The Women Who Hold

Prologue: The Stories Say

We tried to eliminate all of them. She doesn't know how but she knows it didn't work. There are stories that go around and around with details shared and details spared. All she knows is there was violence.

In the world she was born into we were the breed who never used violence as a solution. Until we did. Until the stories say we couldn't solve our problems with any other answer than theirs. We tried. We played their games, we rose slowly to the top, but in the end, even before her time, we voted and lost. We had been beaten down since the beginning of time, hurt, treated like less, submissive creatures next to the dominant ones who clearly didn't know how to manage this home we were supposed to live in forever.

For centuries the world had been cut into pieces by the likes of them. Systems designed by them that decided which genes were good enough to be born, which bodies too costly to keep. It’s hard for anyone to understand these stories. They said it made better people. Maybe it did. But it also made people too much the same.

Women denied themselves equality for millennia, simply to avoid violence. How humane. But when the end came, we took the power of men away. It seemed we wanted to take men away for good. The stories suggest it. But we didn't do that. What we did was make women the gender that changed the world. That was 290 years ago. And she was there.

Beside her was a little boy. She doesn't remember how he got there. Where we were, why she was being pulled away from the rubble, the blood, the violence. But as she got dragged away, she understood that the little boy was stuck and he was waiting to be rescued. We planned to rescue her. We just didn’t know when.

Year 2442

I woke up in a box. It wasn’t mommy standing over me. This mom had silver hair. The box hissed and the lady smiled. The box was mad. I needed to get out. I sat up and looked for the boy. He wasn’t there. Next by me was another box. And another, and another, and another. Lots of girls who looked like me but some different colors were waking up. One or two girls were playing games. But Lasterday I was somewhere else. I was scared too. But a different scared. I was hiding. My family was fighting on the street. And running. And people were bleeding with the buildings falling.

Year 2445

I remember something. If you want your memory to come back you just have to think really hard, and then you can do it. I remembered something after the boy. After my running. I still can’t remember where my mom is and these ladies don’t know here either, but I remember after running a different lady told me I was going to be a part of a group. I wonder if she meant a school group. Because we go to school here. She told me to remember the letters AI. Those same letters were written on a really big sign in my city before I came here. Mom read it to me before. A lot of people were mad. But there was a strange lady on the sign. The lady on the sign had diamond eyes.

Year 2447

They tell me I’m ten years old. I’m starting to learn about this place but they never give me a lot of information. I haven’t even been outside. But there is a fake outside inside here. It really seems like it’s outside though. They did a good job. I only knew it wasn’t outside because they tell us something new every year we are here and this year they told us about outside. The real outside. And it is nothing like I remember and it’s also not like what is in here, the fake outside. The things they are describing do not sound like here or my home. I’m very confused because this isn’t like a hotel I’ve ever stayed in. But when you don’t have a home you stay at a friend's or a hotel. And like, I’ve stayed in a pool hotel and it had pictures on the wall and there isn’t a pool here. But there are pictures.

Here is what they say about outside: The trees are so tall you can’t see the tops. Those are like my buildings in my city. The ladies here don’t know buildings. They say, “what are skyscrapers?” I go and ask my friends and they don’t know either. But why do I remember? Is there anyone from my city here? My city isn’t the only city with buildings. I’m very confused. They also say the trees take up so much space the light has trouble finding its way in so light hits the forest by shining off the giant leaves. And by bouncing off mushrooms which the deer eat. The forest has green hues. The night sky is so clear the stars reflect on your body. The sunset is like a painting. The air is so fresh it burns your lungs in a good way. What does that mean? These people are confusing. I just want to get out of here and find my mom. And look for that boy.

Year 2450

It’s my thirteenth birthday. I found out everything. My mom is gone. She died because she lived her life. I haven’t lived mine but I’ve been in this world for almost 300 years. This group I’m in. Obviously. It’s the group of these stupid kids in the boxes. Only they aren’t boxes, they’re pods and I was frozen or it’s called cryosleep. So everyone lived their life except some kids. I asked about the boy. They don’t know. They don’t keep their names they say. Also there are many centers. I’m just in one and there are many people here. We have been learning how to live in this new world and how to make sure that we keep the earth healthy so it doesn’t die like the first one. I haven’t talked about it much but that is sort of the whole point. I get that now. Everything they are doing. We ruined the planet, well we were on our way. And so when I was running, when I remember the boy and the fighting, that is when people decided to make a change. I learned I was a part of that. A five year old child. The fight went on and we went to sleep. They decided to wake us up if it got better. I was just frozen and waiting to be rescued. They made things better. I’m learning to do the same and continue treating this earth like gold and perfection. But I want to know who else was rescued.

Year 2500

I thought I knew everything at thirteen. How incredibly naive. I do love this place. Living here is like a dream. Like being unafraid and always curious. And being curious if you wish you remembered what it was like to be afraid. Whatever we’ve created is certainly peaceful. We have problems but our systems resolve them without fear or violence. I grew up learning those systems. I also learned the truth. The truth about my group. I had a memory when I was five. What can you understand at this age? Simply, nothing. Yes, I am part of The Waiting. The group that went to sleep and waited to be woken up until the earth was ready for them. But that is not the extent of my group at all. Somehow I was selected as a group within that group. I was given a gift. Or so they thought. They call it the gift of memory.

I am part of The Holders. A fraction of girls were allowed to keep what memories they had at the tender age of five. Even though most of those memories, even sorted, make little sense, if any. Playgrounds, schools, houses side by side. Grocery stores and fast food when all you want is a happy meal with a toy. These are things that make sense to a child. Comparing tall buildings to trees and calling them skyscrapers is not something these generations can imagine.

Everyone else older than me, continued doing what they were doing. Was it fighting, was it healing the earth, were the men eliminated? No one knows. Because The Waiting went to sleep and at some point the non chosen, The Lost, had their memories erased. Women didn’t want any memories of this horrifying part of history. They don’t want it to repeat itself. Any shred of that written somewhere or told down from generation to generation could do that.

But then I guess our five year old memories will just be left for play. For questions and retorts. It seems like a curse to me. At this age, all I have are questions. Maybe my mom survived after all. Maybe she was one of The Lost. If so, she wouldn’t remember me. She wouldn’t come looking for me.

I gave up on the boy. He was never waiting to be rescued. He thought he was. I thought he was. But he wasn’t. They told me they didn’t keep names. That was a lie. Thirteen year olds are sensitive to certain information. The truth is that any male injured in the war times on the Scarred Planet was not spared. They figured it was a waste of time. They were only bringing a select amount back anyway. Why waste time on injured or dying ones? When I ran away watching him get smaller and smaller that day, I was saying goodbye.

I haven’t found anyone else in The Holders. The person who told me about it read it from a script, “goodmorning, you have been selected as part of a prime niche group. You walked away from a part of the Scarred Planet that no one in this current world can grasp. Any other Waiter has no memory of it. But you do. The women of that world gifted you your memory. Congratulations.” Then a bunch of questions followed that I just couldn’t answer. Instead, I stared blankly. I can’t explain why it doesn’t feel like a gift.

The memory in my mind that stays consistent is of the woman who whispers the letters. I think I know what they mean. And I’m not supposed to tell. I need to find someone in The Holders but I don’t know how. Because of this I think I’m on my own with my little secret. Here’s my secret: I found something underground. It’s sleeping just like we were. It seems to have a pulse or a current like it’s waiting to wake up; like it could wake up if someone told it to or pushed a button.

It feels like a part of The Scarred Planet. It feels like it’s taking up a lot of space. It feels like it could help if we ever needed it. Like it has a job to do. But it also feels like it could come with a price. I don’t know where these feelings come from. Sometimes when the soil parts and snails are marching through, or the deer are walking through a trail, I see the letters swooshed in the trails. I don’t know what it means. I never have. I’ve just been told to remember them, and I remember seeing them in my city. They meant something on that sign, all that time ago.

But I feel the letters AI are here too, and that’s why someone told me to remember them. Maybe it’s just been put to sleep. Is it waiting to be rescued? Who is going to rescue it? I don’t feel like my job is done. This earth is very different from the one I left behind.

Year 2553

My job is done. I can’t leave in my writings what I did. History shall not repeat. My five year old memories seem like a dream. I think I’m leaving this world. This beautiful world we created. Women are truly sensational. I believe we have changed the future. Sometimes I wonder if The Waiting ever really ended, or if we just learned how to wake up. Maybe that’s what rescue means; learning to stay awake when the world finally needs you.

The world will forget our names, but it will remember what we held. We are The Women Who Hold.