It seemed like a fairy tale, one that couldn’t possibly be true, but I had lived in the days before the Reorganization. I remembered what it was like to make your own choices in life. I could recall having a closet full of clothes and choosing each day which suited my mood. I remember lazy summer afternoons when I could spend hours trying do decide whether to go for a bike ride or read a magazine or just stare into the hazy humidity rising from the sun-beaten grass of our fenced-in backyard.
When I whispered about those days to my younger colleagues, who had been babies or not even born yet when the Committee took control, they gave me incredulous stares and shook their heads. They couldn’t imagine a life like that. They were sure I was making it up. I started to wonder myself.
I was young, 12 years old, when the Reorganization happened — they called it a return to decency, and started dictating every minute of every person’s life. Suddenly we all had Committee-issued monitors in every room of every home. They gave them a nonthreatening feminine voice, a cute name (Darla), and a bubbly personality so we would overlook the invasion of privacy, the loss of independence, and just enjoy the fact that Darla would give us fun facts and play approved music in addition to informing us when it was time to get up, to work, to eat, to sleep.
Darla (or, rather, the Committee via Darla) gave every adult a new work assignment, and cheered the fact that now every adult was gainfully employed. Everyone under 16 was assigned to an education center, but the things we learned were very different from what we had been taught in our old schools. Everyone wore the same clothes, all the time. You didn’t need a full closet anymore — just a few changes of the same slate-gray pants, shirt, socks, jackets. The Committee knew we’d be more productive if we didn’t have to trouble ourselves with meaningless choices about what to wear each day.
It’s odd to look back on that time and see that so few people rebelled, so few spoke out against the authoritarian changes. Oh, some did, but so many people were happy with the changes. The world was too confusing, they said. We didn’t really need to make so many choices. We’d all be so much happier just letting Darla and the Committee choose for us. So the dissenters were few, and each time one of them spoke out, they swiftly disappeared. Some were never seen again, and some would return after weeks or months, quiet and subdued and compliant with Darla’s every request. They didn’t talk about where they had been, or what had been done to them, but whispered rumors said that they had been subjected to terrible physical and psychological tortures as part of a reeducation program.
I didn’t plan to verify the truth of those rumors, really I didn’t. It’s just that I was so tired of wearing gray every single day.
One morning, a Tuesday in February, I couldn’t take the crushing gray any longer. I found a bright yellow silk scarf that I’d kept hidden under my mattress, one of the few things I had been able to squirrel away from the old days.
I wrapped the yellow scarf around my neck and wore it to my job at the Acceptable News Bureau. I made it three steps into the lobby before the guards grabbed me.
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