THE PENITENT

Come on. I don't think I've bleated about my age - not THAT much.

But, I am glad about something. Regardless of Mrs. Paula Mackenzie's revelation about why me, why I had been conscripted for Martha duty in the house - let's face it, I was simply too old to do the heavy lifting that unwomen in the Colonies were forced to do.

Me, I remember. Je me souviens, as the Québécois would say. I remember standing in line beside the soil truck, waiting for my turn to arrive, where I would prop myself as hard as I could against it as a man (always a man) laid a large bag of soil on my shoulders. A heavy bag that I was not to drop, I was to take it about 50 feet away for spreading on the contaminated sections…. damn them to hell, they could have driven that truck the extra 50 feet quite easily.

But no. We had to be lined up so that it would be our labour, our penitential labour which we'd been told was saving the planet. The line of unwomen was a gift to Gilead's photographers.

How'd we know? The propaganda team was photographing us - getting a good shot of each of us as we strained under the weight of the dirt-bag dropped on our shoulders from above.

By a man.

The photographer, a man. Giggling with delight on the rare occasion that a woman collapsed under the weight, to be tased by a brown-clad Aunt, either on foot or on horseback. That part didn't matter.

They never photographed the tasings.

So, let me bleat about my age. There I was now third in line. Two younger unwomen in front of me readying themselves for their burden. Both almost exactly 1/3 my age. Both relatively new to the Colonies. Neither having yet developed trademark radiation lesions.

Now that that scene was in my dream - and my sleep now was in the Mackenzie house - the four or 5 hours I am allowed….. let me tell you how it proceeds when my eyes are closed and my PTSD replays times like that, when I'm triggered.

I hear another Aunt, a Red Centre Aunt, I hear her lecturing.

The Earth is a gift given to us, by a loving and benevolent God. But for so long, we took his blessings for granted. We polluted our water supply, our air, even our bodies…

In my dream, it always happened this way…. that when the heavy bag of dirt was equally heavily dropped onto my shoulders, I would look at the photographer and he would snap one - obviously pleased with himself, because he said to his assistant, "that one will make it into the collage, I guarantee it."

We poisoned everything precious to us, and then we were shocked when our world started dying. But through our labours…..

That was the part of the Aunt's speech that I envisioned the photo of me being inserted.

….. but through the work of the penitent, we can heal. Stone by stone, we will earn back the favour of our Lord. We will build an Earth where seeds…..

The Aunt's voice always faded away at that point.

Me, I always think of my daughter June, who through Paula Mackenzie I now know is in Canada. With Luke. With Nichole, whose paternity has always perplexed me.

And without Hannah, be she either Hannah or Agnes.

'The work of the penitent'? That propaganda photographer, he thought that his picture of me being crushed by a suffocatingly heavy bag of dirt, dropped onto me by a man from a truck - that I didn't catch, that had knocked me to the ground….. that had got me tased…

…. okay the photo did not show any of that, it had only shown the 400th of a second exposure time, 1/400th of a second previous to my fall…

Point being, that photo - if it had been a video clip instead - would not have shown 'the penitent', it would have showed the old.

An old woman, being asked to do work that caused unwomen 1/3 her age to collapse. I was simply too old to do the heavy lifting that unwomen in the Colonies were forced to do.

Me now? Here, at the Mackenzie's. Motor mouth Paula Mackenzie quite used to speaking freely among the unwashed, the unwomen around her. Why wouldn't she speak freely and glibly about the most horrible of things, in front of us unpeople?

Because it didn't effect her, not really.

The way that photo effected me - was in my dream seeing June and her friend Moira seeing it. And June being devastated to imagine her mother there, in the Colonies.

Well, June, I'm not there. Not now.

Prepare for a laugh, June. I'm now chief cook and bottle washer for a Commander. In the Western Colonies.

When I wake, I hope she can laugh. Because I have no idea …

UNKNOWN CALLER

It's quite the thing to be offered a chair on the Commander's side of his own desk. No, I was not in the Commander's well upholstered executive-chair, mine was more like a stool beside his.

Behind me were two Guardians - neither one our house Guardian, a fellow who always treated me well. These guys looked like brutes. Ours was a kindly Guardian who had often run afoul of Mrs. Mackenzie #1, Tabitha. After one of her beatings, he always made sure I received some sort of field dressing. Those dressings occasionally got him dressed down.

Now in the Commander's study, me on his side of the desk with two anonymous Guardians behind me…. on Kyle Mackenzie's desk was a pistol, and a fancy-looking telephone, advertised by one of those Guardians as 100% secure, and that the conversation that Kyle was to have with All-But-High Commander Joseph Lawrence of New Gilead would be unbreachable.

It didn't take a genius to figure out what the next conversation was all about. By now I recognized Commander Lawrence's voice.

Mackenzie: Do you have her on the line at your end, Joseph?

Lawrence: I certainly do Kyle. And if you would just shut up for a minute….

Mackenzie: I won't 'shut up', Joseph. Not for you, not with your track record.

Lawrence: Let it go, Kyle, let it go! Jesus, Kyle, even Elsa let it go! If she can, you can, too!

Mackenzie: Fuck you, Joseph. The minute you know, you tell me. - pause, silence at both ends of the phone - She's here, the Martha, in my office. You give me the word…

Lawrence: I'll give you the word, Kyle, but don't rush this. This requires some whit, some humour, some style….

Mackenzie: This is my fucking family we're talking about!

Lawrence: - silence, too long, agonizingly long - Okay, she's caved. It's a raid. It's Hannah's school. Out your way, Colorado Springs!

Mackenzie: Don't fuck with me, Joseph. I'll do the mother right now if you're fucking with my daughter.

Lawrence: - pause - Well, Kyle, do what you want. But think. Don't be a dick, Kyle. My lady, she knows all about it. I think the dummkopf American, Tuello - you met him at my place… he's using what remains of America's special forces. She knows, my lady knows that the US Air Force academy is the repurposed Rubies Preparatory. She says Tuello has been authorized by Anchorage to grab thirty.

Mackenzie: - looking at Martha Holly, then motioning to the Guardians behind her to stand down - Commander Lawrence's lady just saved your bacon. Not that you were ever good for breakfast meats.

Lawrence: She's even met the raid's leader, Commander Elijah Vance. A real G.I. Joe.

Mackenzie: We still have to know 'where', Joseph. Tell your lady, we need to know where he special forces are crossing - Mackenzie picked up the revolver, pointed it to Martha Holly's head -

Lawrence: - silence, too long, agonizingly long - Montana, the western part of the Northern District. Straight south from western Saskatchewan.

Mackenzie: All the way out here? - he uncocked the pistol, opened a drawer, placed it in and then locked it - We're on it Joseph. Now that we know, it'll be a duck shoot.

Lawrence: Tell the Martha at your end, that next time I'm out there, I look forward to having some of her dreadful java. She's good for a couple of more years of poisoning us all!

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?

That evening had been like none other at the Mackenzie mansion in Colorado Springs, not since I'd arrived anyway. Commander Mackenzie, he was rarely here anyway. These days, when he wasn't there - Paula Mackenzie, she was tolerable until she wasn't, if you stayed out of her way.

But when he was here, there were extra mouths to feed. His Guardian entourage, populated like Taylor Swift waltzing down to a Super Bowl field after her boyfriend had won the game. Surrounded by men in suits with earpieces. Pushing 350 lb linemen out of the way. Me, I was tasked with feeding them.

Geez, whatever happened to that rising billionairess?

No matter. The Commander, he was now finished with Almost-High-Commander Lawrence way out on the east coast, my old stomping grounds. A couple of lifetimes ago.

How did this evening pan out? Me, I'd not done a stick of Martha-work. Despite the late hour, there were extra Guardians bitching about getting their night-time night-caps.

Not this evening. Mackenzie, he looked at me, told me to move over onto the couch opposite the small fireplace in his office, and then he picked up the in-house phone. The one I usually picked up at the other end.

"No, no no," he said sternly, "the martha is staying here. Why? Because I want it that way, that's why." Mackenzie paused, "you know where everything is, prepare things yourselves. Like you're in the field. But bring two coffees in here, plus some of that intolerable crumble-cake she keeps."

He then put his hand over the mouthpiece, looked at me and asked, "the crumble cake, where is it? These men can salvage 100 in one sitting, but they cannot boil water!"

I told him where everything was. Ten minutes later two Guardians sporting serving trays entered, both Mackenzie and I got our coffee. Gaw-dawful coffee. I never realized before just how right both Mrs. Mackenzies had been. The crumble cake, it was okay.

When the room was just ours, mine and the Commander's, he came over with his cup and plate, took a seat on the couch opposite. A woman in Gilead, even a woman of my years - often being alone with a Commander usually spelled trouble. And that starts with T, and it rhymes with R….. and that stands for….

Jesus, my attempt at citing old musicals sucked too. T does not rhyme with R. Fuck. At least he kept his hands off of my old frame.

"Holly," he said, "do you know what that was about?"

Given that the Commander had just a moment ago been pointing a pistol at me, I thought I'd start with that. Both the adrenaline coursing through my now heightened senses, combined with the horrid coffee made me indiscreet in talking with my 'superior'.

I said, "I know that you were about to shoot me. That's a hard thing to forget. Commander." I added that last title of his, hoping to dull my direct sentiment.

Well, Martha Holly, let me let you in on something. You're no dummy, I know that about you. A Harvard Medical School graduate. A real bra-burning feminist. Your record in what you euphemistically call, 'women's health' should have put you on The Wall. Dozens of time. And that should have been after being torn apart by dogs. Killing babies, Dr. Maddox, that's not how Gilead approaches the fertility crisis, is it?

But you, Holly Maddox, God has given even a slut like you purpose.

You know what's happening, right now? American special forces are careening over the northern border, at what you would called 'Montana'. Careening via Saskatchewan. Real red-blooded Americans, we even know the name of their mission commander.

We knew they were coming. We just didn't know when, or where. Me, I had my suspicions that they were after my daughter - Agnes. At Rubies Preparatory. No one believed me. They do now. Colleagues of mine, they called me paranoid.

Me, I was real-annoyed. You have to know this about me, Dr. Maddox, that I will protect my family. I will protect Agnes from all enemies, foreign and domestic. I will protect my family from Gilead, both me and Paula, we will protect our family from you.

We should have got rid of Commander Joseph Lawrence when we had the chance. His culpability in the great child-trafficking, was clear. That was the theft of 86 of Gilead's most precious, organized by you daughter, Dr. Maddox. A shit-disturber extrordinaire.

So here's the deal. Even God can still use Joseph Lawrence. God can use you. As can I. And he's the one, surprise surprise, who has June Osborne on speed dial up in Canada - in Toronto.

Please know this about me. It's why you should sleep soundly tonight. No one is coming after you. Not tonight. Not me.

But me, I play the long game, always have always will.

You, my dear doctor, you're my long game. As long as Joseph Lawrence is talking to me, and as long as I have you, June Osborne will play ball with him.

She will give us the information we need. You see, June Osborne, she's as brilliant a tactician as there is.

THE SKINNY

As she told Commander Lawrence, 'I cannot lose both of them'. She was going to retreat to wreck-havoc another day, and hence she told us. And hence, we knew where.

And when.

One thing is for sure. There will be a next time. Until then, we're going to put up with your spider-piss of coffee.

I felt old, very old. And useless. Wanting to yell at my daughter.

The PTSD replayed the scene back at the Colonies, at that truck. Having a bag of dirt thrown to me. With June watching. Through the work of the penitent, we can heal.