Birthright
Diane Dooley
Diane Dooley is the published author of short stories and novellas in a variety of genres. You can find links to them at Writing, Stuff and Nonsense, her blog.
We buried Granny with her rictus grin—the only person I saw smile that winter.
One of the original indentured colonists of this planet, she’d already survived three famines, the first in Year Two of the colony, when she was only twelve. Her mother had died, leaving her alone and alive. The last of the hard-earned knowledge Granny had bestowed on us was that sometimes people have to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. And so she did, refusing her share of the food, just as her mother had for her. We planted her in Mama’s once-fecund garden, in the dark corner where little had ever grown. It was Granny’s last request; perhaps her blood and bones would make that corner fertile at last, she’d whispered. After we tamped down the dirt, we ate her starving dog, ashamed and grateful.
Then there was only some wizened potatoes from the root cellar, a rat too weak to run away, some dried out cabbage leaves from the top of the compost pile, and a few furiously wriggling worms. Soon we were reduced to boiling father’s old leather shoes with the last of the dried herbs. We followed Granny’s advice, me and Mama, laying on the couches, smothered in blankets, conserving our calories and body heat, moving only to pee in the bucket in the corner and to throw chopped-up sticks of furniture onto the meagre fire.
We sipped the hot, savory water. Though there was no real nourishment, it helped keep the cramps at bay, as our bodies consumed themselves. We spoke only to curse father’s name. He’d left three months before, after the Prophet and his followers had taken over the town, sneaking out in the night, taking a large bag of our precious provisions, leaving no note. We later found out hundreds of men had gone that same night. Planned. We hadn’t heard from them since. Meanwhile, the Prophet ordered the university to be closed; my medical studies over before I’d really even started. The previous year our colony had bartered half our harvest for the meagre technology the one-room university housed, and when the Prophet’s rabid followers had destroyed it, I’d sobbed, licking up my own salty tears desperately. It was the one and only time that I cried.
Soldiers and battle bots from Dome City surrounded our town walls, allowing no one out, not the men who begged to be allowed to hunt, not even the wailing women with their gaunt, silent children. The General had been ordered to punish every rebel and was fearful one might slip out. Reluctant to destroy the colony, something so many had died to build, she had decided instead to starve the Prophet and his followers out. No matter that we, the innocent, would die too. And so we starved, slowly at first, and then rapidly, while at night the orbiting weapon gleamed in the sky, trained on our town, patiently waiting to be used if necessary.
Occasional whiffs of cooking meat drifted into town from the soldiers’ encampments, torturing us. But not bothering the Prophet at all. While our mouths roiled with thick, hungering drool, he was rotund as ever at a ceremony all the townspeople were forced to attend. He’d been tossing rocks and stones to his followers, announcing he’d turned them into bread for his Chosen Ones. The faithful fell down and broke their teeth trying to eat them. And then the Prophet had chosen another wife from among the desperate women, encouraging his disciples to do the same.
Mama and I had returned home and barricaded ourselves in. It was too dangerous to visit friends any more or check on neighbors, and the stench of rotting bodies told us they may have already succumbed to death. We had no desire to end up in someone’s cooking pot, and so retreated into the fire-flickered darkness and almost silence. “I’m only sorry I won’t live long enough to kill him,” Mama muttered.
“The Prophet?”
“Your father.”
“Why didn’t he take us with him?”
“He cares only about his own survival.” There was nothing to say to that. Mama lay under her blankets, one bony arm on the top cover, hand resting on the smooth, wooden handle of a gleaming hatchet. It had been Granny’s, who’d used it to hack out a space for herself in this forested land, one tree at a time. And then it had been Mama’s, who had used it to carve us the kitchen garden that had kept us alive so long. I threw the last of the sticks on the fire, and then ladled some hot liquid into a cup and took it over to Mama. She pushed it away. “Keep it for yourself, child. I don’t want to live anymore. Plant me in my garden when I’m gone.”
I didn’t cry. Just grasped her hand tightly before returning to my blankets. She was following her own mother’s advice after all, sacrificing herself for the greater good: me, the cleverest girl in the school, the one who was supposed to wield a scalpel, not a hatchet. Still indentured, but so valued that I was not required to work the fields and be assigned to some man to deliver his children for the colony—as Granny had. As Mama had…
She lasted two more days. I kissed her forehead, took her hatchet, then lay in the gathering cold, the firewood all gone, my life soon to end. I closed my eyes, pulled up my blanket, and waited for death.
* * *
The sound of wood splintering under tremendous force wrenched my eyes open. Father fell through the destroyed door, swearing. “Damn you, girl. Sleeping while the town is being liberated by our brave soldiers.” He grimaced at Mama’s body, before dragging her out the back door and dumping her on the compost heap. He returned and yanked me off the couch. “I’ve arranged for your feeding and protection. He’ll be here soon to get you.”
* * *
“Skin and bone,” the soldier said, after stripping me, staring at my gaunt face, jutting hipbones and sagging tits, too disgusted even to rape me. Instead, he fetched a bowl of weak gruel, which I shoved down my gullet, scaring him with my starved ferocity. That night I stared up at the rippling canvas of his tent, plotting as he tossed and farted beside me. Granny’s hatchet, Mama’s hatchet--my hatchet—was in my arms, the cold steel warming me. I imagined using it to open my father’s jugular, though a scalpel would have been my preferred weapon.
In the morning I left the snoring soldier and hacked off a hunk of meat off the joint roasting over the communal fire. I ate as I walked the short distance to the town square, nourishment coursing through my body and brain like electricity, then sat on the steps of the university building, watching the ritual torture and dismemberment of the Prophet and his followers, unmoved by their agonized screams. Their plump, pretty wives were handed over to the soldiers afterwards, slipping on the blood-spattered concourse as they were dragged away, begging for a mercy they would not get.
I giggled, suddenly, as my plan solidified, clear and crystal in my mind. I stroked the hatchet, running my fingers over its sharp, shining steel. I would take back my home from the man I had called father. But first…
I walked up the few steps to the university door and cut through the chain on the padlock, my hatchet flashing in the sun. Inside the computers and study carrels had been smashed to pieces, so I continued to the untouched cupboard behind the lectern. I hacked it open, revealing the books that had been brought all the way from Mother Earth so many years before, searching for the one my teacher had held up so reverently. It was old, thick, fragile; an anatomy text that millions of medical students had once learned from. I would, too. I tucked it under my arm and went home. Father was peacefully asleep on my couch.
I killed him without a second thought and, struggling and panting, dragged his well-fed body out to the dead garden. I knelt down beside him and carefully opened the textbook, before taking my hatchet and spilling his blood into my mother’s, my grandmother’s, my great-grandmother’s soil. Soon his bones would join it, but first…
I lifted my birthright and gazed at its sharp, shining edge. I glanced down at the textbook—and started to teach myself anatomy.
One of the original indentured colonists of this planet, she’d already survived three famines, the first in Year Two of the colony, when she was only twelve. Her mother had died, leaving her alone and alive. The last of the hard-earned knowledge Granny had bestowed on us was that sometimes people have to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. And so she did, refusing her share of the food, just as her mother had for her. We planted her in Mama’s once-fecund garden, in the dark corner where little had ever grown. It was Granny’s last request; perhaps her blood and bones would make that corner fertile at last, she’d whispered. After we tamped down the dirt, we ate her starving dog, ashamed and grateful.
Then there was only some wizened potatoes from the root cellar, a rat too weak to run away, some dried out cabbage leaves from the top of the compost pile, and a few furiously wriggling worms. Soon we were reduced to boiling father’s old leather shoes with the last of the dried herbs. We followed Granny’s advice, me and Mama, laying on the couches, smothered in blankets, conserving our calories and body heat, moving only to pee in the bucket in the corner and to throw chopped-up sticks of furniture onto the meagre fire.
We sipped the hot, savory water. Though there was no real nourishment, it helped keep the cramps at bay, as our bodies consumed themselves. We spoke only to curse father’s name. He’d left three months before, after the Prophet and his followers had taken over the town, sneaking out in the night, taking a large bag of our precious provisions, leaving no note. We later found out hundreds of men had gone that same night. Planned. We hadn’t heard from them since. Meanwhile, the Prophet ordered the university to be closed; my medical studies over before I’d really even started. The previous year our colony had bartered half our harvest for the meagre technology the one-room university housed, and when the Prophet’s rabid followers had destroyed it, I’d sobbed, licking up my own salty tears desperately. It was the one and only time that I cried.
Soldiers and battle bots from Dome City surrounded our town walls, allowing no one out, not the men who begged to be allowed to hunt, not even the wailing women with their gaunt, silent children. The General had been ordered to punish every rebel and was fearful one might slip out. Reluctant to destroy the colony, something so many had died to build, she had decided instead to starve the Prophet and his followers out. No matter that we, the innocent, would die too. And so we starved, slowly at first, and then rapidly, while at night the orbiting weapon gleamed in the sky, trained on our town, patiently waiting to be used if necessary.
Occasional whiffs of cooking meat drifted into town from the soldiers’ encampments, torturing us. But not bothering the Prophet at all. While our mouths roiled with thick, hungering drool, he was rotund as ever at a ceremony all the townspeople were forced to attend. He’d been tossing rocks and stones to his followers, announcing he’d turned them into bread for his Chosen Ones. The faithful fell down and broke their teeth trying to eat them. And then the Prophet had chosen another wife from among the desperate women, encouraging his disciples to do the same.
Mama and I had returned home and barricaded ourselves in. It was too dangerous to visit friends any more or check on neighbors, and the stench of rotting bodies told us they may have already succumbed to death. We had no desire to end up in someone’s cooking pot, and so retreated into the fire-flickered darkness and almost silence. “I’m only sorry I won’t live long enough to kill him,” Mama muttered.
“The Prophet?”
“Your father.”
“Why didn’t he take us with him?”
“He cares only about his own survival.” There was nothing to say to that. Mama lay under her blankets, one bony arm on the top cover, hand resting on the smooth, wooden handle of a gleaming hatchet. It had been Granny’s, who’d used it to hack out a space for herself in this forested land, one tree at a time. And then it had been Mama’s, who had used it to carve us the kitchen garden that had kept us alive so long. I threw the last of the sticks on the fire, and then ladled some hot liquid into a cup and took it over to Mama. She pushed it away. “Keep it for yourself, child. I don’t want to live anymore. Plant me in my garden when I’m gone.”
I didn’t cry. Just grasped her hand tightly before returning to my blankets. She was following her own mother’s advice after all, sacrificing herself for the greater good: me, the cleverest girl in the school, the one who was supposed to wield a scalpel, not a hatchet. Still indentured, but so valued that I was not required to work the fields and be assigned to some man to deliver his children for the colony—as Granny had. As Mama had…
She lasted two more days. I kissed her forehead, took her hatchet, then lay in the gathering cold, the firewood all gone, my life soon to end. I closed my eyes, pulled up my blanket, and waited for death.
* * *
The sound of wood splintering under tremendous force wrenched my eyes open. Father fell through the destroyed door, swearing. “Damn you, girl. Sleeping while the town is being liberated by our brave soldiers.” He grimaced at Mama’s body, before dragging her out the back door and dumping her on the compost heap. He returned and yanked me off the couch. “I’ve arranged for your feeding and protection. He’ll be here soon to get you.”
* * *
“Skin and bone,” the soldier said, after stripping me, staring at my gaunt face, jutting hipbones and sagging tits, too disgusted even to rape me. Instead, he fetched a bowl of weak gruel, which I shoved down my gullet, scaring him with my starved ferocity. That night I stared up at the rippling canvas of his tent, plotting as he tossed and farted beside me. Granny’s hatchet, Mama’s hatchet--my hatchet—was in my arms, the cold steel warming me. I imagined using it to open my father’s jugular, though a scalpel would have been my preferred weapon.
In the morning I left the snoring soldier and hacked off a hunk of meat off the joint roasting over the communal fire. I ate as I walked the short distance to the town square, nourishment coursing through my body and brain like electricity, then sat on the steps of the university building, watching the ritual torture and dismemberment of the Prophet and his followers, unmoved by their agonized screams. Their plump, pretty wives were handed over to the soldiers afterwards, slipping on the blood-spattered concourse as they were dragged away, begging for a mercy they would not get.
I giggled, suddenly, as my plan solidified, clear and crystal in my mind. I stroked the hatchet, running my fingers over its sharp, shining steel. I would take back my home from the man I had called father. But first…
I walked up the few steps to the university door and cut through the chain on the padlock, my hatchet flashing in the sun. Inside the computers and study carrels had been smashed to pieces, so I continued to the untouched cupboard behind the lectern. I hacked it open, revealing the books that had been brought all the way from Mother Earth so many years before, searching for the one my teacher had held up so reverently. It was old, thick, fragile; an anatomy text that millions of medical students had once learned from. I would, too. I tucked it under my arm and went home. Father was peacefully asleep on my couch.
I killed him without a second thought and, struggling and panting, dragged his well-fed body out to the dead garden. I knelt down beside him and carefully opened the textbook, before taking my hatchet and spilling his blood into my mother’s, my grandmother’s, my great-grandmother’s soil. Soon his bones would join it, but first…
I lifted my birthright and gazed at its sharp, shining edge. I glanced down at the textbook—and started to teach myself anatomy.