ALLOCATION DAY

by Maree Collie 

It’s Allocation Day! How exciting. I’m bubbling with anticipation, and I must admit, a little trepidation. Everyone is gathering up their personal things. I’m ready, packed. I keep a tidy square. The music is upbeat today and it’s not raining.  I hope for congenial neighbours this change.

Neighbour Left Side, hasn’t said one word to me in the year he’s been here. All he does all day is pace around the 25-metre perimeter of his square. He’s got a ritual going on. Wakes up, touches the border, get catapulted across his square, and then paces, like some caged animal. Neighbour Back Side, said his name was Tim, but we don’t use names, not allowed. Well, he sits crossed legged in the middle of his square beside his drinking tap. But at least he talks.

Hi Back Side. You excited? Great day!

What’s there to be excited about? I like it here.

I reckon it’s my turn for the tree.

Tree? Why would you want that shit thing?

I’ll hug it all day long. The last living tree! 

Shit thing, all it does is make mess.

It makes fruit too.

Ya cont eat it – it’ll kill ya!.  

I hear it’s apricots.

Got apricots in my box last drop. Don’t like ‘em. Pity I can’t toss ‘em over to ya.

Canned or dried? 

‘spose they’ll put em in someone else’s food box. 

Probably.

And why do ya think that you’re for the tree?

I been calculating the pattern, complicated, but I know, so it should be me.

Nahhhh. It’s been eleven years, so the pattern starts again.

My insides heave, heavy, my heart cramps. My eyes run along all the scratches in the hard dry soil, all 4020 of them, and I’m broken. I hope that he’s wrong. Please be wrong. Please.

Neighbour Front Side is talking at me.

What do you want Front Side?

Why ya so glum! It’s Allocation Day!

Yeah, I know. Just hoping for the tree.

You and me both! It’s the best day!

Least you have a chair.  Not sleeping on the ground.

Just wantta sit under the tree with a faraway look.

When are they coming?

When they get ‘ere. 

I’m ready. 

Ya should be! You aint got anything. Why’d ya not bring anything with ya?

What a funny time to ask me. He’s never been interested before. Maybe it’s the camaraderie of the day. They’ve made a nice day, sunshine, not too hot, no wind, with a scent in the air. Can’t place it. It’ll come to me. Something old. Purple flowers I think it had. 

It’s been so long. So many Allocation Day’s have come and gone. I don’t really remember how I got here. It all happened so quickly. There wasn’t a lot of time to think about what one might need. I suppose it was all about survival. Now, I just lie here all day watching the cloud movies. Think my brain’s stagnated. The days just flip along. Everyone’s in the same boat, just watching movies and listening to the news in the air. They’ve never shown a movie about how it all came to be. Funny that. How did it come to this? Think brain think! There was the war, then the plague, then The Solution. Yes! The Solution!  

Well!?

Well what Front Side?

Why’d ya not come with stuff? 

Didn’t have any.

Everyone had stuff. Lots of stuff.

Not everyone, Front Side. 

Why? Were ya a Plaguee?

No.

Were ya livin’ rough? 

Probably. Lots were. Can’t remember much.

They don’t want us to remember.  

Neighbour Right Side has been standing near the edge waiting, probably wanting to say her goodbyes. She hasn’t said much over the years either. I hear her cry a lot at night. She probably had family once, before the war. 

Hi Right Side, I wish you all the best. Hope you get somewhere nice.

What’s the point? 

Better than the alternative.

Is it? 

Of course. We’re all fed, secure, not a worry in the world.

For what? 

Don’t need for anything.

And don’t have anything either. 

We live in global peace, controlled climate, no poverty.

No animals, no birds, no flowers, no life either! 

It’s my turn for the tree.

Only spiders and cockroaches left. 

Life was so hard before the war, worries, stress.

But it WAS a life. I made my own choices, my own decisions.

She must have been one of the lucky ones, with a job, maybe a house, could afford food, maybe even a car! I should have tried to talk to her sooner. I wonder what it was like to live like that. 

But Right Side, it was a culture of greed and waste!

The only things that have freedom here are the spiders and the cockroaches. 

Freedom? What does that mean?

The ability to come and go as one pleases.

Right Side, I think that was just an idea. All I remember were people living in fear.

There’s no point in human existence anymore.

Was there ever? 

She has stormed off and is now aggressively tossing her things into a large bag. I don’t understand why everyone isn’t happy living in The Solution. No one works, or struggles, just endless entertainment. Everyone has their own square serviced monthly with a food box and garbage collection. 

Neighbour Front Side is calling at me again.

What’s wrong with her?

I don’t know Front Side. I don’t understand her.

My neighbour Right Side said that she was famous once.

I wonder why she’s not in the Green Solution?

My Right Side said that she’d lost all her money.

Still, she must have known people.

Maybe they didn’t want to know her!

That’s a bit callous.

Power corrupts... absolutely... 

She said a funny thing... that the cockroaches and spiders had freedom. They do come and go as they please, but they have to forage for food and shelter. And they often pay with their lives. I wonder why she thought that was a better option.  

If I don’t get the tree, I hope I’m moved down near the young people. They can fraternise you know. 

Front Side, are you going to leave that book behind?

Yep. I’ve read it a number of times now.

Wish I had a book.

The Young People, yes, down the far end of The Solution. I’ve never been down there, but I hear tell that they can move into the adjoining squares. And that’s needed for population. And then the people who used to be the elite, used to be?, still are!, have lawn squares and are allowed to have a few more things, so I’ve been told. They get more pleasant weather too apparently. But they have to move every five years. Must be a bother to have to try and carry two big bags to the next square. 

Neighbour Left Side is still pacing around. I wonder how they will move him. He arrived one night after the previous resident, an old man, died. One day old man, next day him. I liked the old man he had stories about how things used to be. How he’d tilled the soil and grew plants to eat! And about animals and birds and apricot trees. 

Here they come! the robots! One assigned to each square. How quickly they materialise and take up their positions. Looking around every which way I see row after row of little black machines stretching all the way to the horizons, standing, as if, at attention. I wish I had a camera to record the event, but no such item exists anymore. There’s total silence. Everyone’s standing in the middle of their squares holding their belongings, waiting, seemingly unable to speak. I notice that I’m holding my breath. Neighbour Left Side stands like a statue, frozen in time, waiting. 

Ravel's Bolero begins to sound, and each robot takes its assigned person and marches off.  My robot marches me toward the apricot tree, and I am excited! Alas, past it, and on and on. My calculations could not have been more inaccurate. Finally, the robot stops and I am afforded my new square. In the centre, next to the tap, is a tree covered with large red flowers. I can smell the perfume. I know that I’m smiling. The last occupant has left things, a small box and a bucket. I wonder what magic lies within the box. The daylight is fading fast so I will have to wait until tomorrow to explore my new treasures, my food box, my new clothes, and to scratch day 1 in the dry soil. 

My tree though, I inspect. It has nasty thorns. There’s an irony – such beauty – such thorns. There’s a note pressed into the fork of the tree: 

Hello new resident:

My name is Rose.

 I need to be watered regularly, and I will reward you with beautiful flowers. 

My previous owner could not take me with him, but he loved me. 

There are several more pages, but I cannot read further in the depleting light. My heart skips a beat. I have a connection, a link, to another soul. I’ve never felt that before. A shared moment, something special, a secret. 

There is a loud crack of lightning, and the force fields are in place again. I wonder where my old neighbours have gone. I wish them well. 

The night air is turned up warm, and as I lay in the dark awaiting sleep, I think about the author of the letter. The paper has a distinct ‘old’ scent. Its rich texture feels silken against my face. I try to imagine the hand that caressed the writing implement, willing it to reveal his love he has had to leave behind... A pang of sadness, a longing for something lost, long gone, stirs deep inside, begins to well up, wetting my cheeks.