The Visionaries

15

He awoke back in the ancestral realm. There was someone on the other side of the lake. She was sobbing and wore regalia. He tried to run to the other side. He smacked his face into a barrier. The woman continued to cry, burying her hands into her face. Six tried to run into it again. He hit his face again. The woman turned her head to see him. It was his mother.

"Mom? Mom!" he started to bang on the barrier. The woman placed her hands on the barrier, trying to talk to him. He couldn't understand her. She kept getting louder but he still couldn't understand her. Finally his fists started to hurt and he slumped into the barrier in tears. He tore at the grass with his hands.

He sat up, sweating. It seemed like even in the ancestral realm, he couldn't speak to her. He looked at the clock on the other side of the wall. It was five a.m. Jesus, he hadn't gotten much sleep. He walked towards the cafeteria where there was a woman at the cappuccino machine. She turned to see him.

"Hello, Six." she said. It was Alma's mother.

"How do you even know my name?" Six asked.

"Your pretty little face is plastered all over every NewsScreen, website and TV station. Everyone knows you're the evil traitor that betrayed the State." she took a sip of her coffee.

"What do you want?" Six crossed his arms.

"I want to see my daughter, but her little friends are stopping me from doing it."

"Haven't you thought she really doesn't want to see you?"

"She doesn't. But she needs to hear the truth-"

"That, according to her, your father and you abandoned her?"

"I did not abandon her. He did not abandon her. He was a monster and she was better off without him or me."

"You know what I would do to be with my family again? And you abandoned your kid. Also she's made it clear that she doesn't want to see you."

She looked furious.

"Wouldn't you like to see your family again?" she said. "Then help me out."

"No." Six said, coldly. He walked into the kitchen. It was bright there. There were people opening cans of spam, cutting the spam into diced pieces, washing rice, and scrambling eggs in the griddle.

"Good morning, soldier boy." a girl with ribbons in her double braids said, bumping her hip on his. Alma gave her a sideways look.

"Good morning, Six." she said as she chopped up cups of fruit.

"Hey." he said. "Do you need help?"

"Sure, just grab a knife and an apron."

He grabbed one of the shelves and a knife from beside Alma. He grabbed an apple and cored it. Alma was cutting the apples into slices.

It was Christmas time. He watched his mom and sisters core apples and crush pecans for pies. His father was placing gifts on the bottom of the Christmas tree. His brothers were playing a game on the Xbox. The air smelled of cinnamon and apples. He snapped out of it. Alma was halfway done with a bag of apples. He started to cut the apples into slices.

He saw Dany was cooking eggs in the griddle.

"I didn't know you worked in the kitchen." Six said.

"We rotate shifts with the others. One week, kitchen. One week, maintenance, One week, supplies and one week training." she said.

"Makes sense." Six finished cutting the rest of the apples. They headed to the front line with food in trays. There was scrambled eggs, fried eggs, fried spam, bacon, and white rice. There were some fruit cups in ice and grits in a warmer. He helped them serve the food.

"Just a heads up, two scoops of rice or grits, a spoonful of spam or four slices of bacon, and a scoop of scrambled or two fried eggs." she said. "They get one cup of fruit."

"Got it." There were all kinds of people getting food. There was the maintenance workers, trainees, people who just arrived from the fields, homeless looking people and last, the kitchen staff that wasn't serving. In the end, they got to eat after packaging up the rest for people to take home.

"So what did you think?" Alma asked as she mixed her eggs and grits together.

"I thought it was neat. So you fed other people besides the ones in the HQ?" he asked.

"Anyone that wants food can get it. We're not allowed to run restaurants anymore so sometimes people come here just to eat."

"And they don't have to do anything else?"

"No, it's food. There's always leftovers and everyone's more than welcome to take them home." Six watched as a woman loaded up her purse with mini plates. "That's how it should be anyway. We all deserve to eat."

"Yeah. So this is a commune basically?" he asked.

"Basically. We all take care of each other. We're all different people but we all bleed red. There's Freedmen, there's East Coast natives, Southwest natives, Mexican natives," she smiled. "Like me. We also help the people in the factories by sneaking food and medicine in for them but lately it's been harder to get access to them."

"It's probably on purpose." Six said. "Knowing Michael."

"Yeah, I don't think our invasion of his palace was the wisest idea. I heard they're putting a lot more security in." Alma said. She had cleared her plate. He stared at her. She had pretty long lashes. Wait, why was he noticing that? He flushed and Alma turned her head around.

"Are you okay, Six?" she asked.

"I guess." he said. "I just....I don't know..." Damn he said too much already. Shut up, Six. You almost killed her you stupid fuck. She beat your ass the first chance she got. Of course she wouldn't think of him like that. He thought to himself. She was just being nice after the whole massacre they saw. Or so he thought.