The Hamartia Project

Chapter Four- Aspen (Democracy)

Hi! We are back to Aspen after meeting Ara and Luca. The last part of this chapter will answer a few questions, but it will leave a lot more unanswered. In Chapter Five, you will meet a new character, and I can't wait for you to meet her next week! Happy reading!

Absquatulate (v.) to leave without saying goodbye

Is there more pain in saying goodbye than leaving the farewell in the space between us?

This was the only thought floating through my head as I left the stage, realizing that I may never see my parents or my sister again. This was the only thought consuming my mind when I started my first day of training, leaving my family without even saying goodbye.

Every single time I had imagined escaping, my family was never part of the equation. I only thought about freedom, slipping away from societal constraints. I only thought about running away from the brokenness, to a place where I could be myself, to a place where I could draw my strength from.

I knew that I had to get out of here soon, but leaving may mean that I never get to see my family again. Traveling to the fields was a difficult task because there was no transportation from the city or the small surrounding towns. Only the food trucks traveled back and forth from the city to the farming community.

The restricted travel to the fields made sense because few people from inside the city chose the job of field laborer. It was an occupation that was only chosen by people who grew up in the fields, continuing their family line in the place they have grown up and offering their children the same childhood.

After choosing their occupation at the Selection Ceremony, many field laborers continued the routine of the life they knew. They moved back into the houses their parents owned and the houses they would grow up to own, trudging through the routine of daily life and all they had ever known because that is what they accepted for themselves.

For the few of us who selected the job as Cultivator but didn't have familial ties, we were provided a small set of apartments attached to a communal dining hall. The building we were placed in was small and run-down because only a few people needed it each year. Once those trainees had saved enough money, it was typical for them to buy a house or a nicer apartment, usually after a few years of work.

However, I had no plans to stay that long. In fact, I didn't have plans to stay much longer than a week. I knew that I needed to get more familiar with the area and get closer to the fence before I attempted the escape. I needed a plan laid out with crystal clarity in order for me to be able to see the brilliant future ahead of me. A cloudy idea of the future meant that it may not happen at all; I needed to know the exact plan in order to be able escape quickly and safely.

I try to ignore the guilt slowly crawling into my mind whenever I think about escaping and leaving my parents, knowing full well that I will probably never see them again, knowing full well that I was the one who chose to sever our relationship. It was a pain that made my entire self ache with guilt.

I always wanted happiness, and I knew the only place for me to find it was beyond the fence, but I knew that carrying the weight of so much guilt would mar my hopes of a happy future. Guilt has already distorted who I am now, and I don't want it to continue to have control over me.

However, the idea of saying goodbye was painful, so I wondered if leaving without saying goodbye would be easier, quicker, and provide a more cohesive close.

I guess I would never know. I would never be able to say goodbye because I had no way of getting back to the city.

Tending to the fields on my first day was hard, of course. Yet, there was some sort of peacefulness that came over me. Without the feeling of society closing in on me, everything felt like it was supposed to be. It didn't feel like there should be societal expectations drowning out my voice. It didn't feel like I should be trapped in a cycle of anxiety telling me to fit into society while also telling me that success stands out from the rest of the world.