Ever since I was a child, curled tightly in my father’s arms, I believed emphatically that all people were destined for great things – but of course, greatness was something that existed on two sides of a coin. Was Julius Caesar not considered great? Or even that man Alexander, whose very name bore the title.
As I grew older I began to understand that there was no such thing as destiny, and as such I was not destined to become a great woman – the kind that the stories would tell of in years to come – and so it must have been my choices that saw me through to the very end of this unspoken tale of so-called greatness. In the end, I could describe myself as many things, but ‘great’ was not among them.
My name is Abigail. Well, that’s what people call me anyway. My full name is Jeanette Eliason Abigail, but Jeanette is my mother’s name, and I prefer to be called by my last name. My middle name, Eliason, belonged to my grandfather on my father’s side. But unlike my father, he was well known and respected because of the love he bore for his country. My father, and even I, would never have the benefit of such treatment.
That’s not to say that my father did not love his country, because he certainly did, far more so than he loved me, his own daughter. I, on the other hand, was not so patriotic. I did not see the value of loving something that theoretically didn’t exist – what is a country anyway? My father would tell me that a country is its people, and all the dreams and ideals that go with them, however I look at this country that I live in and all I see is land – rocks, dust, a city full of men and women at war. It’s a stupid reason to die.
And yet, here I am – stuck in the thick of a civil war and striving to destroy a system of government that I care nothing about. I was a very small part of a highly-organised resistance group that refused to kneel at the word of Archibald Dennett Lace – the president of Tartarus City.
I wasn’t a fighter – my stomach was far too weak for that – but my father was quick to make sure that I did my part, and that’s why I became a messenger girl. In a fight such as this – where knowledge easily meant gaining the upper hand – people like me were quite valuable. Yes, they could use Morse code, telegrams, messenger birds and all the like, but those things could all be intercepted. That’s not to say that I can’t be intercepted, because I most certainly can be, but unlike all those other things, I can think; or rather, I’m not supposed to think.
When those bimbos in the resistance gave me my job they also kindly handed me a cyanide pill, and told me to take it if I ever got caught. So of course, as I sat upon the roof of my home one evening, watching the lights of this dark city flicker like fireflies before me, holding the pill they gave me between my fingers, I laughed at how messed up the world had become, and then I tossed it down into the street below.
I didn’t care for a lot of things in this world, most of it just seemed dubiously irrelevant and overrated, but the one thing I didn’t care for the most – as a matter of fact you could most certainly say that I hated – was dishonest people and traitors. I still recalled one of my very first experiences of being betrayed when I was only a sweetling of a little girl. It was near the end of summer, my hair was in pigtails, and my father had taken me to the park to play with all the other kids. The grass was fresh, the sun was out and the birds were chirping – at the time it was all I needed to know that it was a good day. Oh, how ignorant I was. Anyway, I had brought my favourite doll to keep me company, you know, because all the other kids that were running around and screaming like crazy, well, they frightened me. My doll’s name was Mrs Marigold, and she happened to be my very best friend. So I was sitting there talking to Mrs Marigold about god knows what and my father was nowhere to be seen, and then suddenly a kid ran up and stepped on Mrs Marigold with his dirty shoes. I could have passed it off as an accident and forgiven the boy if he had only apologised, but he didn’t, and so when the boy wasn’t looking I ran over and tore the head from his favourite action figure – dealing tenfold the damage that he had done to my Mrs Marigold. On that wonderful summer day I had learnt two things: what betrayal felt like, and better yet, what revenge felt like.
One could say that I turned out to be a pretty dark kid, even as a teenager, but I had pretty eyes and I always did what I could in terms of working for the resistance. Today was one of the very first days in my life that I was allowed to try something new. It was a mission – for lack of a better word – that needed a more, say, personal touch. I, the lovely Abigail, was going out on a date with a nice young man from somewhere in the northern side of Tartarus city. Now, I call it a mission because this young man was recommended to me by my father, and I can’t recall the last time he did something that wasn’t in the best interests of the resistance. “You’re seventeen, Abbi,” he had told me, “you ought to get out more and meet with people. Have some fun!”
I could tell at a glance that my father was manipulating me. I mean, the capital building – that is, where president Lace lives – was located in the northern suburbs, so that the north was his side of the chessboard. My date was probably the son of a politician, or some high-ranking officer, and my father was using me to get in closer with them. Sorry dad, but I agreed to running letters back and forth for you, not this.
I must admit though, I did have a great time, but no thanks to my date. As it happened he took me to the festival of the liberation – I was going to go anyway – but oh, how I loved this festival.
It was an event that celebrated the day that Archibald Dennett Lace freed the city from the tyranny of an old and forgotten villain. That all happened about twenty years ago, and because of that single event Lace had become a hero, making us – the resistance – the bad guys.
To be entirely honest, I didn’t see the big deal as to why my father and the rest of the resistance were so bent over on trying to bring Lace down. Sure, taxes were a little high and Lace was definitely way too overprotective of his throne, but it’s not like he was out killing people in the streets – just as our former leader supposedly did.
But as always I was letting this war get to my head instead of just sitting back with my date and enjoying the festival. We walked together through the streets, illuminated with bright lights and colours of green and red and blue. Lanterns hung in the sky like floating stars and rivers of lively silk were strung between buildings overhead, creating a canopy of the most amazing radiance.
Thankfully, cars were banned this year after an accident that resulted in the death of a child and a thousand broken hearts. It was better this way, having everyone walking around through the city, chatting and mingling with each other, smiling.
I watched as a mother – only a few years older than I was – moved about the festival with her husband and their toddler son. I marvelled at the glimmers in their eyes as they caught the shining red light from above. Look at how happy they are. Everyone here is having a jolly old time, so why am I fighting a war?
I enjoyed the singers, they were one of my favourite events to come out of the festival. There was this one lady whose voice rang like diamonds; but she was just as beautiful as the music. She wore a silk dress around her fine figure, her lipstick was the deepest red that my eyes had ever seen, and her hair was so finely golden that it shined. And that was only the beginning of the presentation. To accompany her amazing vocals and captivating splendour was a dangerous display of close fireworks that were followed by a fine mist of blue, as well as a full orchestra band of guys in suits. Their combined music was loud and grand and it slapped every audience member in the face with the sudden strike of each perfectly played note. All I could say was that the show was simply magnificent!
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