TeenageTells- Women’s Day

8th of March is international women’s day. So, I have a story to share. It’s not the best: it hasn’t been fully edited. But I still hope you’ll enjoy it.

Year: 2424 AD

“Time of death: midnight.” Silence echoes from every person into every corner of the operating theatre.

Everything is lighter. I don’t feel anything anymore.

The room is far too small for its purpose, with a lack of equipment and far too people working to save a life. The ones who are here are crowded round the table: where the star of the show lies. Where a heart just beat its last beat, lungs breathed their last breath, and brain thought its last thought.

Funnily enough, I don’t care. It sounds morbid and cruel, but I truly don’t care. My mother is in hiding, my sister running from who knows what, and I betrayed them both. And I’m in this operating room, helpless.

I pull myself up from the table, placing a hand on my knee to rest. It's too late to say ‘sorry’, right?

The men start moving, already starting up a conversation about having dinner downtown this evening, and who should be attending. A laugh almost escapes me. But it’s stuck in my body as I swing my legs down and dangle them in the air for a moment, like I used to with the other girls, where a fresh-enough breeze blew, and the sun showed its face timidly. It all replays in my mind’s eye. I’m in The House. A simple ‘sanctuary’ that was cracked open, leaving the women inside dead, in hiding, or running away.

The moment my feet float to the cold, marble floor, a metal link chains my ankle to what looks like a cannonball. It crashes with a thud, but causes no damage to the floor. I try to move, and succeed. Apparently, the cannonball has no resistance. Curious.

***

Turns out I’m dead. Took me about seven days to figure it out, but I got there in the end. Explains why there was no one at the cremation. There is nothing as terrifying, I assure you, as seeing your own flesh being burned in front of your eyes. Especially when it’s a solitary experience.

I was left standing above the ashes which slowly climbed from the soil to the wider world. I was left behind by my own body. I was left wondering where I could even go, until my own thoughts betrayed my vulnerability.

Next stop nowhere! All with nowhere to go, and no one to go to, come here! I’ve got the perfect place for you to go to: nowhere!

 Reminds me of when there used to be advertisements.

My shackles slithers after me, clattering with its need for attention, allowing my ghostly legs to carry its needy self around. Looks like it made its choice to stick with me.

One thing I had never thought of when I was alive was where I would go when I eventually died. I automatically presumed that it’d be clear. The only thing I know for certain is that nowhere isn’t a viable option.

But the only thing I can think of from the top of my head is the tram station, and luckily, it’s only 4 minutes away. The whole city was designed to be convenient, and it is, at least, that.

As the fourteenth person wanders cluelessly through me, I take a quick, airless gasp, before continuing on my way. Hundreds of young ‘men’ walk here each hour, travelling to and from the remains of this wonderful city, with all its burned-down buildings.

It’s sad watching their hearts break in real time as I sit on my metal bench, clanging my chain against it. I’m so pathetic, with nothing to do. Clang. Clang. Every once in a while, someone sits through me, and I have to shift over. Downside of being a ghost.

Are there even any upsides?

The question makes me jolt to a stand. I’m a ghost. I can move through walls, travel anywhere, follow people without being seen. There are so many options I can’t catch up with them racing through my mind.

My ghostly feet start moving on their own, taking me onto the next tram to Lelileld: the place I last saw my sister. She’s always been nostalgic, to say the least, so I hope she’ll go back there eventually.

Sitting just behind the conductor, I remember my first time on a tram. Any point since that first ride could have brought me here.

When I was alive, I only had one dream: be something. It started when I was about 2400 days old. We had just moved to The House – a sanctuary for every lady, servant and runaway girl. We had been driven out of my Father’s house after my sister told him she wanted to do something. I can’t remember what. I think that hurts the most about the whole situation that happened. I can’t remember what event made all the women who mattered to me uproot themselves and leave. Go as far as we could.

But, with $8 each, we couldn’t go far. Father was in control of all our finances, being a man who had the hilarious idea to leave the three of us with $8 each. 8/3. The day that was supposed to represent women and all they stand for but became a symbol for men who thought women were beneath them.

It became a very popular tattoo. Most tattoos were – and still are – insulting to show. But 8/3? Men would get it on their temples and their biceps like badges of honour. For them they were badges of honour.

For people like my mother and sister, they were warning signs calling ‘stay as far away from me as possible’. So, when Father got that tattoo on both his arms after his fight with my sister, they knew we needed to get out.

And then we were out. Riding a tram for hundreds of miles, hungry and miserable. We each had a day pass, but once the clock struck midnight, we’d have to jump off, or be, to put it nicely, imprisoned. The very last stop was by The House.

We had been one of the first to seek shelter there. It’s weird to imagine we had no clue what it would one day mean to us all. Over thousands of days, many more women moved there. As I grew up the name ‘The House’ seemed wrong. To me, it was Our Home. For all of us who were rejected. We could stick together and live like women used to. Are supposed to.

***

The tram stops abruptly at Lelileld, rocking me forwards slightly. Now I have the chance to right my wrongs. Fulfil my dream.

The chain gripping my ankle keeps begging me for attention as I walk along, but I continue to ignore it the best I can, though it’s annoying me to pieces. It's just another unnecessary – and loud – reminder that I’m stuck here on this planet for all eternity.

The second way I could have ended up in this situation is the apartment my sister moved to when she turned 25. It’s just around the corner from where I stand now, in front of the station. From what I know, it is small cramped, and only she, our mother and I know it exists. Most believe it’s an impassable basement, with ghosts and dirty animals inhabiting it.

I’ve never been here. That might be the problem. I was always too upset to come, despite numerous invitations. But I would sit on my bedroom floor, tracing the route from where I was to it, my young fingers exploring the expansive projection as I dreamed of running to her.

I was living with Father, after having run away from The House when it burned down, and I think he would have turned me in if I went to my sister.

Shaking my head to stop reliving memories, I proceed down the cold, stone steps, both desperate and hesitant to see all my sister’s stuff.

The area is pitch-black. I walk back and forth, waiting for an automatic light to turn on before realising nothing can sense me. I’m alone in the dark. Shouldn’t women love the freedom of solitude? Shouldn’t ghosts love the dark? I’m not sure, but I can tell that I hate being here already, yet I can’t stop myself from going in further. Observing the shadows. Watching for movement.

There are books stacked high. Real books. With pages made of paper. I haven’t seen a book since I used to read them with my sister. They were banned over 5,000 days ago, and yet here they are, sitting on her floor. Emmeline loved reading me books. I think she knew what the government was planning to do to: burn them, along with any signs of the past, and any woman who dared disobey. If I had been born just a century earlier, I could have lived and died freely, without impossible choices. But here I am, dead, peeping at my sister’s stuff like a spy.

I kneel down next to a stack of books, on which sits a small mirror. A mirror. I knew Emmeline was... rebellious, but mirrors were shattered such a long time ago, that even our great-grandmother never got to see her own face. My gut would have twisted if it were still a part of me. What other incriminating objects am I going to find?

The mirror continues to sit there lifelessly. It stares up at me, and I stare back. I lunge for it, but my hand goes through it.

I want to see myself. I grasp for it again.

I want the life I never had. I want to go back to The House and put mirrors on every crumbling, blackening wall.

My hand recoils back to me. I want everything. Anything!

In my frustration, my hand knocks into the books, and they go flying in every direction. One book slides along what must have once been a carpet and through my skirt.

When I try to pick it up, my hand dissipates through it. Again. Why did I manage to affect the world that time? A light weakly flickers on above me. I rush through the books, ducking behind them and forgetting that I couldn’t be seen either way.

Emmeline walks in, not with the confident stride I remember, but hunched over, her body swaying unsteadily. She gulps loudly, choking on a... sob? “Gwyllyn?” Her blue eyes dash across the room, looking for the source of the book-scattering whilst she runs her fingers through her dark and frizzy hair.

I keep quiet as she enters deeper in, approaching the book nearest to her: A Handmaid’s Tale. Even if she could have heard me, I would have still stayed silent; I can’t face the truth yet. Not with her.

Picking up the book, Emmeline’s muscles are clear through her ripped and ragged shirt. Her whole appearance is shaggy and tattered, although I can still see the beauty that I admired as a young girl. She slumps against the wall. “Do you remember when you loved me?”

Is that a direct question to me? Can she somehow see me?

Hesitantly, I crawl towards her, until I’m on my knees before her, but she keeps staring at the book.

Most importantly, she can’t see me. She’ll never see me again. I could be here every day, visiting, and she wouldn’t know.

Her gaze bores through me, making me feel the hollowest I ever have. I slide next to her, leaning my matterless head on her physical shoulder. Though it should be impossible, it seems that she relaxes at my ghost-touch. “We read together. Dreamed together. You were there, waiting each day for me to get home. You didn’t ask questions, because you knew they would have horrible answers. We pretended together.”

I look at her. Truly look. She deserves so much more than this. This terrible ‘apartment’ and loneliness. I wish she knew I am here for her and will always be.

“I don’t know why you did it. It’s been two and a half thousand days. And I don’t know why you did it. I’ve gone through every reason I could think of. Two and a half thousand reasons.”

And here comes the third, and final reason I might be in this situation.

“You must have hated us.” She reaches one of her hand out, as if she knew I was here, the other holding tightly to the book. Maybe there’s some sort of sisterly bond that allows you to feel when a sister’s ghost is in the room. “We haven’t talked in those two and a half thousand days. And now you’re gone. Why?”

I hug her. This is so messed up. I should have said ‘sorry’ all that time ago. I will for my body to materialise, so that she’ll be able to feel my arms.

She doesn’t.

Instead, she scrambles away, pointing at me. “Ah!”

I look behind me. No one is there.

“Gwyl. Is that? Are you?”

She can see me.

Oh no.

“Emmeline? How?” We just stare at each other. Maybe she’s going insane. Or maybe I am.

***

I can officially confirm – I believe – that neither one of us is insane; we’re awkward. Two and a half thousand days drives a wedge between sisters, it turns out. I’m not expecting us to be best friends right away, but a normal conversation once in a whole would be appreciated.

“How did you die?” Emmeline asks bluntly, to say the least. “I mean, all I heard was that you’re... gone. And clearly, you’re taking up a career in ghosting... And... Please don’t make me keep going. I feel like I’m talking to myself.”

“Well, uh. How busy are you?” My storytelling isn’t top-notch, so I don’t know how long this story will take.

“I’m free all day.”

“Good, um. It started with, I guess, me calling the police to burn The House down. Uh. From there, I sort lived with Father and now I’m dead.” Shorter than I expected.

“That doesn't answer the question.”

She’s right. I’m pacing from one of the room to the other, walking through the books without a care in the world. I take a deep breath to face the truth I've been hiding from myself this whole time.

“I wanted to finally move out from Father’s. He had told me plans which, if they ever got to you, his career could be... ended. And you know him, so he rang and said I was helping people from The House find new safety. You also know our police department. The rest is history. I was taken to the hospital so it could look like they tried. They harvested some organs instead.”

“Is it true?” Her question fires at me a second after I finish speaking.

“What is?”

“That you were helping.”

I rub the back of my neck, stopping my pacing to gape at the wall. After I revealed men stole my organs, she is wondering whether Father’s accusations were right? “No.” My breathing becomes heavier, despite no air actually entering my non-body. “I’m sorry.”

“We’ll have to talk about that. And everything you have done. But right now, we have to focus on fixing... your mistake.” Clearly, neither of us want to talk about it directly. Fine by me.

Emmeline waves A Handmaid’s Tale in the air. “Do you remember this book?”

“Yeah, it’s some sort of warning. Da, da, da, some sort of society...”

“Yes, a warning. There have probably been hundreds of books with these kinds of warnings. And we ignored them.” She rises to a stand, and I turn to her. “We have to answer them.”

“It’s too late!”

“No, it’s not. Because we have you.”

“Yeah, dead girl.” I give her my best jazz-hands.

“Wrong again! You are ghost girl.”

“Which means?” I prompt, putting my hands on my hips.

“You can haunt people!”

***

This is a bad idea.

This is a bad idea.

This is a bad idea.

This is a bad idea.

Swooshing through walls, I find myself in the centre of an office. I’m pacing like a maniac. This is all a really bad idea.

Emmeline called 20 friends, and – through some confusing code I don’t think I’ll ever understand – invited them to take part in a protest in the middle of the street. Next to parliament. This is such a bad idea and yet I’m playing my part perfectly. I’m in the head office of the country, looking for something anything.

I freeze as Joseph Hatt walks into the adjoining office with a smirk on his face. Reminding myself I can’t possibly get caught, I move to grab anything I could use as a weapon, and I find myself grappling with the concept of reality to get a phone to stay in my hand. Why am I doing this?

I pant, holding – by some miracle impossible to explain – the 21st-century phone which probably costs more than Emmeline’s whole series of possession. As Mr Hatt yells for Margret to fax something over, I drop the phone, and it clatters to the ground, making his head turn.

I didn’t drop it by accident. My contact with the world didn’t fade.

I don’t want to hurt him physically. I want him to fear me. Fear the power of the women who are about to march through the streets. And I’ll do that with my sister’s initial proposition: haunting.

Floating over to the projection, I grab a permanent marker from the desk and scribble. Writing by hand is a skill I wasn’t ever taught, with it being reserved for respectable people: men. But I’ve read a few books, and seen writing elsewhere. It can’t be that hard!

Oh, how wrong I was. My handwriting more closely resembles a goat and pig than the word “listen”. So, I move to easier haunting methods. Opening and shutting the blinds with the remote control!

It disappoints me to learn they take about four business days to close fully. And I’m already out of haunting techniques.

But aha! There he comes, the man of the hour, marching into the room with pyjamas on. I take the phone from the floor, looking for how people used to take photos. Finally, something works, and I record the head of the country dancing around in his pyjamas, trying to catch up with the floating phone. It’s a malicious bit of humour, but after all the struggle he put me through, I deserve this one thing!

I wouldn’t record every man in his pyjamas. Only the ones who listened to all those stupid rules they implemented on us. No writing? Effective dumb-ation of women, but cruel!

“I do this for my mother!” Emmeline’s team shouts from outside.

I speed outside, leaving the phone in the office. “I do this for my mother!” I yell as I spot Emmeline and Mother side-by-side.

“I do this for my sister!” I join in their chanting, holding my sister’s hand with my ghostly one. We march down the street, other women and girls leaving their own houses to join in.

“I do this for myself!” We wave our hands in the air. If only we had banners. The cuff around my ankle loosens.

Some men join in until the street is full, Emmeline at the centre of the protest with her renewed smile. Links on my chain start to crack. I gaze at my sister, and she gazes back.

The chain falls away silently. It's left on the ground where I just walked, as a reminder. But it’s no longer translucent, but opaque, making itself comfortable on the concrete.

“I do this for all womankind!”

Thank you for reading to the end. Join me next week when I share some more teasers for Emerald. Have a good week!