The Rainbow Maker's Tale Read online

  The Rainbow Maker's Tale

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  The Rainbow Maker’s Tale

  Melanie Cusick-Jones

  Copyright © 2013 by Melanie Cusick-Jones

  This edition copyright © 2014 by Melanie Cusick-Jones

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover.

  www.cusick-jones.com

  www.melcj.com

  For my parents, who taught me about the wonderful worlds that live inside books and answered my random questions about ‘The Egyptians’ and acid rain…

  Thank you, for always being there for me.

  “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

  Albert Einstein

  Chapter 1

  It was days like this when I felt it more than ever: I wasn’t a real human.

  Was today’s air staler than normal?

  Perhaps, subconsciously I detected a musty note to the oxygen that was moving through my body, and that caused the day to start on a sour note…? Or – more likely – it was because pretty much every day I struggled to feel like a human being. I just hid it from myself better than I was doing today.

  Generally, I believed I hid most things well, myself included. The ability to be invisible in a small room filled with people was a talent I was confident I had perfected during my seventeen year existence on the Space Station Hope.

  Existence!

  I laughed harshly when I realised the word I had chosen: not living, merely existing. I acknowledged the distinction grimly. Ugh. I was feeling bitter this morning.

  The alarm from the viewing screen chimed melodiously. Normally it would have brought wakefulness, but I was already awake today. The sound was simultaneously piercing and soothing to my disturbed mind. I sighed. It was definitely going to be one of those days.

  “Balik?”

  I heard Mother’s voice call out to me as she passed through the corridor outside my room. Her accompanying knock was a reminder for me to get up, get dressed, come for breakfast, leave for school... It didn’t particularly matter what it meant: it was always the same knock and I always obeyed. Today’s knock meant get up.

  Kicking away the thermocontrol sheet that had shrouded me as I lay in bed, I knew I was taking my frustration out on a harmless, inanimate object. It didn’t stop me doing it though and I huffed as I pulled myself into a sitting position.

  Why was I so annoyed this morning?

  There was a part of me that hated the angry beast that dwelled permanently inside me – waiting to make itself known. Another part of me relished the familiarity of the feeling that enveloped me when it reared its furious head. Of all the human emotions I was familiar with, anger was the one I most particularly disliked, but was also the one that permeated my moods most frequently.

  Screwing my eyes tightly shut I breathed slowly in and out, in and out. The air pulled deep into my chest as it filled my lungs – stale or not I couldn’t decipher – and cooled the heat of my temper. When I opened my eyes again I was calmer, controlled, and ready to face the world. Or at least, face my parents.

  Entering the living space I glanced around me. Our apartment pod looked exactly the same as it always did: polished white and cream plastic walls; empty chairs arranged neatly around the table. I looked around for a sign that Father was here, but didn’t see any. That wasn’t a surprise. I was lucky if I saw him more than once or twice a week. Who would have thought that working in the Family Quarter’s Engineering division would be so time consuming. Certainly not me, but on the plus side of things, it gave me one less parent to deal with.

  My regulatory breakfast sat waiting for me, its perfect balance of fibre, carbohydrate and vitamins familiar, as it beckoned from the otherwise empty table. As always, Mother was there, waiting for me. Today she was standing in the kitchen staring out of the window.

  “Good morning Mother,” I greeted her politely, as I scraped a chair away from the table and took my seat, trying to ignore the awkwardness of the uncomfortable grating noise in the silent space. She turned slightly and appraised me with curiosity, as though my words had alerted her to something that I was unaware of.

  “Good morning, Balik,” she replied, after a second or so more of staring. “How are you feeling today?”

  “Fine, thank you.”

  I focused on the breakfast plate in front of me as a distraction, inhaling the familiar smell of the food. In truth I felt blank and a little numb now that my earlier anger had passed. All I had left was another day of existence to look forward to. But, feeling empty was not unusual for me, and a blank mind was a regular feature of my life, especially around my parents.

  I had no solid reasoning or tangible evidence for my conviction that certain people on the station could understand things about me, when I had never spoken them aloud. As irrational as it was – usually I was the most logical of people – this was what I felt…what I believed. It had been a long time since I had allowed myself to think and feel freely when I was in the presence of anyone else.

  My rational mind could only construe that the expression of my face and the meaning between my words gave away much more than I wished to divulge when I spoke to anyone. As I had grown older and found secrets that I wanted to keep to myself, it had forced me to stop speaking…then I had stopped thinking… Only I knew about the lies I had found, and until I had worked out why we were being lied to, then I had to hide what I knew. It was only when I was alone that I was free to be as angry and frustrated as I wanted. What a wonderful person I was!

  “Are you worried about your examinations?” Mother’s voice was soft and probing, as though she could sense something about me but couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was.

  Her question caught me off-guard and I froze for half a second, my fork part way between my plate and my mouth. It wasn’t often she made conversation with me, especially in a morning; usually she would hover around until I had eaten my meal and taken my vitamin pills. Then she would leave for another day of work at The Clinic.

  What made today different?

  Nothing was immediately apparent and so, shaking away my question, I answered hers.

  “Not especially.” It was the final day of the school exams, but the worst was behind me, just History that afternoon and then I would be free.

  Well, free of school at least. I wasn’t sure I could ever be truly free on the space station given all the limitations we had. But, that was a whole other aggravation.

  I glanced up and saw that Mother was still standing beside the table, her eyes fixed on me: she wanted more. I swallowed noisily.

&n
bsp; “My least favourite subjects have all been done and they seemed to go well enough.”

  “One of my colleagues at The Clinic said most of the leavers are going to Park 17 when the exam is finished. Will you be celebrating with your friends afterwards?” Mother’s eyes remained unblinkingly focused on my face.

  It surprised me that she didn’t already know the answer to this – partly due to her uncanny ability to guess correctly things about me that I thought were well concealed – but more because it was so obvious from my lack of social interaction with anyone. I didn’t have friends.

  It made me wonder whether Mother truly knew how good I was at making myself invisible among my peers, or why I might be doing that in the first place. But then, most of the time I didn’t really understand my behaviour myself. It wasn’t logical or planned, it just happened that way. Why should Mother understand me, when I didn’t understand myself?

  I was an outsider. I was unhappy with the guarded and restricted existence we led on the space station, but too scared to reveal my true feelings that were so at odds with everyone else around me. They all seemed happy with their beautiful cage and didn’t want to see beyond the bars. The problem was, that I did look. And, when you stared into the shadows, things here felt…wrong.

  Shaking my head slightly, I dismissed the thoughts that were whirling through my mind and refocused on Mother’s question. “Probably not,” I muttered.

  After searching my half-empty plate for answers that did not appear, I left it at that. I could tell Mother was dissatisfied with my response, but satisfied that there was nothing more I had to say on the subject. Returning to normal, she hovered at my shoulder until I’d finished my food and taken my vitamins. I was grateful that she let the silence open between us once again, uncomfortable though it was, it was better than the alternative of having to converse with one another.

  * * *

  Many historians pinpoint the start of the rapid decline of human civilisation on Earth to the year 2045. What is significant about this date and the subsequent events of the period; particularly their environmental and geopolitical impact upon the human race?

  The final question of the examination glared at me from the viewing screen. Of course, we needed another reminder of why we were here! A deeply resentful sigh escaped through my tightly pressed lips. To me it sounded like it filled the silent room with sound, but no one turned around to look at me for making too much noise. I must have been as quiet as ever.

  What was I supposed to write about?

  The acid, churning in my stomach, told me that I didn’t want to write about how climate change kick-started a chain-reaction of global events, which collectively led to the destruction of the human race on Earth in the late twenty-second century. I couldn’t face writing another essay on how our ancestors sleepwalked into destroying themselves: I’d spent most of my life doing that! Why were we still writing about this stuff, four generations on? It was as though we had to be told over and over and over again, just how stupid human beings were.

  Ignoring the question, my gaze drifted above the glowing letters and I focused on the heads of the people sat in front of me. Every one of them was tilting their face toward a viewing screen, deep in concentration with an automatic discourse headset perched neatly on their head. My classmates looked industrious, bland and indistinguishable from one another.

  The uniform appearance of my contemporaries – in my eyes – was despite the random accessorising of their clothes. It was ironic: the trend was specifically aimed at expressing their individuality, but being individually identical seemed an odd concept to me. The girls would tie their hair at random angles, so that it stuck out from their heads like architectural features. The boys focused on wristbands, brightly coloured belts and – at the moment – coloured streaks in their hair. Of course, making your hair green or blue all over would look stupid, but a single stripe of colour above your ear – what could look better? I shook my head. Their differences only reinforced their similarity.

  In the next instant – for no reason I could accurately explain – I felt compelled to be different from my classmates. I yanked the automatic discourse headset off, as if it had suddenly become white-hot, and tossed it towards the holder on my desktop. I didn’t bother picking up the headset up or re-arranging its position, when it bounced uselessly against the plastic frame and came to rest untidily beneath the screen.

  I rested my chin in my hand and slouched forward. It wasn’t going to help me answer the question on the screen, but right now, I could think of nothing better to do. It was my last exam anyway, I was pretty sure I couldn’t fail at this point.

  I found my gaze drawn to the only one of my classmates that I ever paid any attention to. Cassie sat in front of me – two desks forwards, one to the left. Her hair hung down her back. It was natural – beautiful, I always thought – without any silly colours or structured additions. Cassie’s only concession to the fads of our classmates was a slim yellow belt, circling the waist of her pale blue day-suit. Other than that, she was just like me. Of course, she paid me no attention, being as generally unaware of my invisible presence as my other classmates.

  But, I was aware of her – always aware it seemed – as though I had some uncanny sixth sense when it came to Cassie. Mainly it was irritating as there was no real basis for the fascination. Other than the fact that, nine years ago, Cassie had been singled out for special attention by my only ever friend, I had never found anything about her to be truly different to the rest of them. Now and again, I would get the feeling that there might be something different about Cassie, but it had never come to anything more.

  That’s hardly surprising – you’ve barely spoken ten words to her during the twelve years you’ve shared a classroom!

  “Thanks,” I muttered back at myself. I didn’t need a sarcastic inner voice to remind me that there was no wonder I couldn’t understand Cassie – I could barely understand myself.

  A movement to my left brought me back to the reality of the exam room and my eyes gradually re-focused on what I had been staring at. Cassie had just removed her own automatic discourse set and placed it carefully down onto the plastic holder. The motion of her arm was what I had noticed through unfocused eyes.

  At first, I was engrossed only as a distraction. I watched as she pressed her fingers against her temple where the headset had rested a moment earlier. She massaged the spot slowly, as though it were painful. It struck me how odd her actions were: the discourse units were supposed to be absolutely non-invasive when they extracted information from your mind and relayed it into the computer system, they shouldn’t be painful at all.

  Perhaps there was something else wrong?

  I was willingly caught up in the diversion and close to forgetting about the unanswered exam question flashing away on the screen, slightly to the right of where my attention was focused.

  Not being stupid or in complete denial, I knew that on some level I found Cassie attractive. Her dark brown hair fell in soft waves to somewhere near the middle of her back and I had often wondered what it would feel like. Cassie had interesting green eyes too, which I knew glowed more brightly when she was happy and laughing with her friends. She did this freely and often, but never with me.

  There was keen intelligence behind Cassie’s eyes. They moved rapidly when considering the world around her, taking in all the important details; they would narrow slightly when she was grasping something critical or complex. In my opinion – unvoiced of course – Cassie was frequently more astute than she allowed others to see. I often wondered why she wanted to hide that. Perhaps, if I’d ever spoken to her I might have been able to work that out…

  There was a flash of white as Cassie moved her arm again. Her skin was fair: much paler than mine, although the colour had a subtle creaminess to it. I always thought of it as never having seen the sun, which of course it hadn’t living on the station as we did. Neither had I, but my skin always held a warm, golden brown gl
ow – very different to Cassie’s. It was the visible mark of my heritage of ancestors who had lived in the hotter areas of the Earth.

  There was more movement in front of me.

  Cassie appeared distracted herself, peeking around at our classmates, whose illuminated faces were trained in concentration on their screens. Everyone was focused on the task at hand. Everyone, that is, except me. I remembered this a second too late. Cassie’s head swivelled in my direction and her sharp green eyes locked onto mine.

  Damn!

  I turned my attention back towards the screen where it should have been focused. As I did so, I registered mild confusion in her questioning expression. Pulling the keyboard towards me, I thumped the keys randomly, as though I had just paused a few moments to collect my thoughts.

  Don’t be stupid! I scolded. My childish behaviour made me feel embarrassed and I shoved the keyboard away. It might have been a long time since I had actually spoken to anyone, except my parents, but surely I could communicate with someone better than this? It was obvious I had been watching Cassie, I should just have smiled…or shrugged…or both, to show it was nothing – just normal, exam boredom. Now I looked guilty, and probably a bit weird as well.

  Deep breath, I told myself. Don’t be an idiot, just glance back now and if Cassie’s not looking at you like you’re a complete freak, smile then get back to work. That’s how a normal human being would behave.

  OK, I agreed. Second chance.

  Peeking back towards the spot that had held my interest a few seconds earlier, I was slightly deflated to see that Cassie’s attention had already returned to her work. My well thought-out plan was only half a minute too late to be any use. Story of my life! I shook my head, irritated with myself and amused by my irritation in equal measure.