Chapter Text
Dear Gilead,
No. This isn’t dear to you – is it? Suppose it depends on your choice of definition. ‘Dear’ can mean something in close proximity: nearby, imminent. Shakespeare used it to express severe dismay. It can also denote something heartfelt, affectionate; fondly and highly valued. Precious. There’s no fucking way Gilead is precious to you. But the other meanings, well, are unsettlingly true. It sits next to your pumping heart the same way an oil spill blankets a body of water, a thin toxic veil suffocating the unsullied bride – in that way, it can be described as heartfelt. You find no value in its existence. But to go against its grain, to push back against its tide of restrictions and roles and repression, would be costly. Fatal.
There’s no need to explain dismay.
When thinking about the start of your life here, it’s easy to say you were stolen and dragged into this world. But you were never really taken away. The soil beneath your feet was once American soil, belonging to a nation you called your own. You tried to escape it, even, when you first began to see what was happening around you. Gilead just brought you back.
It trained you to be a vessel. On the surface, your purpose was to bear a child – a collection of growing cells inside your uterus that would become a tiny swaddled life (if all went well). You were told God blessed you and forgave your previous sins, your dirtiness, by giving you fertility: Gilead’s gold. You were a walking womb with no strings attached in its eyes. Soon, though, after the shock wore away and you had already passed from one household to another, you began to understand the depths of Gilead’s grasp on you. Your worth didn’t only lie between your legs – it lived in your mind.
Over time, Gilead softens your skull (becoming much like the baby you are tasked to produce) and seeps farther into your brain as you sink deeper into it. Day after day it tears down your mental barriers until you start forgetting where you drew the lines in the first place. You’re that piece of candy at the bottom of the jar that soaks up the taste of the dust and the newer sweets around it, while its wrapper never betrays a thing. Your appearance is unchanged, but what’s inside has been permeated by the sugarcoated world surrounding you.
In Gilead, the most dangerous are also the most subtle. You'll learn that quickly enough, and maybe one day you'll be able to use it to your advantage. Who would have thought the empty-minded vessel would turn out to be a threat?
Gilead. Soon, it'll understand that it should never have told you not to think.