Hi Disco Dancers!
I'm trying out something new. I am working on a bunch of new writing projects at the moment while also promoting This is How the World Ends ahead of release in September.
One of the things I'm working on might be a collection of short stories... maybe. Not sure yet. I have a bunch in my notes, and I'm slowly working them up, realising there's a common dystopian theme. While I'm figuring out what to do with them, I thought I'd share one!
Do let me know if you'd like me to share more in future, writing snippets, stories, updates. I've been reviewer-focused so far on Bindery but I could just as easily share writing stuff!
This is a story about a scary dystopian future, and thus contains potentially triggering themes: oppression, depression, disassociation, as well as themes of disordered eating.
Contains Twelve Pills for Family Forty-Nine
No one shits anymore.
The pills give you all the nutrients you need, and trick your brain into believing your stomach is full.
No one shits. No one gets fat either.
Everyone’s the same shape - lean, not skinny. Taut, not thin.
You eat the pill in the morning, for breakfast. Drink water that tastes of nothing, not even cold. The pills do something to your taste buds. You try licking dirt, and it tastes just like everything else. Blank.
You eat a pill at lunchtime when you start to flag, your sluggish limbs tell you you’re hungry. You don’t feel hunger, you can’t. You’d have to stop taking the pills for three days for that sensation to come. But by then someone would have force fed you the pill anyway. It’s easy to tell when someone’s skipping. They blink a lot, from withdrawal.
You eat a pill at night after your shift, when you stagger home from work. Sit at the table with your lean, listless family and pretend it’s a ritual. Pill on a plate, glass of water, drink, swallow, done. Then you can all go back to ignoring each other.
The pills keep you healthy. No one gets sick any more. The only death is from age, overwork, or violence. And there’s not much of that. Hurt someone, and you won’t get more pills. Simple.
Everyone thinks about it. Raiding the trucks. Stealing the pills. Creating a stash, so you could survive. Make a little pile hidden in the mattress and once you have enough you could kill your co worker and take your stash and run… somewhere. But then you realise there’s nowhere to run. You’ll need more pills eventually. And those come from the trucks.
You don’t know what food’s like. You only know what it did. Made people fat if they ate too much, or waste away if too little. Poisoned people if it was too raw, or too burned, or too old, or too green.
You’ve all seen the murals. The sick and dying painted in super size so the whole city can see. You don’t have to worry about death or disease, not like they did. You’ll never starve, not like they did.
You’ll never eat till you’re sick either. You’ll never celebrate with cake.
That was in a storybook once, before those stories were banned. No pictures of food, no descriptions of taste. You vaguely remember. Sweet, acid, heat. You feel the heat of the fire that burns in your house, and you try to imagine it on your mouth, the flames red on your tongue.
You’re tempted to talk to your children about food, but it doesn’t seem fair. It’s almost taboo, to discuss it out loud. And anyway, what would you say? “Like pills, but bigger”? It went into your body, like fuel, then got shat out as waste. Like oil in the factory machines, exhaust from the pipes.
You have two children. Because that’s how many everyone has. Unless one of them dies.
You lie awake at night, counting pills in your head. You can’t sleep. You rub your belly in circles, following the path of your intestines. What are these for? If not for digestion? Your stomach is flat, your breath pushes it up. Up and down, up and down. Your wife sleeps on her side, mouth open. You think about putting your finger in her throat. At what point would she notice? If she bit it off, and swallowed, would her body accept it?
The trucks come in the morning. You wait by the door. A truck pulls up to your house. It doesn’t have windows. There’s no driver.
An automated arm stretches out, and a robot hand puts a box on the pavement. The trucks rolls away. You look inside as you bring it into the house. Twelve pills, three for each of your family. Enough for today.
If you stole them and ran, how long would you last?
And where would you go?
The whole country eats pills. Beyond that, who knows? Not that you’ve travelled. This is all that you’ve known. There are no vehicles, apart from the trucks. And you can’t take a truck, there’s no way to drive it. And you can’t walk away, because you need the pills to live and the pills come from the trucks and they come every day and there’s never more pills than you need for one day.
You don’t get days off. You work morning to night. And at night you and your children and your wife, you do seperate things. All day is spent working with so many people, your children studying with so many people. Night time is for peace. Looking at stars. Drawing faces and shapes. Dreaming.
Yesterday, you bit your nail and chewed it a little, then swallowed. You felt the sharp scratch of the piece tickle your throat. You washed it down with water. It didn’t taste of anything.
The truck comes in the morning. You stare at it. You take the box.
You don’t take the pill.
You pretend to take it, raise it to your mouth, then keep it in your hand, swig water, make a show. But no one is watching. There’s no family ritual, not before work. You just get up and go.
Your body feels different. The labour you do, lifting and packing, it’s harder, and heavier. You try not to show it, but you’re lagging behind. The counter machine shows your numbers aren’t right. Every day you’re the same. Every day you’re on schedule. But today you’re too slow.
The bell rings for lunch, and everyone stops. They reach into their pockets, and pull out a pill. Everyone eats it, gulping it down. Some people use water, but more than half do it dry. You look down at yours, and fake it again.
By the end of the work day your limbs are like lead. Your numbers are bad, and you know that tomorrow there will be an inquest. They’ll give you the night, but if you’re not back on form the next morning, the force feeding will start.
You go home to your family, and sit at the table. You all pick up the pills, and swallow in unison. You put your uneaten pill in your pocket.
Your children get up. “Wait” you say. They look at you with surprise, but sit down.
“I want…” you begin. Your wife stares at you, confused. Your mind races to think. “I want to do something. Together, this evening.”
“I’m tired.” Your wife says. And you know that she is. But you’re more tired right now. Three pills missed, and you feel it. The urge to blink is there, it’s on the edge, waiting. You’re holding it back, but you don’t have much time.
“I know. But please, just this once. Let’s do something together.”
Your children look puzzled, and your wife looks concerned. But she says “yes, alright.”
So you lead them all to the garden, and you look at the sky.
“I see a pattern” you say, pointing up to the stars. “See, there? It’s a table. There’s a top and there’s legs.”
Your children look up. “I don’t see it” your son says, squinting his eyes.
“Look, there.” You kneel down to his height and put your face next to his. You lift his arm just like yours. “The top” you move it left. “The leg” you move it down. “The other leg”. You move it over.
Your sons looks, really looks. “I see it!” He says.
You breathe out a breath, and tears fill your eyes. Salt you think. It’s supposed to be salt.
“Now, what else do you see?”
Your family stay out there, with you, for an hour. You see lampshades and bed frames and houses and T-shirts. You see truck wheels and boxes and drainpipes and hands. All there in the stars.
And that night when you sleep, you look at your wife. He mouth hanging open, her eyes gently shut. You watch her until your energy fades.
In the morning your body is heavy and weak. It’s an effort to get out of bed.
And then the trucks come, and deposit the pills. You down at the box. Twelve pills in your hand. You have to take one. You’re already blinking.
So you open the box, and swallow one down. You watch the trucks leave the street, and your neighbours turn in.
It’s just you and the box. The pill stuck in your throat.
You put the box in your pocket, and you walk away from the house.
Love,
Disco
