Dawn's Eve

Kimmy Potter, I, flipped the next page of the old, crusty book. The pages were yellowing and chipped.
"What are you doing?" Mama asked, startling me. I snapped the book shut, Mama could not see what I was doing. "At age fifteen you should know how to cook!" She scolded, being stern. She was always stern. Everyone is stern.
Everyone, it seems, but me.
In my clan, Harngan, it's the law to never smile or laugh. If you caught, you get shipped off to jail before you can apologize.
"You can't be reading some silly book about--" She tried to take my book. I wrestled it out of her grasp.
"No!" I shouted. "I want to learn to cook. We need not to fight, Mama."
My Mama tilted her head forward and raised her eyebrows.
Mama has a small waist, right now she was wearing a prune-colored silk dress. Her dark hair barely reached her shoulders. It was was thick and wavy, almost always pulled back into a loose knot. Her hair usually fell in front of her eyes.
My little secret about Mama--My illegal secret--Was that she was a loving mother.
"Change your name to Kim." Mama suggested, smoothing her apron and immediately leaving the room. Because not she was able to look, I spat and thought, "Mamma fel ar. Namnen Ar Namn." My language. My language I have studied since I could read. And luckily, no one in this village could understand me.
I caught up to my Mama in the kitchen. "Mama, why hate Kimmy? Kim is a man's name. Kim is a little girl's name. Kim is the girl with the piggy tails and the small pink dress. Am I Kim? I'm Kimmy."
"Ok, ok." Mama agreed.
"Can you go by your true name, then? Kimatria is such a shame to be wasted. For me, daughter?" Mama pleaded.
"No." I relented. "We shall cook."
She showed me to cook normal foods people eat today. Mama says we are technically "Amish". We don't eat these foods except for a treat. I asked, "What are non- Amish people?"
"There are none."
"Then we are all equal?"
Mama didn't answer.
I cooked hamburgers and I cooked warm dogs. We then dropped them off on our neighbors door, Flores. Flores is a house maid, living alone.
At least her house is clean.
I guess that now I must tell you my features.
I am not considered beautiful. I have a long nose. I hate it, others admire it. My eyes are blue. They are not a nice sapphire blue like in stories, rather a sky blue when it will get dark. My eyelashes are short. You have to look very close up to see them, although I have a strong black curve on my eye lids. It's not natrual. Mama makes it in the mornings with a little pencil. I am as pale as the moon, every one is. We have no access to sun medicine. We wear big hats when we go out. I have to wear a long dress. I am happy it does not poof, some girl's dresses do. It's awful hot though. In the snow season, we don't wear anything to cover our arms or anything warm. It's the law not to. I once asked if everyone doesn't. She said everyone in our clan. I asked everyone in the world? She said, "Our world. Shush and the answers may find you."
So today, I needed to become a rebel. For today. First, I made the smallest smile at breakfast. Mama noticed and slapped me, chewing on celery like cud. It stung, and the feeling rippled slowly across the area until it disappeared like a pin in a haystack.
And then, my main act crossed my thinking bank. Mama had said, "Shush and the answers may find you." Although this time it sounded echoey and irregular in my thinking bank. So I after sewing, I said I would milk Biff, our cow. I lied. My heart dropped to my feet when the words escaped my lips. I wanted to say, "Actually I lied. I just need to go somewhere." But that would get me in so much trouble with the word "Lie". So the crookedy door slammed behind me, and my bare foot stung against the hot concrete.
My long hair like Mama's sat on my shoulder.
I followed the short cobblestone trail to a bushy garden. I brushed by leaves until I came to a grand house. I heaved a great sigh before knocking on the door.
It took a while, but I knew she was home.
A little peep hole popped open. I could only see an eye. A sapphire eye. The one I wanted. The voice echoed because of the long hall behind it. "Hello? Who is it?"
I took a quick second to straighten my breaths, and said, "It's Kimmy Potter, Flores."
The door swung open and a beautiful young lady stood in the doorway. I smiled wide because I hadn't seen her for over a year. She smiled back. A gentlemen came over too, handsome with black hair at chin level. We all stood in silence, before I asked, "Who's this?"
"Ah, Kimmy, this is my fiancee." Flores told me. "From a bigger clan. Called America. His name is . . . Jim. Such one never heard of, yes?" Flores added. I nodded. Suddenly, something came over me.
My nose burned, and before I could stop it, before I could blink, I ran into Flores's arms, sobbing. My breaths were short and silent. My sobs could only be heard faintly, and muffled at that, my face buried in her arm.
"What's wrong?" Flores asked. Her voice was like a cup. It held worry, suprise, and warmth. It rang out like a bell.
"I--I--I can't breath. I dunno, I dunno." I replied. I stood there, weeping in her arms, until she asked, "And why have you come?"
I stepped back, wiping imaginary snot.
"I want to investigate." I told her. "I want to investigate the gray walls and see what's around them."
Jim laughed. "And you've never left these walls?" His voice held curiosity and suprise.
Flores and I looked at Jim in suprise. No one had ever left!
Just then, I noticed the lump in Flores stomach that she held. I stood back.
"Are you--Do you--Will you have a baby?"
She turned to me and gave a insignificant nod. Jim was more important!
I felt a bit of anger build up.
I quickly crushed it, reminding my self: anger=broken friendships=arguments=apologies=smiles.
"Uh, yes. I have. Theres a whole different world out there! And you ladies--You've never seen it?"
"No." We said together, in a trance.
He bit his lip and shifted his weight. In a low but promising voice, he told us, "Then I guess we're going." He immediately stood up like someone had slapped him. He walked to the door and opened it for us.
We were off!
I traced the gray bricks with my finger tips. It was against the rules to cross the walls. No one wven wanted to anyway. Mama said nothing was out there. But Jim had said . . . He'd actually been . . . But Mama . . . The thought of Mama made me remember. Milking Biff didn't take hours. Mama is probably--No, I know--Waiting for me with a yardstick.
The streets were bustling; how would we get by? But Jim seemed to know. Just a half hour before he had been tense. Now he was casual. He motioned us over. The wall-scrubber climbed down the ladder and walked over to a lunch pail. The second he turned his back, Jim snatched up the ladder and without warning, pushed Flores up and carried me over. The second we hit the ground, I crumbled with it. Flores squatted, holding her stomach. But Jim was on his feet. He helped Flores up, but didn't glance at me. I started having a suspicion he disliked me. But I didn't need his help getting up. It seemed a metal arm gripped me and pulled me over. I screamed loudly.
I was hanging in the air. It carried me to a empty lot of other girls about my age. It seemed they had just been carried over too, we were all in shock. I started shrieking in fright. They all looked at me, and a few burst into tears. I looked over, Flores and Jim were just a speck.
A man came over. "Shut up!" He screamed roughly. And it worked. There were a few sniffles, but we were all quiet.
I wondered why something so random had happened.
"You can all go back as soon as you tell me your name, clan, and kill a dragon."
That sure got us real quiet. So we went around, and I felt like a school child again. My clan only went to level 5. Other clans didn't.
The only one I remembered was a really tall girl, 16. She said, "My name is Seatiny. I'm from Clan Lof. Also, I hate you. And the claw."
The man cared not. He nodded and told us to go on. I had said, " My name is Kimmy Potter. I'm from the clan Harngan. " That's all I said, in the shakiest voice.
So then--The dragon killing?
The next experience is the scariest experience I've ever experienced.
Yes, we each got our own small dragon. I was scared to death, I shook the long scary sword so much I feared it would slip through my fingers and cut off something I needed. The sword was long and shiny, it had a gold handle.
My Dragon was red and scaly, it's name was Jammy. It bared it's teeth fluttered it's ugly tattered wings.
I screamed and backed away slowly.
It hopped towards me, and, resembling a grasshopper, hopped closer.
Suddenly my feet were glued to the ground.
It flew towards me in seconds, and I shrieked.
I closed my eyes, knowing I would die.



Funeral Form
Name: Kimmy Potter
Death Date: August 8, 1999
Death: Found dead in a field.
Coffin: 3009
RIP