I let out a yawn and twisted the buttons on my pajama top. I was slouched so deep into the cushions, I must have looked like an awkward human-couch. “Don’t look!” she yelled from the kitchen. “What? Look?” I yelled back, closing my eyes. “Haa-Ha, butt-head!” My sister had no sense of humor. “Okay. Open,” she said, pressing something into my hands. It was a Kodak of us, from when our parents were alive. The paper was warped; it must have been one of the few things rescued from Katrina’s wake. I had forgotten what they looked like. “Merry Christmas.”

I straightened my apron. I’m not the Martha Stewart type, but I had to do something while he was away. He would have teased me mercilessly if he saw this granny smock. I wiped flour off the tip of my nose and started mixing. This was his second deployment, and the 15^th box of cookies I had sent. The spoon hit the bowl with a dull thud, thud, thud, like helicopter propellers. Christmas with gingerbread men instead of the man I married felt…sick. I was sick, of all of this.

I spent the night under the tree eating cookie dough.

There was something strangely comforting in the hum coming from the walls. Maybe it was the lights? The door buzzed harshly, and the waiting room turned their eyes to see what character was coming in this time. What’s her story? Hmm, looks scared and bookish,  probably not an STD…pregnant? She scurried over to the bullet proof window to sign in. I rested my head on the wall and closed my eyes. The hum continued, strong, deep, metallic. Then it started to sound high, sharp. Like a baby crying. I jerked away from the wall. Too many questions, not enough answers.

I shifted away as he passed. You knew his caste. It was more than the extra gristle on his ribs; it was the listless look on his face. He rolled along through the healthy and dominant—the Elite, as we’re called--to the back of the tram, where the other class--aptly named “the Majority”--wasted away. Their governmental powerlessness was their own fault; because they couldn’t control their lives, they were poor, uneducated and unhealthy. I couldn’t believe they let them ride the same cart as us. The overhead crackled. We were making the future, and they, their graves.

He stood at the mirror in a daze--until the sound of pounding on the bathroom door jerked him from his trance. “Hey! Hurry up!” someone banged. This was real—and he had to get out, fast. He fumbled the faucet and flung water on his face. Blood swirled and danced in the basin like paint, spiraling down the drain in thin ribbons. There was blood on his shirt, too, petals of red speckled across. He wrapped his jacket tight around his body to cover the evidence and exploded out the door, running out the bar and into the darkness.