Pop Con D

Here's the 'official' story about why we travelled south - The Story of Kai's Life, Chapter 12, by His Doting Mother (part of The Comforting Bedtime Story Series):  

Boy gets on bus with Mother and heads 3000 miles south for an easier, better life.  End of Story. Forget the armed guards with machine guns. Forget the black out curtains. Forget whatever it was they must have put into our food. Forget the entire journey. Forget after a while that there's anything to forget.

'Population Control Zone D'. Really trips off the tongue doesn't it?! Can someone tell me why it's so noisy, and filthy, and crowded? In the UK we had three streets to ourselves. Here people live four families to a house! Perhaps PopCon-D would be a better name? We could bow to a PopCon King, wave a PopCon flag, sing a PopCon national anthem.

It's not really a name that inspires much flag waving.

Hey, anonymous post, are you still reading this? I bet you're nervous now. D'you want me to change the subject? Everyone else does. No one's supposed to challenge the bedtime story are they? I've only been here a week but I've worked that one out already. No one's supposed to say, 'Hey! That can't be right! Only 10,000 people in the UK? 10,000 people living in a Bubble? Safe? Contented? What about the others? There must have been others. Let's talk about them shall we? Are they happy? Are they safe?'

They never get a mention on the telly. It's as if they don't exist.

Mum says that when things are really getting you down, you should try to think of Two Good Things that have happened each day, so here goes:

1)  Someone called Ali got in touch..

2)  I saw a boy flying a kite today and found a missing page - a memory I'll be told I never had: I flew a kite with my Dad. I don't know when..I think maybe I was three, or four? He carried me home on his shoulders and I felt his tears on my hands.

So figure out for yourself what that means.

The unanswered questions

Here's the other list I made last night - it shows you the kind of questions I never got a straight answer to:

Why don't we ever leave the bubble?

What's it like on the outside?

How many more bubbles are there?

How come it's so cold?

Where did all the electricity go?

Why are cows extinct?

Will there always be food to eat?

Is it ok to steal?

There are loads more. I filled up a whole exercise book: The Unanswered Questions - Volume One. 

It's a bit like a diary, only every entry is a question. I started Volume Two a week ago when we first got here - Population Control Zone D (European Sector).  

First entry:  What kind of a place is this?

Second entry:  What did we have to leave the UK?

Third entry:  Why do I remember so little about the journey?

Fourth entry:  Why is she lying to me?

Fifth entry:  Why is she lying to me?

Sixth entry:  Why is she lying to me?

Seventh entry:  Why is she lying to me?

What I know and what I don't

Hey, anonymous post, am I making you nervous? Wait for what? What until you know what?

I'm just trying to figure out what I know and what I don't, that's all.

Last night I couldn't sleep, so I made some lists. The first one turned out to be pretty short - I tried to write down all the stuff I know for absolute certain about my first 12 years:

My name is Kai.

I was born on October 2nd 2036.

I lived with my Mum in a country way up north - it's called the United Kingdom.

It was always cold - even inside the bubble.

The bubble was where we lived.

About 10,000 other people lived there too.

I've seen the sun 5 times.

I've heard the sound of rain and hail and hurricane force winds.

I had 3 friends but they left the bubble with their families a year ago.

I've definitely seen my Dad.

I thought I knew a lot more.  I have other memories of course - page after page of detail.  But they've got all mixed up with the stories my Mum has told me and I can't be sure any more what I actually remember and what I don't.

And it's no good turning to the photo album for clues.  It tells the same story that Mum does - or the same lies.

Maybe this doesn't worry you? I mean, you're probably thinking: Why would my parents tell me stories that weren't true?  and So what if some parents do exaggerate a little and others rip photos out of the family album, that's not really lying, is it?

Well think again. It started a bit like that with me. And as I grew older, the lies grew and grew and I played along with every one, and learned them all by heart, like a favourite bedtime story that you've grown out of, but still need to hear. Eyes closing. Safe. Suffocated.

And I come here, and find that you are all being fed the same comforting stories. Although I bet the stories you prefer are the rumours, the horror stories that no one's supposed to tell.

Help needed

A page of my mind is missing. Several pages. A whole chapter. It feels like they've flicked it open and torn out page after page. They're trying to rewrite it. They're trying to control my story. They've made me forget the parts I most want to remember.  

I know the pages are somewhere - filled with all the things they want to hide and all the memories they've crumpled up and hidden. But I can't find them. I want to tell you my story, but I can't find the best bits.

They're not the best bits because they're scary, or shocking, or unbelievably cruel - although they might be all those things - they're the best bits because they are true.  I want to tell you my story, but the only story I've learned to tell is theirs.

So I'm asking for your help.  I want to find the missing pages before it's too late - the bits that are true and honest.  The bits that are me.