Waiting
Everyone held their breath, some in anticipation, and some in fear. All stared expectantly at the woman in the front of the room. Waiting for her to smack the table and begin the proceedings. The names of those chosen for hiatus were about to be called. I didn’t know what I was feeling. How could I? There were a thousand rumors and no hard facts. No basis from which to develop an emotional response. People whispered about it, about the selection process and about what it meant. Some people said the selection process was random. Some said a committee made the decisions. The more paranoid said you were chosen when you spoke out against the government. The government always seems to inspire these conspiracy theories, and the one thing that was certain was that the government controlled it. Some believed that the most powerful machine in the world made the decision. A thousand books had been written, all with different theories. All made their authors, if not millionaires, very rich men.
No one knew what happened once they were chosen. They nodded, left the hall with a look of joy or dread on their face, and to outsiders it seemed they carried on their normal life. Yet not quite their normal life, something was different. Everyone disagreed on what that was. There was a change, and a thousand people had a thousand ideas of what changed. Of course there were those that argued that there was no change other than the one society expected to see and saw. No one who knew someone who’d been chosen paid them much heed. Those who were chosen never spoke of it. They would deny it when asked, despite the lists that everyone has access to. They continued to be asked, though, because those who had been chosen inevitably rose high. The ambitious prayed for their names to be called. They tried to determine who to bribe, who to get to know, so that today they would hear their name would be spoken. The fearful or content also tried to determine who to bribe, who to talk to, with an opposite goal in mind. I didn’t know which group I belonged in. It didn’t matter. They didn’t care if you wanted it or not. They didn’t care how much money you paid. They couldn’t be influenced by a short conversation in a crowded room. They chose who they wished, when they wished. They chose me.
Everyone held their breath, some in anticipation, and some in fear. All stared expectantly at the woman in the front of the room. Waiting for her to smack the table and begin the proceedings. The names of those chosen for hiatus were about to be called. I didn’t know what I was feeling. How could I? There were a thousand rumors and no hard facts. No basis from which to develop an emotional response. People whispered about it, about the selection process and about what it meant. Some people said the selection process was random. Some said a committee made the decisions. The more paranoid said you were chosen when you spoke out against the government. The government always seems to inspire these conspiracy theories, and the one thing that was certain was that the government controlled it. Some believed that the most powerful machine in the world made the decision. A thousand books had been written, all with different theories. All made their authors, if not millionaires, very rich men.
No one knew what happened once they were chosen. They nodded, left the hall with a look of joy or dread on their face, and to outsiders it seemed they carried on their normal life. Yet not quite their normal life, something was different. Everyone disagreed on what that was. There was a change, and a thousand people had a thousand ideas of what changed. Of course there were those that argued that there was no change other than the one society expected to see and saw. No one who knew someone who’d been chosen paid them much heed. Those who were chosen never spoke of it. They would deny it when asked, despite the lists that everyone has access to. They continued to be asked, though, because those who had been chosen inevitably rose high. The ambitious prayed for their names to be called. They tried to determine who to bribe, who to get to know, so that today they would hear their name would be spoken. The fearful or content also tried to determine who to bribe, who to talk to, with an opposite goal in mind. I didn’t know which group I belonged in. It didn’t matter. They didn’t care if you wanted it or not. They didn’t care how much money you paid. They couldn’t be influenced by a short conversation in a crowded room. They chose who they wished, when they wished. They chose me.
posted by Kara at 10:38 AM
3 Comments:
nice ending..but it does beg the question..so what was it like? How did you get picked? How has it changed your life? rofl
I will admitt to being confused as to wether you ment a show that was waiting, or someone waiting to be picked for the ship..but then the whole concept blew my mind lol
I like it!
Wow, that was great! It makes me want to know what happened next too, but I figure that, naturally, the narrator can't tell us. (Those who are chosen don't talk about it.) It's funny, throughout the whole thing I was thinking about the unanswered questions everyone wonders about, wondering whether I'd want to be chosen or not, how long the people are chosen leave--and then boom! the narrator was chosen. I guess if I'd thought about it I'd've expected that ending (that or "I'll never know, because I wasn't chosen"), but, well...I wasn't bored enough to try to guess the ending. So that's a good thing. ;-)
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