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The TV was already on when she walked in the door.
SHOP MART, EVERYONE’S FAVORITE - IMPORTED REFRIGERATORS - WHEN IT’S FINALLY TIME FOR NEW BOOTS - TONIGHT ON GUESS OR GOAT - DON’T FORGET TO STOP BY THE CLINIC AND GET INOCULATED AGAINST - AND IT’S YOUR DUTY AS A CITIZEN TO BE SCREENED FOR - FLASH FROZEN FISH, AT SHOP MART -
Her head hurt. She dropped her bag on the kitchen table with a thud, and sat down limply. The blaring commercials pounded against her aching skull. She did nothing about it.
She slowly unlaced one shoe, and then the other, and slid them into their place by the door. They fit perfectly into two shoe-shaped dark spots on the yellowing linoleum. The specks of gravel she’d tracked in crunched under her hose-clad feet as she padded across the floor to a broom and swept the kitchen, stopping last to pick up one foot, then the other, and knock the tiny rocks stuck to the filthy bottoms of her white tights into the dustpan.
She could have been dress coded for that. Thank god the dirty parts were only inside her shoes.
She made her way slowly into her bathroom. First she washed her hands, and watched the pink water run down the sink, and scrubbed the dryer, rustier specks from under her nails. The gloves were never quite enough to keep the blood off her hands, no matter how hard she tried. Then the hat, one pin at the time. She winced as she removed each pin. The hat fit neatly onto the styrofoam head she’d borrowed from one of the labs when they’d bought new ones to store their electrode caps on.
There were still more pins under the hat, the ones that held up her bun and the single curl of her bangs, and then the elastic bands around her ponytail and the end of the single braid that wrapped around the crown of her head and anchored her hat. She pulled the last of the accessories from her hair and let it fall down her back, and shivered as every follicle slowly turned after 10 hours of being tightly bound.
The makeup came off next, quickly, carelessly. Makeup remover and a good, broad scrub until her whole face was shades of pink and black streaked mascara and lipstick, and then all off at once, just like she’d seen the showgirls do it when she was a child, leaving only her exhausted face.
The deep shadows under her eyes seemed much darker once her makeup was off.
The uniform came off in layers. The tights went into the trash. The feet were simply too dirty, and if she pushed it any further she was likely to get coded. She had a new pair in her bag, anyway, picked up from the uniform closet on her way out. The dress and apron went into the washing machine - a luxury in her apartment afforded to her only by being a state employee - chased by a capful of the peroxide that lived in a bottle above the washer.
The pocket of her apron had crunched as she’d removed it from her body, and she looked down at the scrap of paper in her hand - a page she’d ripped from a magazine in a waiting room. The Keposhka at the top of the page beckoned to her in deep burgundy ink: “LOOK YOUR BEST AND WASTE NOTHING!”
The softly painted images on the page showed a perfectly put together woman cutting the toes from a pair of tattered socks, and sewing them together, first end to end, then rolling them together into a large torus and sewing around its edges. She slid the torus over her ponytail, and banded her hair around it, making a large, clean, perfectly round bun. Sylvia smiled. This looked easier than anything she was currently doing, and she had at least one pair of socks she’d been meaning to donate to the textile mill. Surely this would be a better use for them.
The timbre of the commercials on the TV shifted slightly. She hurried to collect her supplies and toss a pot of water onto the stove before settling herself down in front of the television.
“QUIZZO!”
“Greater draaget’s favorite gameshow,” she echoed quietly to herself.
And what’s your name?
Julieta!
And you?
Jacob!
It was one of the great pains in Sylvia’s life that state employees weren’t allowed to compete on Quizzo. The two people on the TV looked so happy. Gorgavik waved his hand in the direction of the large wheel, and Julieta raised her hands to spin it.
“Remember - ” Gorgavik began, and the well-trained crowd followed his lead in unison.
YEAS ONLY!
Sylvia turned her attention back to the sewing project in her hands. The needle went in, up at an angle, across, down, back up at an angle to come out again. Any seamstress would have found the pattern alien. Any surgeon would have recognized it immediately.
For 50 points…what year was the famous Lepkhan Biscuit first sold?
Sylvia bit her lower lip thoughtfully and queried her television aloud. “1953?”
Julieta rang in. “1953?”
“Correct!”
Still got it, Sylvia thought.
Which draagoshkan sprinter was famously cheated out of a gold medal at the 1988 Summer Olympics?
“Andrey Logos!” Sylvia answered quickly. The people on the TV looked anxiously at each other, but remained silent. “Oh come on, how do you not know this?”
A loud buzzer sounded. “I’m sorry, no one rang in on time. The correct answer of course is Andrey Logos, part of the infamous 1988 Olympics Controversy.”
Sylvia rolled her eyes. These contestants disappointed her. No one knew their history anymore.
Rain began to softly tap at the windows. A quiet rolling sound alerted her that the pot on her stove was boiling. She set aside her sewing during a commercial break and padded back into the kitchen, and dumped two spoonfuls of cream of wheat into the violently boiling pot, stirring just long enough for the commercials to end and returning to her nest on the sofa with her bowl of porridge.
Her feet hurt. Her head still hurt. The cream of wheat was warm.
Julieta was spinning the wheel. Yeas only, Sylvia repeated quietly.
The wheel generously landed on Yea. Julieta jumped up and down excitedly. Gorgavik waved her in the direction of the button in the middle of the studio. “As Julieta is tonight’s winner, she has earned the chance to make one request of Quizzo. Julieta, what would you like to ask Quizzo?”
Julieta beamed. She’d clearly been waiting her whole life for this moment. “Quizzo, I would like - a new car!”
“You heard that, beautiful draagoshkas at home! Julieta has asked Quizzo for a new car! Julieta, are you ready?”
Julieta nodded enthusiastically.
“Press that button!”
Julieta pressed the button. The small computer-like machine blinked. Bloop bloop bloop!
Letters slowly appeared over the computer, flashing in triumphant colors: YOU WIN: A NEW CAR!
“CONGRATULATIONS JULIETA!” Confetti and balloons streamed down from the ceiling. The small girl jumped up and down, her dark curls bouncing.
Sylvia caught herself clapping for the stranger. She wasn’t sure why, but she always enjoyed seeing people win, whether or not she thought they did well enough to deserve it.
Sylvia finished her meal to the sound of the ads playing between shows and returned to her sewing. She tied off her thread and, referencing the scrap of magazine lying next to her on the sofa, carefully rolled the now double-long sock tube back down on itself until it made a large, round, woolen donut. She held it up before her for examination. It looked a bit sad compared to the one in pictures - the socks she used seemed to be in much worse shape. Nonetheless it was about double the size, perfect for her waist-length hair. She plunged her curved needle back into the knitted material.
🎶It’s time for Gentleman Castle!🎶
🎶The king and queen! The dread knight Viehb! 🎶
🎶The Prince! The Fool! The GENTLEMAN!🎶
Hi kids! Did everyone have a great day today?
“Not really,” Sylvia whispered, her eyes never breaking from her sewing.
Were we all good little boys and girls?
“I tried.”
Remember, it’s important to be good little boys and girls. And do everything your parents and teachers tell you. Obedience is the most important virtue, after all!
Sylvia inclined her head almost imperceptibly. She’d been listening to these same words for as long as she could remember. She believed them, now, perhaps a bit less than she had as a child - though she tried hard not to become aware of that. She said them often enough herself.
Jaunty music kicked in on the television. A horse and carriage drove through a wheat field, approaching a castle. Childish puppets made up the scene - but instead of honing in on the throne room, the puppets instead showed a more restrained setting - a royal doctor and a prince laid up in bed with some illness. The doctor cared for him gently, and the voiceover told the story of a prince who was set to inherit the throne, but came close to death of a dangerous illness. A doctor saved him, but, spurred on by this success, asked for the prince’s favor. The prince refused, and cast him out of the kingdom for his greed and conceit.
No matter the great things we contribute to, it’s important that we all remember where we belong.
Sylvia pulled a stitch too tight.
The headache had never really gone away. She squinted at the thread as she knotted and tied it off, and held up the woolen donut for inspection. She compared it again to the artistic rendering in the ad - despite the extra wear holes, it would have to do.
She picked herself up off the sofa and stood in front of her bathroom mirror. Her long hair made a long, slender ponytail, which fit perfectly through the donut. She wrapped the hair around and braided the excess, and secured it with a tie.
She tilted her head to the side, examining herself in the mirror. The bun she always wore was now larger and rounder, a giant donut perched on the back of her head. She balanced her hat in front of it, as a test, and smiled. That worked - better than what she was doing before, even, and it was certainly faster. She envisioned herself in a clean uniform with her makeup on. A tiny sparkle glimmered in her chest, one she hadn’t felt in so long she barely knew how to recognize it. It flickered for a moment, warm and radiant, but died as an ember and went out before she could truly process it was there.
She pulled the donut from her hair and propped it next to her hat for the morning, and returned to her spot in front of the TV, just in time to watch the gentleman sign off.
It was good to see you today, kids.
“You too.”
Remember, we all have to do our part in keeping DRAAG strong.
“I’m trying.”
I see you all. You’re all doing very well.
Sylvia nodded. A few persistent tears collected in her eyes. “I’m trying,” she repeated quietly.
“Open?”
Gerard opened their mouth obediently. Sylvia carefully pulled down on their lower jaw with her gloved thumbs and shined a penlight down their throat.
Gerard’s eyes darted awkwardly as they focused on sitting perfectly still and not biting Sylvia’s thumbs. They landed eventually on Sylvia’s hair, which was swirled into a massive, donut shaped bun, a narrow braid wrapped around its base.
She pulled her thumbs from their mouth after what felt like an eternity and looked down, making a note on her ever-present chart. The tilt of her head showed off the hairstyle even more clearly, and the way she’d pinned her small white hat into it. She looked back up at them and smiled softly, and Gerard could have sworn she was wearing a different shade of lipstick than usual.
Gerard debated for a moment, but gathered their courage, and spoke. “Did you change your hair?”
Sylvia’s face softened in a way they’d never seen before. “I did, yes. I…saw it in a magazine.”
“It looks very nice. You look…very pretty.”
The warm spark in Sylvia’s chest, dormant, but very much alive, finally ignited.
“Thank you, sweetheart.”