2

HE COULDN’T imagine a worse situation—even though it was forbidden to do so at all. And he couldn’t stop himself from imagining his daughter wandering the corridors of the Censorship Authority like a picture-book character on the loose. She knew so many stories—he’d never understood how—and she somehow managed to embody each of their protagonists. They were stories he hadn’t told her, stories he didn’t quite remember, and yet he found them strangely familiar. He had decided that the only logical explanation was that she’d thought up the stories herself: tales of fairy dust and the boy who could fly, the wicked witch and the magic shoes, and the poisoned apple too. She was like a house possessed by spirits, the final doorway to the past.

Had Wonderland, or wherever it was that stories came from, recruited his daughter for some kind of plot to overthrow the government? Was it trying to use her to come back to the real world? Like a metaphor, or a conduit for meaning? Perhaps the child was made of the dark matter that fills the universe, no different from a black hole that allows elements to travel through time and space, confounding humanity to no end. But people can only travel through time in stories. He knew this, but his daughter didn’t. The books must be trying to get even with him, not because he was working on banning them—they paid no mind to that—but because he’d read them. The books wanted to take over his world.

He was in too deep. Whoever read a book was never the same. Suspicions against him would mount. Book censors, even more than others, were required to be immune to imagination.

The child wouldn’t let him or her mother brush the fairy dust out of her hair, or take off her shiny red shoes. She said she wouldn’t be able to find her way to the Emerald City without them. It left him off-kilter to hear such gibberish. Normal—that’s how she needed to look. Clad in her khaki uniform, as though this was an ordinary absence from school—something that could happen in any family—and not a suspicious attempt to escape the Revolution Day celebrations.

But it was getting late and she was still lying on the floor, flailing and screeching. He couldn’t get her under control and he needed to get to work on time. Otherwise, he’d be slapped with a fine. All the other children barely had tailbones, but she was like a long-tailed monkey. As soon as she walked with him into the censors’ office, everyone would see it—of this he was certain. And he had no idea how to hide her imagination. How could anyone conceal something so powerful? But she had to come with him, at least for today, until his wife found a way to get out of work for the rest of the week.

Beads of sweat formed as he drove to the office, staring blankly at the road. The damp patches under his arms grew darker on his clothes.

When they drove down streets flanked by giant skyscrapers, he asked the little one to close her eyes—the last thing they needed was another panic attack. Would someone inform on a child? The receptionist, perhaps, or the door attendant. Maybe the First Censor. One of them might call the emergency hotline to report a child showing signs of familial neglect, and the Childhood Protection Society would come and take her to a rehabilitation center. Years ago, a distant cousin of his had lost a daughter there. She was taken to the center and never came out. Her case had been too advanced for the treatment to work, they said. She hadn’t survived. They had given him a set of instructions, telling him how to get past the pain and return to the path of Positive Realism. Having more children was the fastest and most effective cure for grief, they said. They advised him to start volunteering, to work longer hours. His cousin now had four children, all of whom wore khaki and loved school and went to Scouts. They were perfect children with their eyes on the future. Not a tail in sight.

He hadn’t doubted it for a second. All the news about the exceptional success that government labs had achieved in the field of developmental studies. Imagination had truly begun to shrivel and fade away, proving that if you control a human being’s circumstances, you can drive their development in a certain direction. You can encourage the existence of New Humans with no imagination and extremely limited desires, and without any pesky existential musings.

It was almost impossible not to love a government that worked so hard to make you happy. And who was he to break the System’s rules? He’d always believed that the System knew what it was doing, that it was there for his sake. And he was sure that his mind was free from the impure dregs of the Old World. From revolutionary thoughts of any kind. He had never—to the best of his knowledge—been a fan of democracy or the digital revolution. In that age, foolishness was exported far and wide. Everyone had knowledge, so everyone had power. He didn’t want to return to those times; the world was much simpler the way it was now. But he couldn’t bear to lose his child. There was no way she could be one of those Cancers the government issued warnings about—she was only five years old! Given time, she’d learn the right way to live. Yes, they only needed to give her a little more time.

He started to rock in his seat. His legs were weak. He had never been so terrified in his life—he didn’t even react when he saw a disturbed man dancing barefoot on the sidewalk. His daughter was in the back seat, talking to her stuffed wolf about the grandma it had eaten. The wolf was saying the grandma had been delicious. The new censor decided to interrupt this ridiculous conversation. He needed to prepare her.

“Baba needs you to help him with a few things,” he said. “If anyone asks you why you’re not at school today, tell them your tummy hurts.”

“But it doesn’t hurt.”

“Pretend it does.”

He could hardly believe what he was asking his child to do. What kind of father was he? He bit his lower lip. He really was in trouble now.

“The grandma is in my tummy now, and she’s kicking me!” complained his daughter.

“Yes, yes, but don’t you dare say anything like that in front of other people. And if anyone asks why you’re wearing a princess costume, or why you’ve got powder all over your hair—”

“It’s fairy dust.”

“—tell them that your good clothes are in the wash and that Mama didn’t clean them yesterday because she was sick.”

“And why didn’t you wash them, Baba?”

“Because the washing machine’s not working.”

She nodded slowly, confused by his instructions. “I thought you worked somewhere fun.” She wiped her sweaty palms on her lap.

“Who told you that?”

“The rabbit.”

What nonsense! The rabbits hadn’t shown up at his house yet, had they? She was just imagining things. Yesterday, some cat told her to throw an entire grilled chicken in the trash. The day before, she was talking to the pigeons. And the day before that she’d been trying to make friends with a ladybug! All this silliness would gradually fizzle out. One day it would disappear forever.