1st 5 Pages March Workshop - Viner-Daniels

Name: Sarah Viner-Daniels
Genre: Young adult, dystopia
Title: Landfall

Sunday 19.00 Federal Standard Time

Gentle-moderate westerly wind

Dry

Expect small wavelets

I went to see the new soldiers leave the ship this afternoon. Three rows of storm-gray uniforms. Each head buzzed close. Each rifle standing straight. From a distance I couldn't make out their faces, but that didn't stop me being envious. My uniform, if I ever get it, will be peppermint green. I’m glad they won’t shave my head.

Seeing kids my age escape to freedom always twists my stomach in on itself. Envy mingles with anxiety. I’m jealous of their liberty, but what if I'm homesick? Maybe I won’t be able to sleep without the simple rise and fall beneath my bunk. Or maybe I won’t even get into med school and I’ll have to live out my days here. Forced to be content with a view of the shore rather than living there.

A gust lifts the edges of my homework and threatens to blow the sheets over the rail and into the sea. That’s the last thing I need. I don't want to pull an all-nighter, and I definitely don’t want to explain to Harry why I can’t turn in my assignment. I weigh the loose pages down with what remains of my dinner: a pile of teardrop mussel shells that rattle against each other, topped off with a crust of stale bread. Goose flesh puckers the skin on my arms so I shake out the blanket from the back of my chair and wrap it around my shoulders. It itches like it’s crawling with bugs. 

The Lookout is the only place on board that you can go for a cup of coffee or a sit down meal, so it's always packed out. The cafe sits on a wide disc of planks and decking that juts out from the ship, hanging over the water like a balcony. The coffee stinks, it's the view I come for. Every butt-chilling metal chair provides a view of the city. Tonight the sun is slung low behind the skyscrapers, creating a jagged silhouette dotted with hundreds of home fires burning. The government’s eyes, humming white drones sewn onto the sky, keep watch to see that no one swims ashore. My heart flutters against the inside of my ribs. For the millionth time I wonder whether the ant-like figures on the dock would hear me shouting to them.

A ping tells me I have a message waiting. A joyful noise for bad tidings. It’ll be Mum wanting to know my location. A glance at the scuffed plastic comband around my wrist confirms it. Esther, it’s almost dark. Are you in?      

I’ve stayed too long. Again. Sighing (louder than I’d dare if Mum was here), I wipe my buttery fingers on a napkin and tap out a reply: With Alex, home soon. I pull the strap of my medical bag onto my shoulder and stuff the pages of homework inside. Mum will be moaning the second I walk through the door, saying I need to be more careful. Wear quieter clothes. Cover my hair, lower my eyes. And never stay out once it gets dark. I want to tell her that I already button my waxed jacket up under my chin, and that I never wear my hair loose. I've never even touched a lipstick. She still worries that one of the Neath gangs will drag me down into the belly of the ship. Like they’d care if you were wearing lipstick or not.

I weave a path between the sticky plastic covered table tops, heading for the exit. There’s a yell from the walkway on the next level so I look up, just in time to see a pale hand clutching a small white rectangle. The rectangle swings through the air, shattering into a hundred sheets of paper that drift out and down towards the Lookout. The sheets catch the last dregs of the day’s light as they fall, making them glow. 

Hands are already grabbing at the white leaves before their arcs meet the ground. Paper litters the floor and tabletops, a black and white snowdrift lined with text. 

I anchor my feet to the deck. I should leave now. I shouldn’t even think about reading the message. Getting busted for possession of propaganda would blow any chance I have of getting into med school. But then, all the other customers are taking the chance. A quick glance can’t do any harm.

I bend at the knees and snatch a leaflet that’s laying against the toe of my boot. My hand trembles. I face the sea and hunch my shoulders, shielding the forbidden rectangle of paper from the view of anyone aboard. With a tremble in my fingers I uncurl the leaflet and flatten it down. It’s a photocopy of a newspaper report. There’s a blurred photo of a cruise ship underneath words in blocks of black: OASIS OF THE SEA CLEARED.

“Coalies!” someone shouts behind me. 

My heart leaps into my throat and drums out a warning. The leaflet I’m clutching could be a cinder straight from the stove, I drop it as fast. 

A whimper rises from the cafe’s patrons. People let leaflets fall from their hands. Steel chairs screech against the metal deck. Still steaming drinks are abandoned. Half eaten sandwiches are left to the yellow-eyed gulls. A crowd bottlenecks at the exit, people push each other back in their need to get away from the reams of evidence strewn over the cafe. No one wants to be caught near all that. 

I make it to the stern exit in the midst of the crowd, as a team of Coalies hustles through the entrance at the port end of the Lookout. Since the Coalescent Bill was passed last month the Coalies have spread their unwelcome reach into every part of ship life. Politicians from the Federated States wax lyrical about the heroic effort by law enforcement to ‘clean things up’ on the Arcadia. But as far as I can tell it’s no safer to live here. If anything, the black-clad Coalies have put our collective consciousness to the rack. People are jittery. Whispered rumours tell of arrests for non-crimes. You don’t want to meet a unit of Coalies down an underlit stretch of deck any more than you’d want to meet a gang of Neaths.   

On the next deck down I let myself breathe again and by the time I hit Deck 10 my heart has settled into its normal pattern. I break into a jog for the long stretch to the back of the ship and home. My hobnailed boots are too heavy for running, and the muscles in my calves scream in complaint after a few steps. I ignore my legs, and concentrate on the clack-clack of the nail studded boot soles against the deck. Since my great-grandparents dropped anchor here the ship has been expanded outwards and upwards. Only a few stretches survive that are long enough to sprint down, and during the day I’d have to dodge around people, or the animals they let out to sun. I have to take advantage of a clear promenade deck when I can get it. 

Our neighbours have all pulled their smoothed driftwood shutters for the night. Ribbons of light gleam orange between the pieces of scavenged wood, making the windows glow warm. No one will venture out in the dark, so I won’t meet any obstacles.

My footfalls vibrate through the darkness.