The arm hasn’t quite taken yet; it hangs at my side like a dense lop of meat on a hook in a butcher shop window. I’ve prob­a­bly come back too soon, but work won’t wait. The arm itself is too long, the fin­ger­tips numb as I clench and unclench the hand—a claw crane grasp­ing at an impos­si­ble prize. The veins bulge and worm their way across the skin. The cold doesn’t help with dex­ter­i­ty. Winter has settled in, and I can see that the indus­tri­al fields are plated with frost this morning. To the east, neigh­bour­hoods are tossed care­less­ly on top of each other under a sky grey as cement. As I drag myself up the stairs to the station plat­form, the air sends icy spurs into my lungs. 

I favour my orig­i­nals, of which there are few. I look up at my hand now, curled around the ver­ti­cal bar in the cramped train car. Narrow, strong, weath­ered. Around me, others hold on with their various ill-assort­ed limbs. On the public lines, there are only Shel­leys. I’ve finally con­ced­ed to the nickname—it’s infi­nite­ly better than ‘Frankies’ which I assume is passed around behind closed doors with looks of pity or revul­sion, or in taste­less company. The pity and revul­sion still make it out into the open. The train jolts forward, and we all col­lec­tive­ly sway. We’re like a Hierony­mus Bosch paint­ing. Garden of Earthly Horrors. 

You’ll never see an R.E. any­where near a public train. Real and Edu­cat­ed indi­vid­u­als are chauf­feured pleas­ant­ly here and there with their bar­bered hair and heathered pea­coats, their non-mod­i­fied youth or silvery aging grace. I keep a paper­back shoved into the back sling pocket of my exo-suit. I often sit reading on my crumb of a break in the under­ground food court, nursing a greasy coffee, sur­round­ed by Shel­leys munch­ing colour­ful­ly branded garbage. An R.E. will occa­sion­al­ly float down from one of the man­i­cured Think build­ings and venture into the flu­o­res­cent light­ing. They rarely look anyone in the eye, slyly moving their gaze over someone’s broken back inside an arach­ni­d­i­an metal brace or a freck­led thorax cobbled to a smooth shoul­der. Labour­ers barely held togeth­er, guf­faw­ing over fries, build­ing the cities. Remem­ber when immor­tals were Gods instead of mon­sters? Some­thing I read long ago in an under­ground newslet­ter, back when riots still bubbled up occa­sion­al­ly. I watch the R.E. over the edge of my page, prick­led with a cov­etous ache. Having gotten an eyeful, they retreat to their minty juice bars and gentle ergonom­ic cham­bers. With a book in my hand, I might be spared from the grimace reserved for a beetle on the tablecloth. 

After­wards, I jostle with the com­muter crowd into the manual-labour sector. It’s espe­cial­ly dull here. Only the under­side of the gulls glow with reflect­ed dawn as they sail above con­crete build­ings. My eyes pass tepidly over win­dow­less fac­to­ries and rasping work­sites. Unfail­ing­ly, my mind grav­i­tates to the past.

I was what they called a promis­ing can­di­date, agree­ably philo­soph­i­cal. The same went for my lover, another young adult scooped up from the labour pipeline in the fledg­ling days of the Full Human Expe­ri­ence ini­tia­tive. More exper­i­men­tal projects existed back then, but the risk of empa­thet­ic incite­ment was too high, with famil­ial rela­tions left muddied and suf­fer­ing in the work­force. Nowa­days it’s only the impos­si­ble schol­ar­ships. We were acutely aware of our luck and would curl around each other in bed, whis­per­ing and biting. We played chess and mended our small quar­rels by reading poetry until our hands inter­locked and the kissing started up again. Instruc­tors approved of our Mutual Bonding. 

We were moved into an R.E. apart­ment with a lemony colour palette and real wood floors. Soon after, we wel­comed a child togeth­er. As the infant over­turned the first del­i­cate, won­drous year, the world opened like a cush­iony mollusc with us at the centre. We soared toward Adult Knowl­edge, but never made it to LEVEL 3. I didn’t watch my love grow pallid, or tear­ful­ly press parting words onto a papery hand, there was simply a body, which I saw only once, and then an absence. 

“An ascend­ed posi­tion,” the R.E. agreed, nodding rev­er­ent­ly around bou­quets of fra­grant lilies and wet, faintly sweet cakes. “And natural too.”

“Accel­er­at­ed knowl­edge,” they said, and smiled beneath the large LEVEL 7 banner that stretched in pale blue silk above the urn.

“Skipped a few grades!” winked a garish acquain­tance, elbow­ing me and pumping my arm like I’d just won a great game, rather than lost the love of my life. I stood beside the urn atop its grace­ful plinth. It was both funeral and grad­u­a­tion. I was devastated.

All at once, I couldn’t stand the pseudo-nat­u­ral­is­tic ideals of the R.E.s. I curdled at the pas­siv­i­ty of The Full Human Expe­ri­ence. Every night, I felt a clang­ing void in my chest. During the day, I merely existed, my mind fuzzy with what felt like sickly blue spores. 

The child didn’t wail, only looked at me with wet, cred­u­lous eyes. 

My studies quickly dis­si­pat­ed, and the R.E. infant centre began denying care, the nur­tur­ists turning away from my sour breath as I arrived late for pickup, thick with the sorrow they refuted. I stopped think­ing about being Real and Edu­cat­ed and started hunting for a way to avoid the clang­ing, the baby heavy and impos­si­ble in my arms.

One bleary-eyed night, when sleep ran circles around me and the baby settled into a shallow slumber, I scored a bag of Limbo. It was so easy, slip­ping the sachet of powdery green tablets into my pocket while still wearing my house slip­pers. The area hadn’t changed in years, and the dealers were obvious. I walked the same thin streets where I’d huddled on unadorned front stoops with a handful of other youths. Juve­nile muti­la­tions were of the chosen variety: cheeks impaled with dec­o­ra­tive thorns and ears bloom­ing into pale cau­li­flower gobbets. I wasn’t bold or a fighter, so I had neither. We watched sea­soned Shel­leys as they wearily pock­et­ed their fix, eyeing our near and certain future with disinterest. 

Only one or two windows blushed warmly with shame as I walked down the empty streets and back to the apart­ment on the edge of the tidy R.E. neigh­bour­hood. Palming the bit­ter­sweet package, I reg­is­tered only that the baby was stir­ring gently before reced­ing to the back room. Soon the uproar of sorrow quieted. I got another bag, and another. 

Weeks passed mer­cu­ri­al­ly and I haunt myself now, ques­tion­ing whether I missed signs of the hered­i­tary damna­tion, even as I fed and bathed the child. I went to the crib one sallow dawn and found the small body, rigid and curled, like an empty seashell. When the address reg­is­tered in the system as R.E. dis­trict, no real help came, only a physi­cian who made a brief assess­ment then with­drew to the edge of the room, and a trio of shining-eyed patri­cians wearing blue silk sashes and white gloves. One of them held a box with a handle—it looked as if it should encase a violin—and stood with the immac­u­late posture of priv­i­lege and duty. A Full Human Expe­ri­ence so near its incep­tion was a miracle to them. I felt my blood go to ash and emptied my insides onto the hallway carpet as they filed inside. I cried out, grasp­ing at their sleeves, until the physi­cian appeared and closed a hand sedate­ly around my wrist. When they left cer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly, with deco­rous mouths and avoidant eyes, I lay down beside the sick. 

The sun rose mon­strous­ly and sunk down again, throw­ing bowed shadows of my form around me. Tears surged and I did not move. Salt and mucus dried on my face. The night pressed itself into the room. Sud­den­ly, as if with the jarring real­iza­tion of waking in the wrong body, I raised myself from the floor with shaking limbs and left the apart­ment, sen­tenc­ing my ruinous life as I tore madly down the staircase. 

I existed wher­ev­er I could be close to a supply of the chalky green pills—in creaky, hot rooms above Shelley markets slick with fetid fish, a damp, itchy couch in a brick build­ing con­demned by fire, under a deck on an old lawn chair cushion sur­round­ed by rot and mildew. I stayed in Limbo during all of my con­scious hours, twist­ing away from the searing image of my child watch­ing me like an owlet. Addic­tion suckled insa­tiably on my grief. It fed and grew rapidly until it was pacing and rav­aging like a Mino­taur. I wel­comed my iso­la­tion, the nights pep­pered with the scrab­bling of rats. 

With my Per­son­al Resources drained, I was marked by the labour pipeline and picked up by an agent who descend­ed on me smooth­ly like a well-man­nered phantom. In Limbo, I could be led like a lamb into the white mobile unit with its waiting physi­cian within, shroud­ed in an air of medical vio­lence. I awoke with a vital monitor, hard as a locket in my chest. They placed me with Cell Con­struc­tion Corp, no expe­ri­ence required. My body went through the motions of gru­elling manual labour while my mind cowered in a shadowy intox­i­cat­ed maze. 

“Hey, what’s up with you today? Look alive!”

“My mind is on vac-a-a-a-tion,” I’d drawl slushi­ly, adjust­ing my hard hat. I wasn’t me. I wasn’t anyone. 

When I emerged into rel­a­tive sobri­ety, sat­ur­nine and bleary, it was with five replace­ments: tongue, liver, one lung, and both legs. Exo-suits are pro­tec­tive, but they can’t shield from inter­nal sub­stance-use damage or a sev­en­teen-story fall. Tita­ni­um and trans­plants resolve the wreck­age, neu­ro­plas­tic sobri­ety pro­grams clear away Limbo fog. Shel­leys go into recon­struc­tive centres as a pul­ver­ized mass and leave unfath­omably stitched togeth­er, with just enough strength and clarity to go on labour­ing. Legally, it’s always deemed worker fault, and the labour debt only grows. Addic­tions are dis­pelled and formed again over time. The arm hap­pened last year—the job is a dan­ger­ous hellscape even without drugs. I spent my sparse recov­ery time alone on a tenuous cot, count­ing the mad­den­ing fruit flies that orbited my sour rations while the nerves merged tedious­ly. No physi­cian will extract a vital monitor, but I won­dered if I could try hacking it out with a blade. 

I try to lift the arm now as I pass by an alley and catch sight of the R.E. dis­trict moving along like an ebul­lient stream. The two neigh­bour­hoods run par­al­lel to one another, alter­nate real­i­ties slip­ping by without acknowl­edg­ment. The R.E. dis­trict is lined with cherry trees that flower vio­lent­ly pink in the spring, while the Shelley streets remain bare as bone, con­gest­ed only by workers. 

A Think build­ing is the cen­tre­piece for any R.E. dis­trict. The busi­ness­es and shops flow outward from the tow­er­ing rosy glass: restau­rant gardens where lofty elders take their lunch of herba­ceous tea and right­eous con­ver­sa­tion. The art of living well and the art of dying well are one, the signs read. Below are menu choices of hibis­cus lemon­ade and saffron rice. 

Domed spas show R.E.s glint­ing like gold­fish within, lolling by salt­wa­ter pools and oiling their match­ing limbs. R.E. youth stroll arm in arm, unscathed by hard­ship or artful maiming. It’s a careful life, any risk out­sourced neatly to the Shelley pop­u­la­tion. Labour­ers who’ve stayed mostly whole work in Ser­vices; inside of, but never a part of this per­fumed guild. The cre­ma­to­ri­ums boast elab­o­rate blue marble. Marble exca­va­tion has taken its fair share of Shelley blood, but the struc­tures are both creamy and alluring.

I’ve never been inside a Think build­ing. Access is granted at LEVEL 5. Nearly every­one passing through the whis­per­ing door­ways is an elder, but there are rumours of prodi­gies who glimmer with excep­tion in the upper salons. They are said to lecture on their accel­er­at­ed Human Expe­ri­ences, telling sur­rep­ti­tious­ly of all-encom­pass­ing bodily plea­sures brought forth only by the mind or ice bathing for deep emo­tion­al for­ti­tude. The elders sort out oceanic desalin­iza­tion and com­merce at the heart of the oper­a­tion. So I hear. I doubt that labour pipeline ethics ever come up beyond a few vol­un­teer ini­tia­tives and the deci­sion to give every­one a bit of free cake on the eve of the Mag­no­lia Fes­ti­val, which we are not per­mit­ted to miss work for. The authors of the Full Human Expe­ri­ence ini­tia­tive are unknown, the cradling body of knowl­edge pre­sent­ed as con­fi­dent­ly inher­ent. The neb­u­lous inner work­ings of the Think build­ing are as unreach­able as the zenith itself, which dis­ap­pears impos­si­bly into the rolling tro­pos­phere. The closest any Shelley will ever come to its meaning or benefit is by dan­gling pre­car­i­ous­ly on the outside during construction. 

You’ll never hear anyone admit that the Shel­leys are illit­er­ate, or that the ability to read has simply atro­phied, but as one dis­trict shifts to the next, the signage sheep­ish­ly changes from word to pic­to­graph. My cowork­ers are fond of rolling their eyes and moaning, “I don’t have time to read.” It’s true, outside of work, there’s scant time to eat the vulgar food court meals or visit a Shelley market with its array of limp, over­priced veg­eta­bles, lurch home on a teeming train, and fall into an exhaust­ed sleep. But I remem­ber my lover breath­ing pleas­ant­ly into my neck, cor­rect­ing the pro­nun­ci­a­tion of a word as I read aloud in bed.  I often trade ration times for this one solace. The shabby library I visit is a relic and barely func­tion­ing, part of a self-con­grat­u­la­to­ry Think program. I’m usually alone with the books, aside from the librar­i­an who regards me polite­ly. An R.E. vol­un­teer on track to LEVEL 4.

Looking up at the Think build­ing, I numbly long for what I can no longer have. Every day, I imagine closing my eyes and shut­ting down slowly and com­plete­ly, atoms burning off into dark­ness like the lonely sparks from overnight con­struc­tion. The schol­ar­ships are touted in work­force mobi­liz­ing efforts: a Shelley enjoy­ing their hard-earned rest at last, framed by milky blue, looking out blankly, serene­ly, from a bill­board along the train tracks. I’ve never met a Shelley who went on to grad­u­ate, but there’s always some dis­tant­ly acquaint­ed success story. Someone who was finally able to bank the hours and pay off their labour debt.

I shamble up to the current work­site. The legs aren’t a true set, and they’re not exactly bal­anced. After years of use, I still haven’t fully syn­chro­nized. Our crew encir­cles a super­vi­sor who doles out tasks. We’re all zipped into the exo-suits, a cast of haggard crus­taceans leaning on shovels and tipping back the last drops of syrupy coffee. I can see some of the other workers are already glassy-eyed, taking the edge off the day with a bit of Limbo. The super­vi­sor chooses not to notice. Our digging and drilling are cease­less. When someone’s finger inevitably gets ripped off or they fall through an unmarked hole, they’re carted away without pause. They’ll be back even­tu­al­ly, and the screams blend in, more or less, with the whining of machinery. 

At 300 second rest, the din of con­ver­sa­tion sinks to a low inten­tion­al murmur, and my ears prick up—any useful bit of news comes in such chary exchanges. A worker wearing a hard hat dec­o­rat­ed with peeling stick­ers side mouths, “Grad­u­a­tion med­i­cine,” to a somber­ly nodding cowork­er. Instances of Shel­leys trying to grad­u­ate happen often enough, but are never suc­cess­ful. New methods are always coming through Word of Mouth, a loose chain of rebels and oppor­tunists, the unof­fi­cial black market of the Shelley pop­u­la­tion. Tinc­tures that promise to turn out the lights for good, but instead leave the Shelley in far worse con­di­tion than before, with heavier debt for the repairs. Mobile units are always one step ahead, deployed with amazing speed when a vital monitor falters on the radar. In my uncanny sobri­ety, des­per­a­tion pushes up under my ribs along with res­ur­rect­ed guilt. I catch the conspirator’s eye and mouth the word, “Where?” 

I go back to the complex where I keep a low-ceilinged room, now inhos­pitable with winter draft. I hang my exo-suit on the back of the door and stand in front of it for a long time, caught by the empti­ness of it. It sags despair­ing­ly. I see myself, hol­lowed, and I grope for something—flecks of hope like lumi­nous moss in a black cave, or even metal­lic fear. There’s only endless lim­i­nal­i­ty, a con­crete waiting room with no door. I open my fist and look down at the waxen packet, deeply creased in my palm. I hadn’t real­ized I’d been holding onto it so tightly.

My mind is swim­ming, but the images are crys­talline. I’m back in the R.E. apart­ment on the floor. I can see the nubbly curls of the plush carpet, smell the vomit.

Then, I’m with my love in our bed, with motes of dust float­ing on slabs of sun­light, our child purling safely in the next room. “I’ve grad­u­at­ed,” I think, and then there’s nothing. 

I wake to a fixed pain. I’m back in my cot, the air warm with the smell of city compost. Spring in the Shelley dis­trict. As the con­tents of my room come into focus––the grubby refrig­er­a­tor, stack of books, and finally the husk of my exo-suit—futility wraps itself around me, ser­pen­tine and inescapable. It crushes the air out of me. I go cold under the coarse blanket, even in the balmy room. I feel plun­dered, scraped out. If I looked inside myself and found nothing before, what am I left with now? The light seeping in through the sin­gu­lar window pains me. “I’m here,” I whisper to no one, “I’ll always be here.”

Hours after I gain con­scious­ness, I’m visited by a work­force agent who plainly out­lines the extent of my medical debt and states my return to work: tomor­row. I can’t even cry. 

On the next quar­ter­ly rest day, I find myself sitting on the edge of the cot with my work boots on. My body has been car­ry­ing me duti­ful­ly to the labour dis­trict and back each day, but I scarce­ly remem­ber; I’m only an exo-suit, tromp­ing back and forth in the mud. Along with the pain nestled deep in my bones, an oily nausea per­sists. Now, I see the overdue library books in the corner of the room and realize that they present a task. I will go to the library, because I have no appetite for rations and no desire for the con­ver­sa­tions at the food court. Yes, it is some­thing to do when there is nothing else to be done. 

Relent­less bullets of rain soak through my plain-cloth jacket and the city throng seems more hap­haz­ard in the down­pour. I’m enveloped by the rich quiet as I step inside. The librar­i­an gives me a com­posed smile and beckons me across the muffled foyer. We’ve never exchanged any­thing more than nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion. From beneath the heavy desk, the tidy R.E. pro­duces a small box with a bit of blue ribbon on it, slides it toward me. 

“I noticed on your mem­ber­ship that it’s your birth­day today.”

When I don’t move to take or open the box, they con­tin­ue smooth­ly with kind, inferred author­i­ty, “I guessed you’d come on the next rest day and I thought, every­one deserves some­thing nice.” Their eyes flicker to the dread­ful arm, and I feel the static of expec­ta­tion. I under­stand that in exchange for the effort within the box, I’m to provide the warmth of humble grat­i­tude. “I brought you this.” Their painful­ly elegant hands pop open the box to reveal a wet, sugary little cake. “Happy 238th Birthday.”

I can only stare flatly at the offering.

The End