needshumility (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
needshumility) wrote2011-09-26 11:27 pm
needshumility) wrote2011-09-26 11:27 pm
1.1.01.01.037: sacrifices for the good of the collective.
You know, ever since that port, I've been thinking about Violet.
She's my fiancee. She's pregnant. I hate her. I don't even feel slightly guilty for consistently cheating on her whilst here with Jane. Because I love Jane. Not because of her nose - that's for people like Tommo. But because she gave me something nobody else could at home - the truth. Which is a very, very valuable thing. In a world where everyone is stupid as a matter of course, which I realised myself in a Chromogencia meeting, and even more so since being here. We're educated, by Rule, 'until we're sixteen, or know everything there is to know, whichever comes first'. Our most clear answer to any question is just 'I don't know'.
So I'm cheating on her. I just don't care. It won't last when I get home. I am forbidden to even associate with Jane when I get home. This, right here, is all I get, before I give my life to a woman I hate.
Violet. She's Purple. Her father is Head Prefect. But her family is quickly heading towards Blue. They needed a high perceiving Red to bring them back. As soon as she knew I was over 75%, she forced me against a wall and kissed me. Soon enough, her father and mine had come to an arrangement. A very expensive arrangement, but that's how the marriage market goes, right?
Her being pregnant was part of the deal, because, well, I was going on a dangerous mission the next morning and might turn up dead. It happens. Especially at High Saffron. They paint the walls with Greed there. That's the colour which causes the Mildew. It's nothing but dust and bones in places. The first thing I knew about the pregnancy half of the deal was when she turned up naked in my bedroom. They'd paid my dad extra for that.
Security, I suppose.
Never the less, I proposed to Jane. In High Saffron. My dad would have let it happen. He promised me, if I loved someone, I could marry them.
The Rules won't. She was 'discovered' to be a Green in her Ishihara - that's a colour perception test - and we were complimentary colours. I couldn't talk to her. Let alone marry her. I am in no doubt Violet's father bribed the Colourman. (Incidentally, I can run circles around the Colourman sometimes - and there's very few people here who remind me of him. Una's inmate, mostly.)
I almost don't want to go home. So I can keep doing youknow with Jane, so I don't have to marry someone I was sold to.
But that would be selfish. I have a greater service to the collective.
That is the sacrifice I will make for it. Having the woman I love.
Don't take it for granted. Never, ever take it for granted. Because not all of us have the freedom to love as we want.
All those things you can have, without thinking twice - books, love, science, the ability to see colour, the freedoms you have, the ability to trust without doubting it - some of us think are amazing. Some of us would be in absolute awe of. Are in absolute awe of.
And then it's so very disappointing when you don't entirely realise how precious that is.
She's my fiancee. She's pregnant. I hate her. I don't even feel slightly guilty for consistently cheating on her whilst here with Jane. Because I love Jane. Not because of her nose - that's for people like Tommo. But because she gave me something nobody else could at home - the truth. Which is a very, very valuable thing. In a world where everyone is stupid as a matter of course, which I realised myself in a Chromogencia meeting, and even more so since being here. We're educated, by Rule, 'until we're sixteen, or know everything there is to know, whichever comes first'. Our most clear answer to any question is just 'I don't know'.
So I'm cheating on her. I just don't care. It won't last when I get home. I am forbidden to even associate with Jane when I get home. This, right here, is all I get, before I give my life to a woman I hate.
Violet. She's Purple. Her father is Head Prefect. But her family is quickly heading towards Blue. They needed a high perceiving Red to bring them back. As soon as she knew I was over 75%, she forced me against a wall and kissed me. Soon enough, her father and mine had come to an arrangement. A very expensive arrangement, but that's how the marriage market goes, right?
Her being pregnant was part of the deal, because, well, I was going on a dangerous mission the next morning and might turn up dead. It happens. Especially at High Saffron. They paint the walls with Greed there. That's the colour which causes the Mildew. It's nothing but dust and bones in places. The first thing I knew about the pregnancy half of the deal was when she turned up naked in my bedroom. They'd paid my dad extra for that.
Security, I suppose.
Never the less, I proposed to Jane. In High Saffron. My dad would have let it happen. He promised me, if I loved someone, I could marry them.
The Rules won't. She was 'discovered' to be a Green in her Ishihara - that's a colour perception test - and we were complimentary colours. I couldn't talk to her. Let alone marry her. I am in no doubt Violet's father bribed the Colourman. (Incidentally, I can run circles around the Colourman sometimes - and there's very few people here who remind me of him. Una's inmate, mostly.)
I almost don't want to go home. So I can keep doing youknow with Jane, so I don't have to marry someone I was sold to.
But that would be selfish. I have a greater service to the collective.
That is the sacrifice I will make for it. Having the woman I love.
Don't take it for granted. Never, ever take it for granted. Because not all of us have the freedom to love as we want.
All those things you can have, without thinking twice - books, love, science, the ability to see colour, the freedoms you have, the ability to trust without doubting it - some of us think are amazing. Some of us would be in absolute awe of. Are in absolute awe of.
And then it's so very disappointing when you don't entirely realise how precious that is.
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But compared to most of you, I am pretty uneducated. We're taught to... abide by the Rules, be polite members of society - everything else I mostly learned myself since getting here.
I think... We were raised to be ignorant, not stupid.
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Who controls the people? This.. 'Colourman', was it? What a strange appellation.
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The Rules control the people. The Colourman is... a representative of National Colour. They're, I suppose, the highest officials there can be. They decide who gets put on the Grid, make Univisual colours from scrap, perform Ishiharas and... numerous other things I can only guess at.
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It seems you and I share common interests. How do you intend to do it?
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I intend to become a Colourman. Jane has other friends who will help her, and we have to find out as much as we can about the truth before we can stop it. That, so far, is the extent of our planning. That I know of.
It was Jane's idea first.
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Private
Perhaps we should meet for dinner sometime, the three of us. In my world I was a revolutionary as well. Of course, the political climate is very different there, but I still think there are things we can learn from each other.
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[Private]
I would have to discuss it with her, but I know we both try and gain as much... experience from the Previous as possible. I'm sure she wouldn't object.
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[Private]
Of course. Take as much time as you need. It's not as if any of us are going anywhere.
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[Private]
Quite true. Except I think my inmate might graduate soon, but that's a complicated matter, and I need to talk to him but maybe now isn't a good time.
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[Private]
No, now perhaps might not be the best time. A few days isn't very long to wait, though.
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[Private]
No, I'm sure we'll have it worked out by then.
I'll get back to you, Mister...?
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Achilles de Flandres. And you're Eddie Russett. It's been a pleasure to meet you.
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Am I that well known?
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But he's the other Eddie. There's Edward Sexby too, and he's Jane's inmate, but I don't think he'd like Eddie.
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