‘ THE FIFTIETH EDICT ’
BY
JEAN MALLENDER

 

 

Here I am, an X Specimen called Ju, waiting again, even in this situation. The rest are waiting too. No one is speaking – we’ve done that and said everything. Jaws are clenched; hands are fisted and white. We’re looking down from The Edge, but there’s only the usual acrid yellow fog. Eventually, so we’re told, below us is the sea. Just as we are told the sky is above us.

I adjust my harness over my all-enveloping cover - no helmet this time on my bald, round head - unlike the row of enforcers behind us. They are clad in regulation full -face helmets, and wear dark protectors. I had a concealed thought chip inserted in my brain, which may or may not be retrieved afterwards. If you are assimilating this, then I suppose someone has released it. There are five of us, and we feel ill at ease in our neon bright colours – splodges of light on the drab cliff – but there’s a reason for that.

I’ve knowledge of this place from when I was span five, but even then it was changed, as everything is changed. I’ve other knowledge, from centuries ago. I obtained a chip illegally, when I had work credits available. My analyser is old, but that didn’t matter.

I had chosen ‘The Edge’, and there it was on my eye recorder, as it was long ago. I could see a massive white cliff, in clear air, with real sunlight shining on it. I knew this for I could see the sky – imagine that, actually see the sky, and the white mist called clouds. There were people on the cliff. People as I’d never seen them before. Skin everywhere, in the open - legs, arms, chests, and faces – pink, yellow and brown. They were clad in the merest wisps of brightly coloured protection, which they cast off and put on at will. On the heads of some of them were billowing, waving, shining strands, which shook as they moved. Just a single band held a strip of sole cover on their feet. They had no need of more, for they walked, not on the molten craggy surface that we do, but on the softest green earth imaginable, dotted with patches of lush herbage - white and yellow. Feathered creatures filled the sky, calling and diving into the white waved, sparkling sea. It was truly a paradise. I wanted to revert forever, but the chip must have been damaged, for it clicked off after five minutes. Five… that’s been my fated number throughout my edicted span.

The Preminator booms out, ‘Only five minutes to go,’ and we all move forward to our positions on the precipice. How many times has this happened I wonder? Not more than five. The fiftieth edict has not been operational for very long. We had a choice of where it was to be applied. Not many people have thought to choose The Edge, for they have not been lucky enough to see it via the chip.

We’d often discussed the edict when it was under Council consideration. Yop would wag his round, thick-necked head as he expounded, in his thin voice, the need for conclusion.

‘None of us would be here if it wasn’t for Cooperation.’ We all nodded our own round, bare heads. Yop’s dark eyes flicked over us, his grey-blotched face shining with conviction.

Since we’d been produced, Race History seminars had told us the story. We’d learned about the pollution, overpopulation, land misuse and The Regulations, which we still recite daily. They go as follows.

• I must obey The Preminator.
• I must stay in my own sector.
• I must work for the greater good.
• I must fulfil my obligations.

My own obligations have not been so onerous. I am considered a healthy X Specimen. My skin is not pock marked, and I still have only five fingers on each hand, and five toes on each foot. I was designated a five-embryo producer. I was joined with five different, apparently healthy, Y Specimens. I never saw my products, but I know they have been screened as fit. Yop had been one of my assigned Y specimens. Now he has the beginnings of the pox and I am five decades old. His eyes had stayed on me as he had explained the Fiftieth Edict. I had nodded in agreement.

So, here I am. The five minutes are gone. My wait is over – I’ll never wait again! The Preminator’s single command floats over The Edge.

‘J-U-M-P!’

I am jumping.

 

Yop, the designated watcher, sees her as they haul up the harness containing the bagged remains. The bright colours make the task easy. He retrieves the thought chip.

‘That’s it,’ says Yop, ‘the last of the five. The Fiftieth Decade Edict on population control has been obeyed.’

 

Jean Mallender 2007

 

 

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