Funk-N-Fiction

Finishing up our awesome flash fiction for today is Lucienne Diver. Readers who’ve been following our Halloween Flash Fiction blog events for a few years will be familiar with how creative Lucienne’s stories are each year. Enjoy!!

Aptitude Test
by Lucienne Diver

My sister’s camera was only a few generations newer than mine, but I supposed she’d have both of them soon enough. That’s what I was thinking as I defied her order of, “Smile!”

“I’m so proud of you, Destiny!” she said, not selling it. Not with the tears about to overflow her deep brown eyes, a match to mine.  “But then, I guess Mom knew a thing or two when she named you.”

The aptitude tests had come back today. Those stupid things we took in school that never said we were going to become doctors or lawyers or engineers or – heaven forbid, the president or minister defense – but that we could maybe aspire to clerical work or pushing buttons on cash registers. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Seriously, I’d have been okay with anything, as long as it left me time to climb around and take photos on my old Canon, left to me by my gran. Things I really had to search out and risk and develop, knowing the limits and idiosyncrasies my medium.

But, no, my results had come back Savior.

Seriously, who got Savior? Yeah, it existed. We all knew it did. It was part of the reason for the tests. Like photos, like any art form, dystopian fiction grew from a zeitgeist, something real and deeply felt, at least by the artist and a portion of the population that identified with that art. Our world – other worlds, too many of them, because there was a sympathetic wobble – no, that wasn’t what they called it. A destabilization, something like that. If one world fell too far out of true, they might all fall like dominoes, cause a linear collapse. Destiny had never paid much attention, because she never expected to be any part of the system.

Dystopian fiction had made so many people in these worlds cry out, asking, “Where is our sixteen-year-old girl to save us?”

It appeared that the answer was Here. Right here. And she didn’t have a single skill she could answer for.

Yet, she had to choose.

“I’ve helped you pack,” Faith said, still trying for upbeat and positive. Having Faith, just like her name.

“It won’t matter. They’ll probably give me new gear for whatever skill I pick,” Destiny said morosely, lifting her camera and clicking off a picture of Faith as she was then, the mother hen, the stronger of the two of them. The one who should have been chosen. Not that Destiny would have wished it on her sister.

Yet, which of them was crying. Perhaps she was made of sterner stuff. No, now she was grasping at straws.

“Surely, they’ll run you through some things, make sure you’re best suited for whatever you choose.”

“Surely,” Destiny agreed, trying not to worry Faith.

“And I hear that what you choose determines where you go and what you face. They give you that which you’re most fated for,” Faith continued.

“From their perspective,” Destiny said. “But then, they’re adults. If they had this, they wouldn’t be sending us. They’re set in their ways of thinking, of doing things. Their ‘listen here, little girl.’”

“Then you’re perfect,” Faith said. “You’re going to challenge everything. That’s what your photos do. That’s what you do with me. What you did with Mom.” She pulled her camera strap up over her head and set her camera down, then sat across from Destiny, taking her hands. “I would listen. But you – never! You’ll show them what’s what.”

Her tears started to fall, and Destiny couldn’t let it happen to her too.

“But Dad – ” the fear gripped her heart. Their father had gotten a calling as well. Late, but still. He’d been a tech wizard, and one day, someone had come to speak with their mother privately. They’d been young. Destiny just a baby, and Faith little more than a toddler. She could barely remember their father, and Destiny not at all. They didn’t even know what had happened to him.

“An accident” was all their mother would say, until the very end, when she motioned Faith close and told her, “If they call you, refuse. Promise me. And watch your sister. Protect her.”

Faith had promised.

But they all knew that when the Ministry called, “No,” was not an answer. The world was counting on you. Perhaps even the worlds.

Destiny took the bag Faith had packed, hugged her so hard she thought they might merge into one, and opened her door to find the Ministry waiting on her stoop, ready to insist someone else risk it all.

She stepped forward, hoping she was the problem-solver some world needed her to be, for both their sakes.