People tend to get sick during the winter. It’s rarely anything more serious than a flu. Outsiders tend to accuse HOME of having too many strict laws, but we don’t criminalize nor demonize getting ill in the same way LOVERS do. The development of modern medicine was miraculous at the beginning but gradually caused more problems with society. There is of course nothing wrong with wanting to heal the sick, but people of the old world became paranoid of random illnesses and no longer trusted their immune systems.
This was caused by propaganda from pharmaceutical companies (whose owners would end up becoming members of the elite and government of LOVE) that lied to people and told them that getting ill was a failure of morality, that getting someone else ill was to make you no different than a murderer, that you needed to replace God with toxic pills and vaccines. This worship of poisonous modern medicine was a major factor in the end of the Old World.
Then the lies about the so-called ‘deadly spores’ was pushed by governments worldwide. This lie was used to forcefully lock people in their homes, forced to cover their entire faces and bodies when outside, and use them as guinea pigs to try out whatever pills or injections that scientists had come up with. Human beings naturally have no morals, which is why they cling to moral leaders in order to decide what’s ‘right’ and what’s ‘wrong’. Where I live, we use God as our moral leader, to LOVERS and their precursors, ‘science’ was their moral leader.
That’s why as the world was fracturing, the people who would become the first LOVERS were more than happy to follow the illogical lies about the ‘deadly spores’ and got great satisfaction out of persecuting those who even so much as mildly questioned things. It only got worse as LOVE was formed, refusing monthly ‘medicine treatments’ from the government could cause you to lose LOVE POINTS. I remember Mr. C once told me that when people get sick in LOVE, tests will be done in the residential tower to see who gave them their illness, and the culprit will have LOVE POINTS reduced, even if the culprit was mere asymptomatic at the time. Indeed, merely existing as a human being in LOVE means you’re always at risk for losing LOVE POINTS
Thankfully I wasn’t born in LOVE. Although I may have my struggles here, people from HOME at least understand that getting sick is a part of human life. Catching someone else’s cold isn’t the end of the world, and we would only ever get mad at someone for making us sick if they say, coughed or sneezed in our direction on purpose. You are not a bad person for getting ill, nor are you deserving of mockery, hatred, or persecution for not wanting to deal with poisonous modern medicine. That’s why I hold no resentment towards the person who gave me this illness, whoever they are. It is unpleasant though, I’ve been vomiting an awful lot, and my feverish body is making me sweat like it’s the middle of summer.
“Poor Marco…”
Erica and Isabella are standing by my bed. Isabella places an empty bucket by the bed. It’s the bucket I’d been vomiting in and she just finished washing it. She’s been acting as a nurse for me, and I should really return the favor once I’m healthy again.
“It looks like he’s going to miss Christmas mass.”
It’s Christmas Eve and my family is dressed up for church. Christmas mass is always one of the biggest events of the year, and even those who usually skip Sunday mass attend the Christmas mass. Not only that, but even though the mass is at midnight, my family are leaving in the early evening to visit with family friends and other relatives. My absence will be noticed, but there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
“…Thanks for taking care of me. Be sure to give grandma and grandpa my regards when you see them.”
I speak to my sisters while sitting up in bed.
“Mother made you a bowl of tomato soup you can have if you get hungry.”
My parents and Dina enter the room to give their goodbyes.
“You’ve been working hard this winter…Looks like it was a bit too much for your body. Be sure to rest up!”
Father seems to be the most relaxed out of everyone. He’s the kind of man who sees exhaustion as a sign of working hard, so he probably thinks I’ve earned my rest. I’d prefer it if I could rest without vomiting and sweating so much though.
“We’re heading out now. We’ll be home late. You just rest now.”
My mother lays a wet cloth on my face as she gives her goodbyes. I close my eyes to rest more as I hear the sound of my family’s footsteps and them leaving the house I shift around for a bit trying to sleep, but it’s just not coming so I decide to get out of bed. I feel so sweaty and disgusting. I really want to take a bath, but walking to the bath house in this weather is a terrible idea. Well…nobody will be home for a while, so I could probably take my pajamas off for a bit. I hesitantly remove my pajama shirt and trousers. Despite knowing that nobody’s going to be home in a while I still can’t help but feel nervous. I mentally tell myself I’ll be fine and that it’s not wrong because I’ll still be leaving my undergarments on.
After the shirt and trousers are off, I lay them on my bed, and I can feel a slight coolness against my sweaty body. It feels nice. Right, mom made me tomato soup for dinner? Sounds good, and it’s been a while since I last vomited so I may be okay as long as I don’t eat it too fast. I walk slowly out of my room and towards the dining room, still feeling nervous about someone possibly walking in on me. Even if I’m not naked, it’d be a real problem if Dina or Erica saw me like this. The house is silent and filled with only the sounds of me sitting myself down and eating soup. The silence of the house leaves me alone with my thoughts.
My mind is a bit foggy, but it’s much clearer than it was yesterday. In an odd way, getting ill like this has given me a break from the general grind of life…and thinking about how I’ll have to return back to that grind once I feel better. No matter how much effort I put into being with Gloria, my friends, or working at the shop, I still feel unhappy deep down inside. I still have those weird thoughts of what life would be like if I were a woman, or if I had been born in the old world. Most disturbingly, I’m beginning to have thoughts of ‘what if I’d been born in the territories or LOVE?’. I know there are a lot of problems with LOVE are and the territories, but surely some of it is exaggerated for propaganda?
I understand that LOVE is a society that forces propaganda onto its people, but how can the people of my home state, if not the entirety of HOME, be so certain that there’s absolutely no propaganda forced onto us either? I remember my interactions with Mr. C. We had our disagreements, but we got along and I liked hearing his stories. But somehow me interacting with him was a problem because he’s a Jew? Everyone here is so proud of being Italian, but we don’t even live in Italy can’t ever visit Italy, and we’re all just okay with that? Is modern technology really the one reason why society went downhill? Could my teachers have been exaggerating their claims about LOVE?
“…”
I of course can’t talk about these thoughts to anyone, not even at confessional. Talking to Elliot about them would most likely just make my thoughts worse. I fear that my problems have extended beyond my struggles with masculinity.
“…I need to do something about this…”
I mumble to no one in particular as I finish my soup and put the dishes away. The soup was only room temperature when I ate it, and I can feel the foolishness of my decision to strip my clothes off as the cold of the winter makes me shiver. I should get redressed and head back to bed. As I head back to my bedroom, I see the door to the bedroom of my sisters slightly ajar. I should probably close it. I walk up to the door to close it, but I stop when I get a look inside my sisters’ room.
There are three bedrooms in my house. One for my parents, one for the daughters, and one for the sons. Since I’m the only son in the house, that means my bedroom has always been exclusively for me. When I was child, I would visit my sisters in their bedroom fairly often to play with them. This habit eventually stopped when I realized that being with my sisters so often made me too feminine, so it’s been a while since I was last inside this room. The most major change I notice are Dina and Erica’s beds. The last time I was here, those two were toddlers who were too small for regular beds. I do remember when carpenters were called in to make their regular sized beds though.
There are three beds (one average, and one bunk bed), a closet, two desk drawers, a vanity table with a mirror, a bookshelf, and a toy chest. It’s pretty obvious that Isabella sleeps in the normal bed in the left side of the room whereas the younger girls sleep in the bunk bed on the right side of the room. Looking at the bunk bed, I can even tell that Erica sleeps on the bottom bunk while Dina sleeps on the top bunk as the stuffed rabbit that Erica’s had ever since she was an infant is lying on the bottom bunk. I decide to walk over to the vanity table.
There’s a silver necklace lying on it. This is a necklace that Isabella got for her 16th birthday. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s a gift that she’s always cherished, although she doesn’t wear it very often, most likely because she doesn’t want to risk ruining it. On the rare occasions Isabella wears this necklace, it always looks so lovely on her. I’ve always been envious on how women can wear nice things when men can wear no more than their wedding rings.
I want to try on Isabella’s necklace. It’s not a big deal, right? I know I shouldn’t, but everyone’s out of the house and they won’t be back until late. I’ll just do it tonight, and I’ll never do it again, no harm will be done if it’s just a little thing.
But that’s what I said about the camisole too…
Without thinking I sit myself down at the vanity desk, pick up the necklace, and clasp it around my neck. It looks well…It’s still a nice looking necklace, but it doesn’t look good on a sickly teenage boy at all. I go back to my room to fish out the camisole from the latest hiding spot I had it in, and look in my bedroom mirror.
“…Ugh…”
I still have nothing covering my undergarments. I don’t look like a lady at all. I would need to wear one of Isabella’s dresses to-
Wait, what am I doing? The camisole was already problem enough, now I’m wearing my sister’s special necklace too. Why am I even considering wearing one of her dresses!?
“…”
I walk back to my sisters’ room. Right, I need to take this necklace off, take the camisole off, put my pajamas back on and get back to bed. My illness is making me act strange, and I need to stop. But despite thinking that, despite knowing that, I feel the urge to look through the closet by Isabella’s bed. I should ignore this urge, but I guess my fogged up mind made me walk towards the closet door and open it. Inside are all of Isabella’s clothes. All the clothes that she wore as a child were handed down to Dina and Erica. I can see all of her dresses, shirts, skirts, stockings, and undergarments hanging in the closet, and her shoes neatly laid on the floor of it.
I can feel my heart beating hard. I’m about to do something terrible. Something that I will have to take to the grave with me. I could stop. I should stop. But I’m not. I step into the closet and examine my older sister’s clothing with fascination. There’s a light blue dress with white frills that catches my attention. It’s fine. Nobody will be home for a long time, as long as I only do this for tonight and never again, I can be forgiven. With that in mind I carefully pull the skirt off its hanger and uneasily start dressing myself. I struggle a little, but it doesn’t take too long for me to get the dress on. Like the camisole, it’s a bit loose in the chest area, but it otherwise seems to fit me okay. I step out of the closet to look at myself in the vanity mirror.
I look…okay? Well, I suppose I’m still sickly, I don’t have a feminine haircut, and I obviously lack any breasts. But I don’t think I look too terrible. Maybe it’s the illness talking, but I can’t help but like I could make for a pretty looking girl with enough effort. I’ll let myself stay in this dress for a few minutes before changing back into my normal clothes.
“…!?…?!…”
I suddenly hear voices coming from outside. Who’s out there? Nobody should be visiting us tonight. Is it thieves? Damn, I can’t have anyone see me dressed like this, but if it’s thieves then I need to find something to fight them with. I leave the girls’ room, and head to the kitchen to find father’s gun.
“…Dina it’s okay, you’re just sick…”
As the voices get closer, I hear the clear sound of my mother’s voice, and my blood runs cold. I need to run, but I can’t. But even if I could run, there’s no way I’d have the time to hide in the few seconds before my family opens the door, so I stay frozen. And the door opens.
“Let’s get you to bed…”
My family is standing at the front door staring at me. Mother is helping keep Dina steady, whose dress is disheveled and has vomit stains on it. I see. Dina caught my illness and everyonehad to return home early because of that, and now they’ve walked in on me dressed in Isabella’s clothes. My father is first person to react.
“Marco…What the hell are you doing?”
He looks confused. I don’t blame him.
“…”
I have no response. There is no excuse that could save me here, not even “My illness was making me act strange” would work because…what illness has ever caused someone to cross dress in their sister’s clothes? I keep standing there frozen. Isabella steps into the house, her face looking more and more distressed as she gets closer to me.
“Marco…Why are you wearing my necklace?”
Again, I can’t respond. “Because I wanted to” may be the truth, but it’s terrible to say.
“You stole your sister’s necklace!?”
Now father’s mad. He storms up to me and grabs me by the collar of the dress. The camisole underneath the dress becomes visible to both him and Isabella. Isabella’s eyes widen.
“That’s…That’s the camisole I thought I lost…You…You stole it!?”
Isabella’s face contorts into that of someone who feels betrayed. I can hear mother hurriedly shuffling the younger girls to their bedroom. Father is now looking at me with fury in his eyes.
“You…You stole your sister’s clothing so you could dress up like a pervert!? You piece of shit!”
Father punches me in the face. He may not be the strongest man out there but working a farm means that he has a decent strength, and I know I’m going to get a black eye from that. He then punches me in the stomach, which hurts far more than the punch to the face, and I end up coughing up some stomach bile from it.
“F-Father, please stop.”
Isabella tries to place herself between the both of us, which manages to distract father for a bit.
“Don’t you care that your brother is a thief and a pervert!?”
“I do care, but you know Dina and Erica can hear this commotion in our room and it’s going to upset them!”
Isabella isn’t one to talk back to our parents, but she’s not backing down and stares into father’s eyes. After what feels like half a minute of staring, father relents and releases me from his grip.
“…Fine, you deal with him. I’m going for a walk.”
He leaves the two of us alone and storms out the house. Only Isabella and me are left at the entrance of the house. Her gaze turns to me.
“Take off everything that isn’t yours Marco.”
Her voice is cold with no emotion. I do as she says and remove the necklace, dress, and camisole. She then takes the bundle of clothing from me. The face Isabella gives to me is one of deep emotional pain. Seeing that face hurts me far more than any of father’s punches did.
“…Why did you do this?”
Tears are forming in her eyes as she asks me. Even though I know there’s no good answer to this question, I have to be honest.
“I…”
But how do I explain everything?
“…I wanted to feel like a woman.”
That was the best explanation I could give. Isabella gives no response to that answer, nor does her facial expression change. She just silently walks off with her clothes in hand, leaving me alone, with the understanding that my life is never going to be the same again.
Author’s Note: So, I’m just gonna stop making promises on when chapters are released because even without writer’s block I still suck at releasing chapters in a reasonable fucking time. I should really work on that next year. Not much more to say about this chapter beyond DRAMA.
