Outside the Fence

"Need I remind you of the severe penalties we face if we're caught outside the fence?" Rignon was barking at Caprin through a clenched jaw. She looked over at him and smiled. A glistening sheen of sweat streamed down his forehead and temples.

"If you're nervous, just go home. I can manage on my own." She gazed out at the fields beyond the fence, savoring the beating of her own heart, soaking in the still morning air. She'd spent the better part of the last year finding every opportunity she could to stand at the fence and gaze out at the landscape beyond. Rolling hills, the hint of a forest canopy, and the ghostly silhouette of mountains. Real, actual mountains. These called to her. They knew her name. At night when she closed her eyes she tried to picture what it would be like to stand among their towering peaks, to scale their long slopes. She couldn't even guess how far away they were, but they often seemed to burst through the clouds, and the way the sun dipped below them she knew they had to be massive.

"Caprin! You can not manage on your own! You won't last a minute without me!"

Without glancing over at him she grinned. "How do you know? Nobody's gone out beyond the fence for a hundred years." Her tone was purposefully defiant, targeting just the right buttons. She knew she'd won when Rignon let out a long sigh. She could feel the air around him dissipate as his muscles relaxed. She was sure he was rolling his eyes, but she continued to gaze out over the field. "Come on, I know you're dying to know what's out there just as much as I am." She elbowed her friend playfully and before he could offer any further protests, she hurdled the fence in one swift bound, exactly as she'd practiced a hundred times in her imagination.

"But..." Rignon began, but leaving him with a quick, sly grin she dashed out into the field toward the foothills.

"Come on!" she called out over her shoulder. "The mountains are waiting for us!" She ran as fast as she could, the wind blowing through her hair as she pumped her legs and let the long, untamed grass grapple with the toes of her shoes. The morning was quiet and cool, and she couldn't wait to see what was on the other side of the hills.

"Wait!" Rignon's quiet voice rang out from far behind her. She turned and stumbled backwards, laughing at her friend as he bounded toward her with a grimace on his face. He was always so nervous. He always resisted her antics until the last minute. But in the end, she knew why he enjoyed being her friend.

He caught up to her just moments before cresting the hill. "Glad you decided to join me," she teased. "I'd probably be dead already if it weren't for you."

He glowered. "There are reasons we're forbidden from exploring beyond the fence. This is dangerous."

She watched the top of the hill ahead eagerly as they walked, panting, up the slope. "Did I ever tell you," she wheezed, "about the time I saw a tiny light coming from the side of one of the mountains?"

"Yes," he groaned. "A million times. You got in so much trouble for even talking about it around my family." He chuckled. "Grandma still doesn't like that I spend time with you."

At long last she could see the ground leveling ahead. A few more steps and they'd be able to see the forest.

"You know," Rignon continued, "grandma was telling me about..."

"Shh!" Caprin blasted, holding out a silencing hand. "Look!" she gasped, instinctively hunching lower as she continued toward the top of the hill.

"What?" he asked, glancing at her to ascertain where his attention should be. "It's just a fo..."

"No!" she snapped. "Look farther!" She pointed out at a spot in the middle of a vast sea of trees.

Rignon breathed in sharply and ducked down also, crouching as he hurried to his friend's side. "What is it?" he whispered.

There, barely peeking out from among the thick forest, halfway between the hills and the base of the mountains, a brightly glowing dome broke through the treetops, a vast megastructure with a glass canopy. It was unlike anything Caprin had ever seen.

"I don't know," she sighed breathlessly. "It's beautiful."

Rignon grabbed at her wrist nervously, barely managing to wrap his fingers around her forearm before she wandered away. "Alright," he declared. "We've seen enough. Time to go home." He tugged weakly at her and she easily yanked herself free.

"No," she breathed, staring unblinkingly at the distant dome. "We need to go check it out."

"Caprin," he pleaded. "We live good lives. You have a good home, with good parents. We are safe and we have plenty of food and water. When it rains we are dry inside our houses. We enjoy music and plays and stories. And all of that depends on one rule: do not venture beyond the fence."

She turned her head and scowled at him. "But why? Why not go beyond the fence? What is out here that should remain undiscovered?" She looked back at the dome in silence. "Something is inside that glowing glass bubble, and I intend to find out what." She paused and clenched her fists. "Go home if you want," she said. "Go home if you love ignorance and secrets. But I am going to go and discover something. I..." she trailed off, unsure how to say exactly how she felt. She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. "Rignon, I need this. I can't confine myself to a fenced-in existence. There's more out there." She pointed back behind her at the forest. "See? You can see that there is something more." She glared at him a moment longer, and just as his lips parted to speak she added, "I'm going."

He just watched her go. She could tell because she didn't hear a sound from his mouth or his feet as she descended the hill toward the edge of the forest. Her temples were pounding and she felt flush all over. She took some deep breaths and marched on with determination. The first trees stood at the base of the hill. She paused and looked up at the crest behind her. Her whole life was on the other side of those hills now, and there, at the top, stood her best friend. Silently, she urged him to run down the hill to join her, but she knew he wouldn't. He just stared at her, full of shock and horror.

She shook her head and turned to plunge into the forest.

"Wait," he called out like a distant memory. "Come back with me," he cried. "We aren't explorers. We are safe within the fence!"

She ignored him and let the cool shadows of the trees embrace her, swallowing her up into a new world full of mystery and discovery.

***

Rignon remembered watching her disappear into the darkness between the trees. He had stood there, watching and waiting for her to return. When the sun was high overhead he returned home, defeated and empty inside.

Now he leaned his head against the window in his bedroom letting the coldness spread through his forehead into his skull. Raindrops trickled down the glass in erratic, wandering paths while even darker clouds gathered high overhead. He pictured the great forest beyond the hills, the trees thirsty for water, and he wondered if the water would run down the glass dome the same way it trickled down on his window. Is that were Caprin would be watching the rain, from inside the dome?

He took a slow, deep breath and exhaled, blasting the cold glass with a layer of steam that quickly faded. He closed his eyes and let his shoulders droop, wondering how much harder he could press against the glass before it would shatter.

There was a knock at his door. He didn't move. The door cracked open. Still, he gazed out through the wet glass silently. The door closed again and soon his bed dipped.

His grandmother's raspy lungs filled and she exhaled dramatically. "How long has it been?" she creaked.

He needed no clarification and he knew the precise answer. "Twenty nine days," he mumbled.

"Wow," she hummed, then she welcomed a long stretch of silence into the conversation.

Rignon let the glass tug up on his forehead and he closed his eyes again, Caprin's face glowing back at him with excitement, just as it had when he'd joined her beyond the fence.

Grandma sighed again. "I'm very proud of you." She paused again, but only for a moment. "You've always done your best to be a rule follower, even when that Caprin girl tempted you with her rule-breaking antics." Unexpectedly, she chuckled.

Rignon turned to face her, expecting to see a look of disapproval on the woman's wrinkled face. But she really was smiling.

"You know," she continued. "Every society needs rule followers, but humanity would have died out long ago without the rule breakers." Still smiling, she shook her head slowly. "You know, my own grandmother was a rule breaker. She used to tell me forbidden stories about the world outside the fence."

His heart jumped. "Really?" He was short of breath. His mind was spinning. Something pricked the back of his brain, like a tiny bolt of lightning.

She huffed through her nose and shook her head, closing her eyes. "Whether I want to admit it or not, rule breaking runs in our genes."

Rignon stared at his grandma with wide eyes. He opened his mouth to let one of the billion questions in his head start to pour out, but nothing happened. He was frozen.

She peered at him and shrugged her shoulders in as though receiving a hug while smiling warmly. "I loved those stories, and I so wanted to pass them on to my children, but my mother was a stickler for the rules, and she taught us to fear everything on the other side of that fence, geographically and temporally." She took in a long breath and let it go with an air of regret. "Rignon, your parents are going to kill me, but I'm so old I'm as good as dead anyway." She grinned. "You should go after your friend. Go and discover what she did."

His heart was pounding violently in his tight chest. He couldn't be hearing her correctly. "What?" he choked.

She shrugged. "Just be sure to tell me all about it someday, if you ever make it back."

He jerked his head to the side. "If I ever make it back?" He clenched his jaw. "Is it dangerous?"

"Oh no," she laughed, a twinkle in her eye. "But you probably won't want to come back. I've only ever heard stories, but the truth is that we are trapped inside the fence. Most of these people would leave in a heartbeat if they knew what was out there."

He stared at her for a moment. "So why haven't you left?"

She smiled. "Because," she said. "I liked it just fine here with my family. Following the rules didn't hurt anything. My curiosity was never quite stronger than my desire to feel safe. They told us to stay inside the fence, and in return we were given everything we could ever need. Nobody is going to take care of you out there Rignon. It'll be just you and Caprin versus the world. If that's what you want, then you should go."

He hesitated. He wasn't really sure what he wanted. On the hill he had made his choice, hadn't he? A flood of churning doubts and fears crashed down on him and for a brief moment he allowed himself to drown there, to be swept away and spun around, tossed and buffeted by a storm that he knew he could blow away with a single breath. So when he was done allowing himself to drown, he took a deep breath and blew, feeling himself relax as he settled on the truth.

He blinked and his gaze locked on grandmother's steely pupils. "I belong with Caprin," he said.

The warmth in her smile intensified. "I know," she said. Her hazel eyes shimmered with tears. "I know you do." She fell onto him, wrapping tightly around his body and pinning his arms against his breathless chest. She squeezed and watered him with her tears for a moment, and when she finally released him he got to his feet and glanced out the window.

"I'll need my rain gear," he said.

She grinned through her wet cheeks. "I already set it out by the door for you."

He smiled, turned to the door, and left.