son's hands, Dr. Brock Woolthersham had instituted a new rule: after graduation, students had to “pay back” years of service to the foundation as many years as they had been students. With Bhenji Nealingson too honorable to run like others had, and Bhenji Fleuvbleu too eager to lord authority over others, both had stayed. Our headmistress made herself a force for good in an otherwise horrible place, as I was privileged to see firsthand. Fleuvbleu, I learned, would have left, but a few of the Naomi clients paid her from an endowment specifically to train the girls to defend themselves—the customers’ quarry, rather.
Thanks to the modest but effective netcast coverage, there was an outcry at the plight of the Naomi Girls. Foundations and NGOs pooled their resources in an effort spearheaded by The PetroGlyph Endowment, the charitable arm of worldwide banking force PetroGlyph Endeavors. Naomi was rebuilt as a cultural heritage academy for young women, to promote and unify knowledge of both the past and the future, in accord with the original vision of Mrs. Naomi Brock-Woolthersham. In time, with help from throughout the informalized world, the Naomi Academy became a place of healthier learning and growth. PetroGlyph even provided adjustment counseling for the thirteen of us left behind.
In time, my life became more bearable. While I never became close to the other survivors, they at least began to accept me as sharing some bond with them. All of us had lost everything and started over again at least twice in our lives. This common experience allowed us to trade smirks at the wide-eyed, well-dressed, glossy-haired little girls that began to fill the bunks in the new dormitories. I was still lonely, and no one ever let me forget my colorblindness, but at least I was no longer actively shunned.
I completed my secondary academic coursework by age sixteen, and by nineteen had completed an elementary teacher's certificate awarded through the Global Women's University Network. Before my baccalaureate was completed, Bhenji Nealingson held a teaching slot for me. Not knowing where else to go, and unwilling to leave my beloved mentor, I accepted.
For one year, I taught the school's youngest girls Introduction to Global Languages—word and sound games, mostly. The next year, after Bhenji Fleuvbleu left to care for her ailing father in Marseilles, I took over her position teaching physical education. During that time, it was bittersweet when I sometimes heard Fleuvbleu-san's own words escape my mouth—thankfully in gentler tones.
I kept myself busy with lesson plans, after class tutoring, and with my own exercise when the dojo was quiet and empty. During holidays, I would sometimes weave tapestries on the looms that remained from the pre-Kamchatkan days in the now ventilated basement. On the whole, my work was , if not satisfying, at least absorbing.
And then, one evening shortly after my twenty-first birthday, Bhenji Nealingson made an announcement. During her stay in hospital after the Kamchatkan incident, she had run into a boy from her childhood village, now a grown man and a doctor at the hospital. They had corresponded, become close. His family cheerfully gave consent to the match, and as she had none of her own to claim her, they were to be married in a month.
Before I knew it, the groom and his family and friends arrived at Naomi in a boisterous evening wedding procession, a braat, dancing to the rhythm of the dhol. The next day, the whole school followed the groom on his white horse (provided by the same local wedding service outsourcing the musicians) to the local Gurdwara for the daylong ceremony and ensuing marathon banqueting.
The following day, as I helped usher my students out of the van back into the academy building, I felt as if something were wrong. I first tried attributing this feeling to lack of sleep. After I had rested adequately my first night back at the academy, I blamed the sensation on the fact that I had consumed too much dairy: eaten more paneer and drunk more sweet lassi than my stomach was accustomed to handling. Another night passed, and my digestive system returned to normal, but the feeling persisted. I then imagined that I simply missed having my teacher around, and that was true. I missed her as I taught my classes and never once found her leaning in the dojo doorway, looking on with approval or asking if she could be of any help.
After dinner that night, I sent her a text using my text-only account on the school's sole connection (a teacher's privilege). I had a response from her by evening; they were enjoying their honeymoon at home, packing for their impending move to Tulsa, where he had a neuroaudiology residency waiting for him and where she had accepted the directorship of a university's study abroad practicum office. She closed by insisting we keep in touch, but I felt funny replying. I didn't think she'd have a place for me in her new life.
Then, I was able to name the feeling: I had become superfluous. There simply was no one at the academy to miss me if I were gone. I decided that I needed to test this feeling, to make sure it was real.
The next day, I struggled through my classes, searching each face, student and staff alike, for some sign that I mattered to someone on some level approaching that on which Bhenji Nealingson mattered to me. I found none by the end of the morning. This depressed me enough to spend some time in the restroom composing myself before heading to the teacher's lunchroom. When this made me late, I discovered that they had begun to eat without me. “We didn't even know you were gone,” the new headmistress said by way of half-hearted apology.
I ate my roti and onions in empty solitude, tasting nothing but the realization that nobody wanted me here. No, that was imprecise. It's not that I was unwanted, as I had been at the VanDeers', but no one could have told me that she personally wanted me at the academy. They had no reason to want me. And I had no reason to stay. As the new headmistress was standing to leave the lunchroom, I stopped her and pulled her aside.
“Headmistress-ji, may I please take a holiday tomorrow? I have a few personal matters that need attention.” Once this was granted, I asked, “And may I please have some of my teaching stipend made available to me by tomorrow?”
The next day I headed out into the center of town wearing my best outfit, the one I'd made for Bhenji Nealingson's wedding. I'd made sure the black velvet choli would not show my midriff, while the slim, modest silk lengha was hemmed just at my ankles. I draped my most transparent UV-protectant duppetta-turned-veil over my face and hair and armed myself with my old American passport.
I had grown so little physically in the past near-decade that I had no doubt that I still could be recognized as the older version of the nine year-old girl pictured within my passport's pages. My hair had lengthened into a braid that fell far below my waist, but I'd only grown a few inches upwards and hardly any outwards—especially in the places where a girl is supposed to have grown. I was relieved that my unattractiveness made it easier to roam the streets as a lone female, but I still wished for male eyes to wander my way in appreciation. Said wish was not fulfilled.
I went first to the local PetroGlyph branch, taking nearly half an hour to elbow my way to the branch's entrance scanner. Since I was coming to get my first perks ring in eleven years, I had to let the scanning kiosk capture my face and take a scrape of my skin cells to verify my DNA signature. It compared both items with my passport's information. That verified, the door opened to a square booth, concrete-gray and poorly ventilated. It reminded me of a shrunken version of the pre-Kamchatkan basement sweatshop. The booth was punctuated with a service counter. The counter's mirror shell bloomed open, and the requisite hologram appeared projected above it. He didn't look Indian, but he did look sort of familiar. Had his model been in some other application I'd used before but couldn't place?
“Welcome, Miss Jane E,” he said in crisp English with an unplaceable accent, “and thank you for choosing PetroGlyph Endeavors.”
Is there any other bank to use? I wondered but did not ask aloud. I did not want to confuse his voice recognition software. “I would like to open an account, please.”
“What style ring would you like?” His virtual hand waved before me and a twinkling display of ring possibilities wove before me like a spangled bolt of gold-sparked silk chiffon.
“Styles?” I asked, bewildered. “There's more than one?”
The holo's face blinked at me in good-natured confusion—the expression programmed to register when the voice recognition processor could not connect the question with an answer in the database. “I am sorry, miss. I do not have an answer to that question. Would you like direct access to our information base?”
“No, thank you. I guess there have been a lot of changes in the past ten years.”
That same monkey-at-a-loss face popped up before me, so I shook my head and began examining the overwhelming options. There were depictions of rings with their buttons tucked beneath gemstone covers. Others were molded as miniature flowers, from roses to daisies, complete with petals that would unfurl when placed before a perks receptor. Of course, as I browsed the catalogue, there had to have been thousands of buttons colored and carved with the crests of a host of INGOs, from biggies like The International Interactive Arts Society and The Worldwide Etiquette Consortium, to unknowns like The Staff Association of BAD (Breakfast All Day) Restaurants.
Having no INGO membership and not enough funds with which to splurge on something more aesthetic, I picked the simplest, sturdiest, cheapest style in plain, dappled gray, recycled surgical PVC. I placed my hand into the counter's measuring frame and did not feel the ultrasonsic pulses tap gently all over my index finger for less than a second. Something within the counter hummed, slurped noisily, whirred, then buzzed like an electric shock through bath water. The countertop's mini-Hamlet trap slid open, and a cushion rose from its depths, holding my new perks ring at its center. I took the ring. It was still warm, gleaming with newness.
“Miss Jane E,” the kiosk said, “may I suggest you test your ring before you leave?”
His hand gestured towards the test receptor on the counter's surface. I tapped the ring top against the tester, only to find that my new perks ring was amusingly defective.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I think there was a malfunction. I am anybody but Horatio J. Petrovic.”
That well-meaning blank face again. I'd used too many confusing words. To explain, I pointed to the small 2-D display next to the test receptor. “This says I am 'Horatio J. Petrovic,' as in Horatio J. Petrovic of PetroGlyph Endeavors. I am not he, so there must be some mistake.”
The holo's head bobbled side to side in manufactured understanding. “Miss, I will clear the screen for you. Then try the test receptor again, please.”
I did so, muttering under my breath, “Why would my perks ring bring up the name of the banking god?”
“I am sorry, miss. I do not have an answer to that question. Would you like direct access to—”
“No, thank you. I just want the correct ring, please.”
The screen displayed my name, such as it was, “E, Jane.” Sufficiently satisfied, I placed the ring on my finger. It fit perfectly. I didn't have much more time to wonder at the mix-up, as I had places to go and people to see. The kiosk holo was still present, so I asked, “Could you tell me where I can find the nearest Public Access Terminal, please?”
“Miss, there is a PetroPAT booth near this branch office for use by all qualified PetroGlyph members.”
“Am I qualified, please?”
“Please test your ring at the test receptor, miss, and I can provide you with that information.”
“But I just did!”
“I am sorry, miss. I do not have an answer to that question. Would—”
I rolled my eyes and jabbed my ring top back at the receptor, grumbling, “Of all the annoying—”
“I am sorry, miss. I do not—” His voice halted when my correct name and account information reappeared on the screen. “Yes, miss. You are qualified. The rate is ten thousand PetroRupees per minute—”
“Convert that to international perks units, please?”
“Two-hundred forty nine point eighty PetroPerks per minute, plus taxes.”
“Taxes?”
“Miss, you are liable for all local, national and international taxes incurred if your INGO membership does not have a tax treaty with PetroGlyph Endeavors.”
I only had 34K PetroPerks total in my account, and that had to get me signed up with an employment agency, get me any SOF tickets I needed, and probably furnish me with a new wardrobe. But if I didn't cough up the perks now, I'd be trapped at the academy for who knew how long.
“Thank you,” I said to the holo. “Where is the PAT booth, please?”
He gave me an address two blocks away. I thanked him and began walking through the verdant, gluey warmth of midday. After another fight through another glob of people, I found myself before a closet-sized door emblazoned with the PetroPAT logo: a bushy-eyebrowed, burly-shouldered man in a kelly-green robe, holding a twinkling gold shepherd's crook in one hand and waving with the other. His frizzled more-salt-than-cinnamon hair stuck out from beneath a tall, pointed hat. Large, bright gold letters on his robe spelled out “PAT,” and writing morphed alternately through all the world's alphabets, blossoming into countless translations of the PetroPAT motto: “New contact. The old-fashioned way. With PetroPAT.”
On both sides of the door were perks receptors. I tapped my ring awkwardly against one, still trying to get used to the movement after so long without it. The soundproofed door slid open, and I stepped through just in time for it to slide shut behind me, sealing me in with the odors of the countless PetroPAT patrons who had passed this way before me. The inverted eggshell of a screen surrounding me on all dimensions illuminated. I squinted, looking for the mirrors, but they must have been invisibly small. Neat. I spoke the name and address of the agency I'd heard the newest teachers mention as helping them secure their positions at the academy. I did not need to wait more than a second to arrive at the site.
I'd never played a full actie before, which made me extra nervous, because this was not a game but a job interview. I stood in a reception area. Beneath my feet was a rich carpet that, thanks to the otherwise undetectable nerve stimulation, practically bounced beneath my sandals and extended in all four directions, stopped only by four camel-colored walls. Each wall held a series of bay window-sized frames, sliding through series of family portraits, each including a single young adult standing behind the family. The pictures changed, but the frames' captions remained the same: “Another Match Made In Heaven For A HeavenMatch Family.”
Above me was a ceiling echoing the color of the walls. No chairs furnished the room besides that behind a reception desk, from which the manifestation of a short woman with silver-white hair, square shoulders and caramel skin tones now approached me. No others were in this reception area. Either I had the agency's attention all to myself at the time, or the agency's resources were such that each applicant had his or her own bot with which to work.
“Welcome to HeavenMatch Home Education Connections. How may I help you?” the receptionist asked, smiling, folding her hands demurely before her plain black, neck-to-instep gown.
The rendered smile and modest attire just barely eased my mini-episode of culture shock when she did not greet me with “namaste.” Voice shaking slightly, I said, “Madam, I would like to find employment as a homeschooler, please.”
Afraid of spending too much time and perks units in the PAT, I immediately declined her offer for more information about how HeavenMatch profiling worked to match qualified childcare professionals with the families who needed them. Then followed the obligatory recording of my resume, the ensuing interview, and my offering of references from both Bhenji Nealingson and Naomi's new director.
HeavenMatch already had access to my DNA through my perks signature, presented in order to enter the PAT. Now all HeavenMatch needed was to investigate my lack of recorded criminal background and run my complete profile through their algorithm. I was graciously informed that there was now nothing for me to do but wait for a match offer to arrive in my (just barely adequate) text inbox.
“Do you have any questions before we close our session?” the bot asked, smiling the exact same smile she'd given in greeting. Lazy programmers, I thought, recycling facial expressions.
I then was about to say no and bid a relieved farewell to my first quasi-job interview, but I stopped myself. “Yes, madam,” I said, still using my polished Punjabi manners regardless of where my politeness was landing across the ocean of ether. “Could you tell me how long this interview has lasted, please?”
“Twenty-four minutes.”
Less time than I had anticipated. Perhaps I could spend my PAT budget on another occasion on something less utilitarian. I bowed over my folded hands. “Thank you. That will be all.”
The office area re-faded into the representation that I was tucked within the confines of an egg. “Logout, please,” I said. Directly in front of me appeared a statement of the charges I had incurred, as well as a notice that a statement of these charges would be saved in my PetroPerks account for future reference. The door through which I had entered the booth shrunk open, and I departed.
I had to wait two weeks before any notice appeared in my inbox. More than notice: an offer. It seemed that my profile recommended me for a position as homeschooler to a lone child; a girl, since all of my teaching experience had been with my own gender; aged eight with no siblings, as I had been little in outside society, real or virtual. My profile also deemed that I should be placed somewhere in the country of my citizenship, as my high rating on individualistic orientation was tempered with a desire for some kind of “home base.” These qualities seemed to label me as distinctly American. Still American, I could imagine Aidann's ghost whispering over my shoulder.
Anyway, this position was available several kilometers outside a small, isolated town in the American Southwest. I did a quick mental review of my geography: somewhere in the desert, most likely an isolated spot. This suited me. Socialization would be limited, and I would be forced less often to warm a wall at in-person dinners, parties or soirees that might be held by a family well-off enough to hire their own homeschooler.
The address to which I was to reply if I were interested in this position? A text address for one Mrs. Hui Fairfacs. “Mrs.” Not “Miss,” nor simply “Fairfacs.” Said ID implied to me that the sender—soon, I hoped, my employer—had deep respect for tradition. This was perhaps a little formal, given my experience of the country of my birth, but I had spent so much of my life in one of the more formal parts of the world. A little extra formality would be a welcome lessening of the inevitable “reentry shock.”
The position offered a private room, all meals, and a stipend of 30K international perks; nearly double my present salary. I hesitated before accepting, afraid that I did not have enough information with which to make a sound decision. Then I pushed trepidation aside. This was to be a job, not a prison. If it did not work out, I could pack up and leave.
My acceptance sent, I just needed to give notice at the academy and otherwise prepare for my departure. Budgeting enough of my remaining perks for some more PAT time, I took another afternoon off and reentered the PetroPAT booth. I set the booth's timer for half an hour then spoke the name of a travel agency I remembered from the pre-Kamchatkan days. Relieved to find them still in business, I asked for the most economical means of transportation to my new place of employment. A SOF could get me as far as Phoenix/Tempe, but from there I would need to hire a small-craft pilot to deliver me to such a remote location.
Finished, I closed that session and asked the PAT booth to tell me how much time I had used. Discovering I had twelve of my thirty budgeted minutes remaining, I pondered what to do with them: save them, or learn something about the place to which I was about to return. Looking back, I realize the smart thing to do would have been to search for information about this Mrs. Fairfacs, but I had just realized that I would be less than a day's travel from the VanDeers, even Ranice. I plumbed the depths of my memory for my old social worker's last name.
Tentatively, I said, “Search for Ranice Tyson, please?”
A few selections came up, underlined, meaning that I could fix my eyes on one, wink twice, and that address would open. The selections presenting themselves were for someone named Ranice Tyson-Fevrier—her wedding pictures, announcements for the birth of their two children in the past five years, and most interestingly an article about her testifying in the case of State vs. VanDeer.
Not entirely surprised, I blinked at this last part. It was mere newsreader text, not an actie or even an archived netcast, but I read enough in the remaining minutes to learn that indeed, Ranice had been called to the stand to relate her knowledge of the character of one Clinton VanDeer, age twenty-two, on the occasion of his having been charged with synthetic endorphin possession with intent to sell. The summary pointed out that Ms. Tyson-Fevrier had been called upon as a character witness, but apparently her words under oath had been less than helpful. Mr. VanDeer first had been released on 100K perks bail, but when convicted, he was required to pay an additional 300K in fines, which was paid in installments by the defendant's mother.
It was at this point that my time ran out and the text faded back to blank walls. Not knowing whether to feel vindicated or drawn to pity, I thought of Aidann's mother and decided on pity. I then left the booth and went to the fabric market in the lower part of town. After finding a table that accepted perks, I purchased a bolt of hearty, light and economical black fabric for two fresh salawar kameez sets.
Over the next two weeks, I bustled. I bustled during the day to fit my final lesson planning in during lunch times. I bustled during the night to cut and stitch my new clothes, to collect enough toiletries to get me through my first few weeks at my new employer's, and to pack. Beneath the mattress of my bed, I found my old blue nylon bag. I examined the fraying rip from which all my belongings had been stolen back in the SAND skyport. Even fixable mistakes still leave their scars.
Was this some kind of omen? Inwardly, I chided myself for such superstitions. I took up needle and thread left from my earlier sewing and began at last to repair the break so that the bag, healed enough to function, could serve me once more.
Three days later, I bade tepid farewells to my colleagues and former students, took one last walk around the courtyard, one last drink from the since refurbished well, and began my return to the States.
