Page 6 of All Your Days
“Yeah, I got it. Let me get my food then come see me.” I brush off the farm worker with a smile and make my way to the queue.
The cafeteria is technically open to the whole compound, but it’s only really utilised by the guards, grunts, and craftsmen who live in the main building. They serve three meals a day, and one of my jobs is to collect lunch and dinner for the staff in the Labs. If I don’t do it, a lot of the times they forget to eat, too caught up in their jobs.
Joining the lineup for breakfast, a familiar awareness crawls up my back, my hands tightening around the stack of artwork in my hands.
Jacob.
The need to turn and look for him burns at my guts, but I suppress it.
“Boo!”
The shout, right in my ear, makes me jump and flail, my tray hitting the grunt in front of me. They turn to glare at me and the cackling woman now clinging to my arm.
“Sorry! Sorry!” I hold up one hand trying to placate them. I’m not entirely sure who they are—I recognise the face, but don’t know their name—and turn to hiss at my friend. “For the love of… Stop doin’ that!”
Jessica rolls her eyes and bumps her shoulder into mine. “Then stop bein’ so easy to spook, you dork.”
Her loud, cackling laughter draws the attention of everyone around us. Jessica always seems to be laughing. It’s one of the things I love about her. I love it less when it’s at me, though.
Along with Matty, we’ve been close since we were kids. Our friendship isn’t a common one. Jessica grew up inside the main building, on the above ground residential levels. Her mum was an agriculture specialist in the Ags department, and her dad was with the original unit of armymen assigned to protect her. It was how they did things back in the day.
Her father moved back to the Union barracks a few years back after her mother turned, but Jessica chose to stay, continuing to work in the Ags department as a research assistant. Being the child of one of the scientists, and an immune resident to boot, she was never at risk of ending up with the life of a grunt.
On the other hand, I started out in the mud homes outside The Facility. Both my parents were grunts working with the livestock outside. I didn’t lose my parents to the virus. Dad had an infection in his tooth that couldn’t get treated properly. They never actually told me what the cause of Mum’s death was. She just got sick and never got better. Towards the end, I couldn’t stay with her anymore and I was moved into the main building with the other orphaned kids.
Matty grew up in the family pods inside the main building. His mum was a guard before she retired and his dad worked as a maintenance grunt in the main building. Both his parents turned when he was in his teens.
We met at school. All kids in The Facility are required to go to school until they are ten. Those who have the skill for it stay on, to be able to specialise into different skills or enter an apprenticeship with the craftsmen. As a kid, I thought it was a big waste of my time, not being helpful. Now that I’m older, I understand it’s actually to keep kids out from underfoot of the grunts while they work.
I’ll never forget the first day, when Jessica came up to me. I was crying in the corner. I’d only just moved to the main building, and I was scared from so many big changes in my life. Jessica sat down next to me, pulled me into a hug and refused to leave me alone unless she had to. That’s when she roped Matty into watching me. It’s been the three of us ever since. Well, now it’s more Jessica and Matty, plus me, but that’s never bothered any of us. I can usually find company if I need it.
Pointedly ignoring my friend, I consider my options for breakfast. Every day, three times a day, meals are laid out in the long bays of warmers. On any given day, there aren’t too many options, but the kitchen grunts always seem to be able to feed us all with what little they have.
Today there are eggs of different varieties, and bread made of seeds and nuts foraged from native plants to stretch the wheat we have, a stew made from kangaroo—I’m pretty sure it’s roo today, I’ve learnt to not actually ask questions—and veg from the Ags. I grab a little bit of everything, along with a glass of camel milk and a cup of tea.
Jessica is significantly slower than I am picking out her food. I’m ready to go find us a table, and she’s still standing there, her empty tray clutched tightly in her hands and an unfamiliar frown on her face.
“What’s wrong?” I ask when the grunt behind the warmers stares her down impatiently.
Jessica tugs at her dark curls, her distress growing by the second. “I don’t know what I wanna eat.”
She looks just as confused as I feel—she almost looks like she’s about to burst into tears.
We’re about to get angrily booted from the food line, so I quickly fill Jessica’s tray for her and nudge her from the line. It’s a juggle with the two trays filled with food and drinks and my stack of papers but I manage to get us over to a free table.
“Hey fellas. Eli, you got that picture for me?” Our arses barely hit the chairs before Felix appears. Sparing a quick smile to Jessica, who pushes the eggs around her plate with a mild look of disgust, I shuffle through the papers until I find the one he’s after.
It’s a portrait of his younger brother, who was recently sent below. A birthday gift for his sister-in-law, who’s been struggling with the loss of her husband.
It’s something I do a lot of—drawing portraits of the people we’ve lost. The first time I picked up a pencil at school, something clicked inside me. It felt like an extension of my brain and I’ve worked hard to develop my skills. Not just because I love it, but for moments like this.
“Here it is.” I hand the sheet to Felix. It’s a little smudged, but that can’t always be helped with charcoal, and it’s still a good likeness of Kelly, even if I say so myself.
“This is… fuck, mate. This’s incredible.Thank you.” Felix’s eyes turn glassy the longer he looks at the picture. I shovel a mouthful of my cooling eggs in my mouth to give him a moment of privacy.
“What do I owe ya?” Felix’s voice is hoarse with emotion.
“Nothin’.” I probablyshouldtrade him for something—after all, paper is hard to come by for recreational purposes—I just can’t bring myself to do it. I knew Kelly. He’s a couple of years younger than me, but we went to school together. We were friendly even.
