Trigger Warning: Suicide
Dear Ema,
If you found this letter, I cannot be any happier. I know it is forbidden now in this wretched country, but probably in the near future, when you are old enough, letters like mine will finally power a revolution strong enough to overthrow the status quo. I hope you would be ready when it happens. It's not a matter of if anymore. It has to happen. Or else we are doomed.
To put it simply, the current system does not value life anymore. I know this, because I worked at the place which decides the fate of the citizens of this country.
At first, I was not privy to what exactly I was doing. I was evaluating the performance of citizens and how they contribute, and giving them scores. We were informed that such a scoring system helped the government to decide how to distribute stipends and loans to people.
I felt proud that it was helping out the needy people in the country. Everyone you see now is healthy and can afford most of what the country offers. People are happy, and economy is doing just as fine.
In fact, our country, Maktapol, is ranked as one of the best in the world right now, to live in and to do business. I took pride in living in such a place. That was until three months ago, July 2120.
Your mother, Marcy, worked at a local convenience store. It's called the Tinkerbell, if you wish to visit it someday - has a little cow as the logo. As the time of me writing this letter, it is still operating.
Anyway, that is where I first met your mother. She had the same olive skin and green eyes as you. You got your jet black hair from me though, and we had this contest of who you look like more time to time as you slowly grew up. And it always ended in her winning.
We married soon after meeting. Love at first sight, as they say. This was around a little more than a year ago. I daresay that we were the happiest couple to ever exist. The Police has erased most of her presence, even in government records, but I slipped a picture of us inside a crack under your cradle, if you wish to find it.
As citizens of the country, we were banned from travelling overseas, unless we were high level officers in the government. I had to work two more years to get that title. Your mother, she watched these TV shows where they showed brief glimpses of the oceans around Hamshir.
She wanted to see the ocean, to feel how the sea would feel against her skin, her eyes glimmering everytime she spoke about it. She definitely was not happy when I dunked a whole bucket of water on her and shouted "HOW DOES IT FEEL?". Ah, good old times.
Then we had you! Our little angel. I wanted to name you after your mother, and she wanted to name you after myself. So we both came to a conclusion to combine both of our names - and that's you, Ema. The culmination of our love, the purest form of it. I hope you cherish it, but I would really like you to change it if you wish to take part in the revolution that I hope would happen. The Police will make you pay if they find out who you actually are.
Now where was I? Ah, July of 2120, that is this year. 3 months before your first birthday! We were so excited to celebrate it in a grand fashion. Of course, it was not going to top the extravagant displays that the higher officials commit themselves too, but it was going to be the best thing we ever did together (ah, other than having you of course).
Marcy came back home one day, frustrated. She said that the manager has been pushing her to do more work everyday, even though she was doing just fine, and that today was the last straw. I went out to have a word with him, but two members of the Police followed me and told me that they'll take care from here.
That week, I asked Marcy to not get involved with the store anymore. She agreed, and wanted to quit her job. I was completely fine with that, and I was more than capable to provide for both of you.
Around a week later, she came back with a bandage on her hand. I was concerned and asked her what happened. She smiled and said it was nothing. But her eyes never lied.
She was in pain. Something had happened.
I was about to ask her, but again as if on cue, the Police entered our home. Two of them. They smiled and asked if everything was alright at home. I was confused. They then clarified that they were doing a routine check at all households, and to evaluate a certain "happiness index". Marcy interjected, beaming and telling them that everything was alright, and gave a house tour.
I did not understand back then.
I wish I did.
The next day, Marcy said she wanted to go back to work. I was confused. I asked her to not go, but she didn't listen. She told me that the manager had been changed or something, and it was alright for her to go back to work. I agreed reluctantly, and she promised that she will stop going to work if it is too much.
Normalcy slowly returned. Your birthday plans were nearly complete. It was all set to go.
As August started, she told me that she has been meeting some friends for discussion of workflow in the store, and that she'll be late from time to time. I was happy that she was getting back into the groove. But whenever I asked her about her friends, she changed the topic. I didn't think much of it back then.
I wish I did.
Around the end of August, she started to act bizarre. She fretted about the laundry often, and would always sometimes wedge in phrases like "dirty clothes" and "washing machine" in our conversations. Again, I didn't pay much attention to it.
September 1. It was a rainy day, and it was a holiday for the both of us. Ema however was meeting with her friends that morning. When she came back, her eyes were glassy. Devoid of any feeling.
I was concerned, and asked her if it was anything at the workplace. She then told me something so out of character for her.
"El, remember that a terminally ill man will still care for his sapling, even after knowing that his death is near."
She then went to sleep. I tried to talk to her about it, but she never whispered anything back. I was worried if it was something that I did.
She died the next day.
I was shattered.
My wife. Dead. The one I adored and considered an inseparable part of me, erased.
The Police told me something about her trying to rob the convenience store. That she trying to get enough money to give you a pretty birthday present, and was killed in action when the Police broke through. All of it, apparently recorded in the footage of the store. I didn't pay much attention; I felt empty.
It all had happened too soon.
However, it didn't take me long to come out of my grief, fortunately. I realised that I didn't get either her body, or the supposed footage of her stealing the vault of the store.
The government officials assigned me a psych analyst to help me get through the grief. I was offered grief packages and a small vacation from my work.
All he did was dodge my questions and assure that everything was alright.
Something was off.
I played back Marcy's behaviour over the past months. A manager change? Bandage in the arm? She was meeting some 'friends' to talk about the workflow of the store?
No matter how I thought about it, she appeared to have killed the manager with her friends, got a wound in her hand in the process, and plotted to steal the store.
That was not my wife.
That was not Marcy.
I decided to go to work one day to get my mind off all this. That day, was September 7th. 3 whole weeks for your birthday to come.
The signs in my office appeared differently to me that day.
Bathrooms. Cubicles. Laundry.
Laundry?
Right by then, another clerk walked into me and clumsily picked up some of the papers that had fallen down, and apologized.
He didn't know me, I guess.
Or else he would have tried to hide a paper with my wife's photo in it. I had assumed that it was just work, the job of assigning credit scores to citizens.
But something was nagging me.
I decided to take a leap of faith. Marcy is a hardworking woman, and a person of fantastic morals.
I decided to peek around the laundry.
I was horrified by what I saw there.
Files upon files upon files everywhere. And no one thought to check what actually was contained in them.
A lot of elderly people with a stamp of "DONE" in dark red. Disabled people. Individuals with terminal illnesses.
Terminal illnesses?
I looked around to check that no one was following me and slowly opened the stack. If my hunch was right, I was going to find new cases at the top. Particularly, a case of interest.
There was the file that the clerk carried with him.
Marcy Smith.
A stamp of "DONE". A circle around "Terminal illness: revolt".
I was confused. I felt like the world was crushing me. The room was spinning. As I dug further, I saw another file, again called Marcy Smith.
I opened it. This might be traumatic to you, but you need to hear it. I feel that you have a right to know.
I swear on you Ema. I broke down that moment, and I never felt that weak ever in my life. Made me want to go on a rampage and kill everyone on sight and myself.
It was Marcy's little finger. Neatly sealed in a packet. A dark red stamp of "PAYMENT RECIEVED", and another one around "Temporary illness: suspicion raised".
They cut her finger for skipping work.
I dug further to see another file; "Doug Burns". He was the manager of Tinkerbell when Ema worked there. A red stamp, "DONE", and a circle around "Terminal illness: unsuitable in current system."
I heard footsteps outside. I immediately pulled myself together and arranged the files properly, and exited the room.
I knew I didn't have much time.
I got to work everyday after that, and took care of you as much as I could. I collected all the information I could find about what the Police was doing. All of it can be found in a drive that I have safely hidden in your old room. If you feel the drive to fight against the system someday, it will aid you greatly.
Chances are that a Policeman is reading this now instead of you, but I like my odds.
To give you a gist, Marcy had found out that the manager was killed by the Police. Some other workers knew that too. They found about a group that was secretly convening every week to carry out small sieges in different cities around the country to poke holes into the illusion our government has created.
Laundry and dirty clothes referred to the skeletons in the closet. Terminal illness was a sign as well.
I regret not seeing all of the signs earlier.
The Police basically eliminates people who do not positively contribute to the net improvement of the draconic system they have created. Old people and disabled people are mere liabilities for them. So are the Revolutionaries.
All of it based on the scores we evaluate. Terminal illnesses were never a part of our scoring system, so I didn't realise it earlier.
And now, I am a liability. With a terminal illness.
I already knew they were onto me, from the day I entered the laundry. The police came around to check the house everyday.
Today, I got a mail. Issued by the Police.
They gave me two choices.
One, to kill myself and offer you to be protected by a public caretaker, and give them any evidence I have collected against them.
Two, to allow them to kill both me and you. A child that is about to be a year old.
And if I am to divulge anything to anyone, they will know, and they will kill them too.
I don't have a choice, love. I wish I did.
I was somehow able to do a final push from my end, and have gotten you assigned to a caretaker that I can trust to take care of you. I can hope that you will stumble upon this one day or the other. No, I am sure if it.
You do not deserve this, Ema. You deserve much better. I failed as a husband and a father, I failed to protect both my wife and my daughter, the two people I loved the most in my life, more than I did myself.
But please know that you were always loved. Marcy and I will always be watching over you.
Oh would you look at the time, love!
It is midnight, and September 29th!
I am going to bake Marcy's favorite cake, the banana chocolate. I hope you will like it too. I left a message for the caretaker to give you some.
You are loved, Ema.
You are our little angel.
I hope the sapling I am looking at now will grow up to be a tree that lovingly gives shade to people.
I hope someday you will learn to appreciate the things you have and cherish them. I hope that someday, you will venture, and seek what the world outside has to offer. I hope that you reach the oceans your mother yearned to wade in, and experience the smell of sea spray and hear the sounds of waves crashing around you.
I hope you love yourself.
I hope that you love the people around you.
Happy Birthday, Ema!
With love and a whole lot of cheesy affection,
Elliot Smith, your father.
ns 15.158.61.48da2
