Chapter Text
It all started after work—I walked to my house in St. Georges Holm. The time was 7:00 pm currently. As I walked I watched other wellies head into their homes preparing for curfew. I waved at a few of the bobbies
“Lovely day for it!” I said to them in a rather jolly tone.
The bobbies tipped their hats at me and continued their usual patrols. After about 15 minutes I made it to my house. When I got in I took off my steel toe boots and got out of my chemical stained jumpsuit and lab coat and threw them into the laundry basket. Putting on my pants and sweater I walked to my couch and flopped down on it. My bottle of joy was sitting on the coffee table. I reached for it, twisted the cap and took one when all of a sudden I felt very nauseous, light headed and kept seeing eyes on everything. Soon after taking them everything went black.
A few hours later I came to. It was 2:00 am. At this moment I knew— I had to quit working for Dr. Verloc. The waste from the joy production probably was negatively affecting me and turning me into a Downer. Looking around my living room I grabbed a pen and paper and began writing my resignation letter. By the time I finished it and got it into the blower it was 2:30 am.
“Great. I’m out of a job and a downer. Maybe I can contact Sally Boyle and ask her about possibly getting a joy substitute.” I spoke out loud to myself. “I’ll go see her at 8:00. Lets hope I can remember too. My memory is a bit fuzzy right now” I once again spoke out loud to myself. I made my way to my bed whilst remembering things… things joy made me forget. Laying on my back the white ceiling made me remember all the sleepless nights I had talking to my sister. The sounds of us giggling would fill the room… until mum and dad came in and yelled at us. I wish I could remember why we haven’t talked in ages. Eventually my eyes went heavy and I fell asleep. I had a dream. I was in a train station with mum and dad when the train whistle blew and then…
Beep. Beep. Beep.
I woke up. Sunlight hit my face as I sat up. I rolled out of bed and sluggishly walked to my wardrobe and got my navy blue skirt, beige button down and red sweater on. I left the house and made my way to Sally Boyle’s house. Good thing her house was close to mine.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Was the sound Sally’s white door made as my fist knocked on it. My foot tapped against the brick road. I hummed the song Rule Britannia because I heard a bobby whistling it in the distance. Soon enough I heard the door handle twist. I was greeted by Sally Boyle. She looked just as pretty as she did last time I saw her. She smiled at me
“Edie! Come on in, it's been too long since we last saw each other!” Sally spoke.
“Alright.” I uttered as I walked in.
She shut the door.
“Edie, are you off your Joy?”
“How could you tell?”
“Well Edie you're supposed to be at the lab with Dr. Verloc”
“Oh yeah I uh… quit this morning.”
“Did Anton fight with you?”
“Well no… I quit because…” I began to whisper.
“I am currently a full downer. I can't take joy or it’ll make me sick. That's why I came here. I need the recipe for sunshine.”
“I can give it to you.”
“You can?! No strings attached?” I knew with Sally there were usually strings attached.
“Well… I need some more cloth if you can get me that.”
“I think I have some in my bag”
I looked into my bag and grabbed 5 cloth scraps.
“Here you go.”
“Thank you so much Edie, you're a lifesaver.”
Sally handed her the Sunshine recipe.
“No Thank you Sally. This is gonna save me from the Garden District… hopefully.”
I said goodbye to Sally and left for home. While I walked home I thought about what the fuck I was gonna do. I was a jobless downer now. Life is gonna get harder from here. This sucks.
Mindlessly I walked into Dogberry Park. Inside of the park was Benedick Keyes. Benedick made a drug called Mojo that makes you smell like doctors apparently.
“Benedick!”
“Edith! How have you been?”
“Good! Do you still have the Mojo recipe?”
“Yeah!”
“Can I have it?”
“Sure. if you get me some flowers to give to Beatrice. Since you're a girl you might have a better idea on what flowers to pick!”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
I walked around the park and picked a bouquet of flowers. There were some roses of gilead, so I put those in the bouquet too. I went back to Benedick and handed him the bouquet.
“Here you go. I hope she likes it!” I said in the most cheerful tone I could muster.
“I hope she does too! Anyway, here's the recipe!”
Benedick slipped the recipe for mojo into my hand.
“Thank you Benedick! I hope things go well.”
I continued my commute home. On my walk home I looked around at my surroundings. Everything was so grey, dull and depressing. The air smelt like chemicals and looking around I began to realise just how fake everything felt. Defocused and lost in thought I stopped paying full attention to what was in front of me. Soon enough I walked into someone I fell into the person. The person had caught me
“Ma’am are you alright?”
Oh god. The person I walked into was a bobby. I stood up straight and fixed my clothing.
“I’m alright! Constable, thank you for asking!” I said in the same plastic cheerful tone the normal wellies spoke in.
“Be careful where you're walking ma’am you could have gotten very hurt.”
This constable was different looking from the other constables. He had bright blue eyes like the other bobbies but they had a greenish colour in the center. This Bobby also smelt very good. Most of the bobbies smell good but he smelt like lavender and vanilla.
“Have a good day constable! Sorry for the inconvenience” I spoke as I walked away.
I was shaken up from the encounter with the bobby so when I got home I brushed my teeth and got into my pajamas. I layed in bed and stared at the ceiling. My memory began to clear up a little more. As I drifted off to sleep I began to dream. In my dream I was with my sister in our bedroom.
“I don’t WANT to go to Germany” She shouted at me
“Well Hazel you have to… think about it as your part in the path to victory.”
“I don’t care about this STUPID ‘Path to victory’”
“Hazel there's not much we can do, you have to go to Germany… How about this… what if I walked you to the train and gave you a hug goodbye”
“I’M NOT GOING ON THAT STUPID TRAIN.”
I heard our mum yell from the kitchen for us and the dream ended.