Destroy Me by Tahereh Mafi

Author:Tahereh Mafi [Mafi, Tahereh]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780062208194
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2012-10-02T07:00:00+00:00

I enjoy coming to the compounds.

It’s an odd place to seek refuge, but there’s something about seeing so many civilians in such a vast, open space that reminds me of what I’m meant to be doing. I’m so often confined within the walls of Sector 45 headquarters that I forget the faces of those we’re fighting and those we’re fighting for.

I like to remember.

Most days I visit each cluster on the compounds; I greet the residents and ask about their living conditions. I can’t help but be curious about what life must be like for them now. Because while the world changed for everyone else, it always stayed the same for me. Regimented. Isolated. Bleak.

There was a time when things were better, when my father wasn’t always so angry. I was about four years old then. He used to let me sit on his lap and search his pockets. I’d get to keep anything I wanted as long as my argument was convincing enough. It was his idea of a game.

But this was all before.

I wrap my coat more tightly around my body, feel the material press against my back. I flinch without meaning to.

The life I know now is the only one that matters. The suffocation, the luxury, the sleepless nights, and the dead bodies. I’ve always been taught to focus on power and pain, gaining and inflicting.

I grieve nothing.

I take everything.

It’s the only way I know how to live in this battered body. I empty my mind of the things that plague me and burden my soul, and I take all that I can from what little pleasantness comes my way. I do not know what it is to live a normal life; I do not know how to sympathize with the civilians who’ve lost their homes. I do not know what it must’ve been like for them before The Reestablishment took over.

So I enjoy touring the compounds.

I enjoy seeing how other people live; I like that the law requires them to answer my questions. I would have no way of knowing, otherwise.

But my timing is off.

I paid little attention to the clock before I left base and didn’t realize how soon the sun would be setting. Most civilians are returning home to retire for the evening, their bodies bowed, huddled against the cold as they shuffle toward the metal clusters they share with at least three other families.

These makeshift homes are built from forty-foot shipping containers; they’re stacked side by side and on top of one another, lumped together in groups of four and six. Each container has been insulated; fitted with two windows and one door. Stairs to the upper levels are attached on either side. The roofs are lined with solar panels that provide free electricity for each grouping.

It’s something I’m proud of.

Because it was my idea.

When we were seeking temporary shelter for the civilians, I suggested refurbishing the old shipping containers that line the docks of every port around the world. Not only are

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