Glory O'Brien's History of the Future by King A.S

Author:King,A.S.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2014-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

Ellie didn’t give a shit about chlorofluorocarbons

“Are we still going to the mall or what?” Ellie asked.

Dad had let her in and into the basement, but the minute I’d heard the basement door open, I hid Why People Take Pictures and left the darkroom because I didn’t want her in there. I didn’t want her near any of it. My pictures. Darla’s pictures. Pictures of Jasmine Blue, her naked mother. I walked her up and into the living room.

I saw Ellie looking at Dad and I could see she was seeing his infinity and I wondered if she saw any future. I wanted him to have a future. I wanted me to have a future. I hoped she would be honest with me even though I hadn’t been honest with her. I wanted to know if my grandsons would be part of the machine. I wanted to know if my granddaughters would be stolen. I wanted to know everything… if there was anything. I was so tired of empty.

We got into the car.

“What did you see when you looked at my dad?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Something about his feet. How he has his mother’s feet.”

I wanted to ask her about his future. Maybe grandkids. Maybe great-grandkids. I didn’t say anything, though, and just drove toward the mall.

“Can we stop at a coffee place?” Ellie asked me.

I pulled into a Dunkin’ Donuts and lined up in the drive-thru. She ordered something fancy. I ordered a bottle of water.

“So, this war,” she said as we waited. “It’s going to affect our grandkids. And it’s going to be what? I can’t get it. Girls are stolen? For what?”

“I think the usual girls-in-war stuff. I’ve seen them being sold.”

“Like prostitution?” she asked. “Doesn’t seem logical.”

We pulled to the window and I paid because I knew Ellie didn’t have money. She slurped her coffee drink as we drove around the winding road to the mall.

“I mean, if they sell all the girls then who’s left to make new people?” she asked.

“Good point,” I said. “They call it K-Duty. They don’t always steal girls. Some just hunt and kill people. They call it the machine.”

“That’s creepy,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. “The whole idea of another civil war is creepy if you ask me.”

“I don’t get it,” she said. “How can we divide over anything anymore? It’s not like we still have slavery, right?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think it has something to do with politics.”

I don’t know why I didn’t tell Ellie about some of the things I knew. I saved the facts for the book because sometimes, certain people don’t want to hear stuff like that. Ellie didn’t believe women had any farther to go, right? So if I’d told her about the Fathers Count Law or any of that, she probably would have thought I was making it up out of my own agenda.

We sat in a parking space for a minute with the AC cranked because Ellie didn’t give a shit about chlorofluorocarbons—not when she was away from Jasmine Blue, anyway.

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