Ordinary Brush

~Don’t be a Mark~

The Girl

I saw her today and stopped her.  

She has brown eyes. She is the best. My best friend, QQQ-1239. I shifted uncomfortably in front of her. 

“QQQ-4117? You okay?” sHe looked genuinely concerned. I wasn’t okay. I was staring at her. She smiled back at me. Something about her…she made me feel warm.  Right now I was just staring at her. I shook my head as if shaking water from my ears. 

“Of-of course I am…” I said. I pursed my lips. “I just-we have reviews at the OBG central today…” my voice trailed off. I didn’t know why I was nervous. Nothing gave me a reason. My eyes were green, but the OBG told me that wasn’t anything to worry about. It was just a genetic mistake they had made. But there was something else I was hiding, something I wondered if QQQ-1239 was hiding too. To be honest, I wondered if my parents had been hiding it. But they were gone. I took QQQ-1239’s hand and began to walk with her to the bus stop. After school, we would be going to the OBG central. 

“I get it.” She said, and smiled. She leaned in towards me, and said blushing, “But it’s fine. Of course…It’ll be the same as every time. You remember the order of answers, don’t you?” I smiled at her tentatively. We sat down on the rocks at the bus stop. I nodded. 

“Of course! YNYNN.” I recited. Y and N stood for Yes and No. QQQ-1239 drummed her fingers on the bus bench. 

“Yep.” She said, looking down. I finally took in her appearance. She was wearing a longish, creamy green shirt with a fuchsia skirt. Her short brown hair swirled around her scalp, and she brushed her bangs away from her eyes. I wanted to do that for her, but I didn’t when another clump of bangs fell into her face. The bus pulled up, and we got on, in the front of the bus, second row of seats. Our usual spot. 

I smiled, and the cold morning air blew through the bus. It was damp in the air, foggy. Ordinary Brush in March was always charming. I breathed in the air, and let out a low, shallow breath. QQQ-1239 put her hand on mine. 

“What is it?” She asked. I blushed the color of her skirt. I swallowed more air. I couldn’t tell her the real truth. 

“Just-the test. I don’t know if I’ll do so well this time.” I answered, hushed. 

“You have the order of answers memorized.” She said quizzically. I blushed again, staring dumbly in her direction. 

“Yeah-“ I said, cursing myself for not thinking of a better “being nervous” excuse. To change the subject, I said, “Do you ever think that maybe our names are—boring?” QQQ-1239 smiled, letting go of my hand. 

“Yes, they are very ugly sounding.” She laughed. “If we had names like from the olden books, names like eighty-year-olds remember, names like, oh I dunno, Mary, Monika, Oliver and Ella? And Carmen? I like the unused-titles.” QQQ-1239 squatted her head into her shirt a little. “But of course, what we have now is much more efficient.” I sighed and looked out the window. 

“Right.” I said. We didn’t talk for the rest of the bus ride, happy together without words. 

The school day was quick. Same as always: Math Class, History, Human Relations, Media Carefulness, Government and Formal Literature. They didn’t used to have Media Carefulness or Human Relations, and I remember Granny telling me that Literature didn’t used to be formal. Human Relations was about how you were supposed to stifle love and stay in comfort. How you were supposed to talk about superficial-I mean TOTS. Things On The Surface. 

While we both made our way to OBG Central, I crocheted a little. It was an old craft I wasn’t supposed to do, but it wasn’t like it was hurting anyone. The OBG had no reason to ban it, but every time an officer saw me doing it, they took it away, with a little harsh chastising, but no fines, nothing else. I didn’t see the reason to ban crochet. But QQQ-1239 was more careful. 

“QQQ-4117, stop crocheting. You know the officers don’t like it.” I frowned and stuffed it in my backpack. I twiddled my thumbs a little. She poked my shoulder. “You just can’t hold still, can you?” She sighed, exasperated. I stopped twiddling my thumbs. 

When we got there, we sat down in the first waiting room. It was the room for waiters, not those who needed to be put in another room because they were suspicious. The second room was called ROTS. Room Of The Suspicious. ROTS. ROTS. I shuddered at the word and frowned, too. 

“You’ll do fine.” QQQ-1239 told me. Just then, the OBG Official Interviewer called my name. I gulped. 

“QQQ-4117?” He said. He had a crisp suit on, and boring blue eyes to match. I walked with him to the interviewing room, giving QQQ-1239 a nervous glance. She gave me a thumbs up in return. Then her name was called, and another OBG Official Interviewer took her to another room. 

“Okay, so let’s get started.” He said, and I took in my surroundings. I was in a room of all white. The deal was white, the walls were white…everything in the room was eerily white. My back straightened. “You ready? Do you want the first question?” I cleared my throat, my back still completely straight. 

“Y-yes, yes sir.” He smiled an awkward, fake, tiny smile. I returned the same type of smile. 

“Okay, so first question: Have you gone to the medic when you experienced an injury or sickness?” He asked, reading from a sheet of paper. 

“Yes.” I said. It was a correct statement. I had been going to the medic in case of injury or sickness. 

“Have you been interacting with any other people or organizations other than the OBG who claim power, and if so, who?” 

“No, I have not been interacting with any other organizations or people who claim power other than the OBG.” I said. This was true. The questions had always stuck me as…what was that old word? Dictat—Dictatoratorial? Dictatory? Dictarty? The man moved onto the next question. 

“Have any elders talked to you about their experiences in the past, before OBG?” My voice caught. Could I lie to the OBG? I’d seen what happened to the people who had answered wrong. They were all immediately sent to the gallows. I shuddered. Gallows. So, I lied. 

“No, sir.” I said weakly. 

“What was that?” He asked, leaning into the table, staring bullets in my eyes. I tried my best to look him in the eye. 

“No, sir.” I said, stronger this time. Looking him in the eyes, too. He stared at me for one more moment before going to the next question. My palms were sweaty, and I put my hands under my butt to ensure he didn’t suspect anything. I was positive he could see the sweat on my brow, though. And I couldn’t even make an attempt to wipe it off. 

“Have you felt any lof towards anyone?” He asked. His face was as blank as always. Lof. It had been “love” before the OBG. That’s what Granny always called it. She told me of a boy, when she was in grade school, who she felt love towards. Then the OBG came and made everyone take the pills. I had taken up the old word, I suppose I had just heard it enough to use it instead of lof. So in that moment, I said, 

“Love?” The man seemed shocked that I knew the ancient word. He was obviously born into the OBG. He seemed to be 28-29 years old. I glanced at his card. Yep. His name was YY-657. Born on June 5th, 50th year of OBG rule. “Oh, oh, heh heh. I meant lof, of course.” I paused to catch my hastily thrown breath. “And of course not. That is abhorrent—“ My face grew dull and I slouched. “To the OBG.” Thought raced in my mind. Did I not feel lof to QQQ-1239? 

“Mmm—right…” He said. “So, finally, the last question. Are you winged?” He stared at me so intensely that I slid into my seat even further. I felt my tightly bound feathers-I always bound them with ribbons so that my back would look flat-tickle my skin. I would lie—again.

“Yes.” I said gravely. Then, remembering the question, I covered my mouth. “Oh, sorry. Premature Articulation. No.” I smiled the best fake smile I could muster, and the OBG Official Interviewer eyed me. My feathers felt the most present of my life. The warm French gray felt like home, and I wanted ever so much to touch the feathers now. He pressed some numbers on the phone on his desk and told me not to leave, all the while eyeing me like I was a black swan. I squirmed uncomfortably. The OBG Official Interviewer whispered into the phone,

“We have a ROTS. Come and get ‘er.” Then he looked at me like I hadn’t heard a thing, and didn’t say a word. My mind was racing. ROTS? What? But I’d answered all the questions right. How—

Just then, an officer, with a gun, came and guided me to the ROTS. My heart was beating faster than it ever had before. I could die! He closed me in ROTS, and the only other person in was QQQ-1239. 

“QQQ-1239, what are you here for?” QQQ-1239 looked up, tears streaking her face. 

“I’m gonna die in the gallows.” She said. I stood there, shocked. 

“What-what happened?” I asked. 

“I told them I had wings!” She said, sobbing. “And I do!” She took off her shirt and I saw the wings. Gray, like mine, and bound tightly with rubber bands. I began to unwind the bands. She kept talking. “It just slipped out, you know? She said. There were places on her wings where the bands had rubbed and made red lines, places where no feathers had been for a long time. Like on a cat’s neck, where the collar had been. But no one had cats anymore. Old word. All the “animals”, (now we call them “vermin”), were done away with at the start of OBG. 

“I didn’t mean to tell them, I really didn’t! I don’t want to die!” I looked at her winds, and they were magnificent. Aside from being a little bit bloody and deformed from the rubber bands, they felt like home. “What are you in for?” She asked. She then put her shirt back on. 

“I have wings, too.” I took off my shirt, and for the first time in years, undid my ribbons. Then I put it back on. Her eyes watered, and she hugged me. 

“I should have known! Oh, but now we’re both gonna die! Oh! OH!” She said, sobbing, holding me. 

“OBG isn’t good, It’s evil! EVIL!” I yelled, and then covered my mouth. 

“EVIL!” She said with me. Then she sat up on one of the spotless white chairs, still clutching my hand. “What’s your name?” She asked. 

“QQQ-4117. Duh.” I said. 

“No.” She said. “I mean your real name. If your grandparents didn’t give you one that’s fine—“ she added hastily. But I smiled. 

“A tradition I thought only my family had. Name the brown-eyed.” And then we said in unison, as if reciting an old proverb, 

“Who are sometimes the winged.” She snuggled into my shoulder and I whispered in her ear, 

“Loreli.” Then we switched positions, her warm, cloaked feathers brushing mine, and she whispered to me. 

“Sophia.” We linked pinkies, and then she said to me, “Since we’re gonna die, I should say something: I have always lofed you.” I sat up, ending the embrace, and looked into her sparkly hazel eyes. She looked into my brown ones.

“love.” I corrected. “You have always loved me. And I have you.” I felt an unfamiliar feeling in my cheeks. Then, she put her fingers on my neck, right where my hair started, and kissed me. I kissed her back, and we flew up into the air, pushing through the once solid ceiling. In the air, we noticed thousands of OBG Officers, guns pointing towards us on the ground. 

“How-did we do that?” I asked her, but she told me,

“Fly up!” I did, and it hurt my wings a lot. The last time I’d used them was…never. I got tired quickly, and some of my wing made a weird “crack” sound. I assumed it was like cracking my knuckles and flew on. 

There were gunshots fired at us, but we were out of their range now. When we got high enough, so high that it had become hard to breathe and QQQ-1239..I mean Sophia…was getting dizzy. When I tried to fly through another cloud, I bumped my head on something hard. I rubbed my head and whispered some old vulgar words that Granny had taught me. I flew around the hard thing, and then on top of it, to take a break, and make sure that Sophia was okay. What did I see before me, but a huge gate. The bottom of it, I realized, was stiff helium balloons, and the top was a big misty platform. I saw a gate. A small wooden one, with a button that said, “PRESS FOR ENTRY”. Sophia got up, rubbing her temples. 

“Ugh, I have a headache.” She said. I hesitantly pressed the big red button, almost sure now that I was in a dream. I took Sophia’s hand and nearly dragged her through the door, which unlocked itself. I walked down a cobblestoned road, while Sophia did so behind me, still rubbing her temples. The ground was orange, but not bright orange. It looked like a weathered orange. 

I walked, speechless. And then I saw a house. It was painted light blue, and looked considerably run-down. Sophia looked around for the first time. 

“We’re not gonna die…” She said. I nodded. We rang the house’s doorbell, and a woman with big black and white wings opened the door. 

“Hello!” She said. She seemed like she was in her 30’s. She had surprisingly bright blue eyes and a silly smile. She seemed like she could be scampering. “I’m Miranda. We get people like you every year or so. Escapers of the ROTS, I suppose?” She said everything very cheerfully, except for the word ROTS. She said that like the word had been plucked out of the bottom of a trash bin and then rolled 20 times in chum. 

“Yeah, I’m QQ-“ Miranda stopped me. 

“What is your real name?” She said pointedly, with her finger almost too close to my face. I faltered a moment, not understanding what she meant. And then my face flowed with recognition. Of course! She had called herself Miranda. I should say my name was Loreli. 

“My name’s Loreli, and this is Sophia.” Sofia waved to Miranda weakly. Miranda beamed, and stopped leaning on the doorframe, her wrinkled features bunching together as her smile reached her ears. 

“How about you come in for a moment, dears? I’ll tell you all about life here.” We followed her inside, mildly hesitant. Sophia excused herself to the bathroom, and I began to talk to Miranda. 

“So…what is here called?” I asked, sipping some tea she had prepared. 

“Querianchadonia!” She said, almost called, throwing her hands up in the air and yelling. I smiled at her. “Anndd…” She said, waving her hand and leaning off her chair a little in order to do so in the correct direction, “This is Mark. He is not winged, he just found himself up here and stayed ever since. It’s a long story how he got here.” In wheeled a grumpy looking middle aged man with a goatee. He was in a wheelchair, without both of his legs. I stood up to shake his hand. 

“My name’s Loreli!” I said with a big smile and outstretched hand. He didn’t take the handshake, just grumbled a little bit. 

“Mark.” He said, looking down. 

“Well, can you two tell me a bit about um, Quer-ian-ka-donia?” I asked, sitting back down, and motioning for Mark to pull his wheelchair up. He didn’t just sitting there in the middle of the hallway with his arms across his lap, and his short brown, bowl-cut hair probably itching the top of his ear. 

“Oh, please.” Mark said, not even making an effort to hide his eye roll. “Queriancadonia is just what she calls it.” 

“And everybody else!” Miranda mentioned, matching his eye roll. 

“I wasn’t finished! I,” He said, his arm on his chest, his eyes closed snobbily. “Call it TPWTWGTBA.” Miranda put her hand on her forehead. 

“Mark, no one calls it that. And it’s impossible to say. And offensive! The Place Where The Wingeds Go To Be Abhorrent is not nice. So shut your pie hole-“ In this moment Miranda winked at me, “And let me tell Loreli about the Q-Realm.” She paused to slather on too much chapstick. “We call it the Q-Realm for short.” She smeared more chapstick on her lips, rubbing it in. “The Q-Realm is home to every winged who the OBG didn’t kill. It is a refuge for people like us.” She spread her arms out and then said, “Everyone has real names here.” Just at that point, Sophia came out of the bathroom.

“Oh, really?” She said. 

“Yes,” Miranda replied. “And we don’t have to bind our wings. Wingeds can just be wingeds.” She then sighed. “Otherwise, it’s pretty normal. There’s a marketplace where people can share stuff they made with others, there are some pretty normal houses, yeah.” Mark grumbled from his seat as Sophia inched past him. Miranda dropped her outsteched hands and motioned to Mark. “Have something to add?” She said. 

“Yes.” He cleared his throat. “Even though wingeds can’t have babies, normal babies when they’re brought up here by wingeds, the babies become wingeds! So, the wingeds are just making more wingeds. Living with winged parents makes the kids winged.” Miranda sighed. 

“Winged parents do not make kids winged! Being winged makes kids winged.” Sophia began nodding in approval of Miranda. 

“Most of those kids don’t even know they’re winged. They’re just saying so because it’s a trend here. They want to fit in.” Mark said, his face a scowl. 

“THERE ARE LITTERAL WINGS ON THEIR BACKS! THEY KNOW THEY’RE WINGED! AND IT’S VERY SENSITIVE TO ASK FOR PROOF, ALONG WITH RUDE!” Miranda yelled at him. 

“Whatever, lady.” Mark said and rolled away. Miranda turned her gaze to us. 

“Don’t worry. There aren’t much more like him in the Q-Realm.” Miranda cleared her throat loudly as Sophia and I finished staring flabbergasted at where Mark had been. What a weird man. “So, are you two dating?” She asked. I took Sophia’s hand, and looked at her in the eyes. I tried to say, what should I tell her without being really suspicious. But Sophia did it for me. 

“Yes.” She said, and squeezed my hand. “I think we’ll be okay in the Q-Realm.”