1 Minute to Midnight
Part 6: Sofi on the Cusp
Written by Juliet Clare
The early morning light flickered through the trees. Sofi leaned her head against the window of the bus watching the landscape race by. A million thoughts and a million moments divided Sofi from the previous night.
Khatereh’s words clawed at her, leaving Sofi with a feeling of guilt and responsibility she wasn’t entirely sure she deserved. How does one choose between the people you love and yourself?
That was a question Sofi had never dared ask before. Her responsibility had always been to the rest of her family, in sacrifice of her own happiness and well-being; a truth she rarely allowed herself to indulge in. Now, with the prospect of community on the horizon, the desire to put herself first burned strong. What that would look like and when still remained a mystery.
Sofi thought back to the last conversation she had with her brother; her final stop before departing Boston entirely. He was living in the Communities, a fenced-off portion of Boston overwhelmed by the poor, elderly, and migrants fleeing war-torn countries.
Sofi remembered moving past those fences, roaming silently through the dark. Everywhere she looked tarps, tents and makeshift cardboard box houses had been set up. In a bid for normalcy, names had been posted up on poles denoting various “streets”.
Turning down “Aisle of Hope”, Sofi caught the outlines of people, illuminated by solar-powered lamps, casting shadows on the tent walls. Spray painted on the side of one of the tarps was a number — 114.
“Caleb,” Sofi said, her voice trickled out as a whisper, but in the stillness it could just as easily have been a shout. Sleeping bodies stirred, but nothing more.
The tarp’s opening pulled to the side revealing a young man with a scrappy, sparse beard. Sofi thought her brother looked much older than his 24 years. His two blue eyes held Sofi’s heterochromatic ones.
“Sof,” he said, surprised.
“Can we talk?” Sofi asked, already letting herself into his tent.
Inside, the only light source was a single solar-powered lamp Caleb could move around the space as he pleased. Sofi rarely met her brother in his home — for lack of a better word — preferring to speak in spaces dogged with fewer demons.
While Sofi chose to keep fewer mementos, Caleb saved everything. He cherished the things that were passed between humans. The words said, the pictures taken; all of it. He hoarded them, stockpiling memories to share with others in a distant future that would never come.
“I’m leaving,” Sofi blurted out. She could no longer spare the feelings of those around her. She held her honesty out in front of her, wielding it like a knife.
For the longest time, Caleb and Sofi lived in parallel, keeping one another safe. In recent years, however, Caleb had split in two — one half the tangible, real brother Sofi had always known, the other his shadow, furtive and elusive.
As is true of all people, Caleb’s ideals had morphed with his increasing understanding that humanity is not only unjust, but also unkind. By the time Sofi was 17, Caleb had joined a group called, The Renegades. Their manifesto was equal treatment of humanity. That we are all essentially one — strip away race, religion, socio-economic status, genetic status — and we are boiled down to our most basic selves. But, unfortunately, the world did not reflect the fact that we share 99.9% of the same DNA and are more closely related to one another than any other creature on this planet.
More and more Caleb devoted himself to the cause, forsaking family, friends and relationships. Eventually he became a stranger to those who had previously been closest to him.
“Where?” Caleb responded. His words were wounded, limping out of him as if living their last dying breath.
“West,” Sofi responded in kind, knowing this may be the last time that they would see one another.
A flash of anger traced across Caleb’s face.
“You’re giving up on the cause,” he said.
“I have my own battles to fight, Caleb.” Sofi shot back.
“You’re being selfish.”
Sofi briefly held her words back. How does one convey an entire existence spent under a petri dish?
“We’re at two opposite ends of a spectrum,” Sofi said trying to maintain her composure, finally willing to express what she had previously been unable to.
“I’m beginning to realize that self-preservation is not the same as selfishness,” she continued.
Sofi stepped closer to Caleb, shadows moved around his face as she did.
“I need you to try to understand why,” Sofi pleaded. Her eyes sparkled in the lamp-light. For a moment, Sofi thought she saw his chin quiver.
“Commit to something greater than yourself,” Caleb said, shutting the conversation down there, preventing any chance for Sofi to further explain why she must leave, and how she would break if she stayed.
Evening had settled in around the bus. Towers, marked by tiny dots like fireflies, appeared over the horizon as Sofi’s bus neared Cleveland. She removed a piece of paper from inside the pocket of her backpack, cautious of wandering eyes. She had been guarding this piece of paper as if it contained the location to the holy grail. For Sofi, it may well do.
The bus hovered above the road, its underbelly repelled by the track of magnets that ran through the veins of this country, connecting states and cities, enabling faster travel.
Sofi had never been to Cleveland before, but she created an image in her mind based on places she had visited over the years — Boston, Philadelphia. She imagined the colors of the buildings, whether they had front yards or not, how cracked the sidewalks were and whether weeds had managed to break through, like hands reaching out grasping at the feet of those who dared tread near them.
Passengers began filtering out of the bus around her, haggard faces exhausted from a night sleeping in their seats. Crumbs and wrappers littered the bus. A patch of potato chips lay crushed on the floor near a seat; traces of chips had been picked up on shoes guiding Sofi to the entrance of the bus.
Sofi had fond memories of Caleb, those would never fade. The times they spent giggling by nightlight, “would you rather…” questions shooting back and forth at light speed. How Caleb would read “Harry Potter” to her before bed, a story still poignant even half a century later.
Caleb was not a Gen-M.
Their father’s decision to genetically modify his second born child happened six years after Caleb was brought into this world. For all his talk of equality and empathy, Caleb lacked a fundamental understanding of Sofi’s experiences, a fact that increased the gap between them. It saddened her, as certain truths always did.
The sidewalk beneath Sofi’s feet was cracked as she had imagined it would be. There were no apartment buildings similar to the ones she had spun together in her mind. Low houses with porches ran down the block in a straight line, various exterior colors were the only features that distinguished them from one another.
In her hand was the slip of paper Aura had given her. It was crumpled, the pen blurred from the sweat on Sofi’s palms. A patch of grass, overgrown with dandelions, surrounded the front walk, and led up to a dark brown front porch. Sofi hesitated. The curtains in the front window shivered, revealing the faintest outline of a face. Fearing both the known and unknown, Sofi stepped forward, taking her chances.
