Editing Secret Letter to a Friend: Bouquets

The following is a transcribed document from a Fleur Plucket AKA Bouquets AKA Kaye sending a secret letter to their friend Emerald Dayz two months after she was exiled from the city. 

Dated: April 14, 2059.

Dear Em, 

You will not believe how much I’ve missed you these last couple of months. It’s bad enough that I had to start afresh in an unknown place but to not have you there beside me while doing it was the worst part. I have made some friends here, though. I met a girl named Wendy who has been here a year and she is in her 30s like us. She has been a big support for me and helped me acclimatize well. But no one can replace you. 

I was told before I left that you would be notified that I had been exiled. I’m assuming you probably thought they were playing a joke or something. Paragon to Unforgivable all within a day? Practically unheard of. And me of all people? I knew it would sound insane to you. And leaving without getting to say goodbye or explain what actually happened was extremely tough. I hate that you went this whole time probably believing whatever the officials told you. 

Let me tell you what actually happened. As I was leaving my apartment that Monday morning, I stepped out to be met with 2 uniformed men who approached me. They told me that they were officers and that I was under investigation for a murder that occurred on Sunday. I was appalled and stunned but I was so afraid to let my emotions take over and risk getting a strike that I just complied with what they wanted. They immediately took me to a court-like room and asked me a bunch of questions. I told them that I had a lazy Sunday and the only time I went outside was around 1pm. to go buy a bouquet for my kitchen table from Dolores down the street. Not the best alibi, I know, but it was the truth. Apparently the murder occurred around 8pm. so being at home was probably not helpful for my case. Anyway, they showed me footage of a girl in an alleyway getting into a fight with this guy and the girl pushed him so hard he fell and hit his head on the brick wall and died. It was horrible footage and I’ve woken up many times these last 2 months from nightmares of the exact video. I can’t seem to erase it. I digress. The judge and counsel kept pressing me to divulge details that I did not have. Eventually, they came right out and said that the surveillance camera in the street was able to pick up the face identification and it came back as a 99% match to my face. Imagine my shock when I heard that. I didn’t know what to say. How could that be? Was I sleepwalking and I didn’t know it? Are they framing me? So many thoughts were going through my head but I knew right then and there that it was not good news for me. When in the last 4 years have the courts had 99% identification match for murder and they did not get exiled? I was this goody-two-shoes, follow every rule, straight As, kind of girl and yet someone this was my fate. It all came crumbling down. They let me pack one suitcase from my apartment (luckily a large one) and I was on an old school bus to exaltation by early the next morning. 

They took me to a place the “locals” call “Forsaken Haven” or as you probably know it, the land of exaltation. It was about a 6 hour drive. When we arrived, everything looked pretty grey. The buildings were grey, the streets were grey, and the skies matched. I could see why no one wants to go here. As you get off the bus, you enter a facility that places you in certain housing based on your history, skills, and job. They also do a risk assessment to see how likely you are to break rules. Publishing is seemingly not a common job for unforgivables so I was placed in one of the better housing units as a means of saying that my writing and reading abilities were useful to the community. I’m also as docile as they come so I don’t think they were too afraid of me. As I walked beyond that grey facility and into the centre community, it is like everything changes. There were trees and flowers and colour. I got into my housing unit and wasn’t too displeased. It was as if I was renting a small studio apartment. One bathroom and one large area that connects to the smallest kitchen unit. Honestly, better than I was expecting. They give people convicted of murder a lot of freedom here, I guess. We have a library and a courtyard and further behind the facility is a lake. I was placed in the library to do some community work. I expected this to be a lot more like a prison than it actually is, much to my benefit. Wendy works in the library with me. She got exiled for getting caught jaywalking 3 times. She says she has punctuality issues and the courts would not see beyond it. Seems silly to me but I know how strict the security is with their enforcement. Wendy was a journalist. Her and I work together organizing the banned and unwanted books from the city. The books feel close to home. Not only because of the publishing, but because in a lot of ways the books are just metaphors for all of us here in the Forsaken Haven. Eventually, I will train under Wendy to help other people learn to read and write. Many people here have given birth and are raising children that need to learn basic skills. I’ve dropped into some of her classes and it warms my heart to see the children so interested in what she is saying. We have no technology that connects to the city so there is nothing for the kids to get distracted by. I was so shocked to see how present they were. All of these 4 year olds being so excited to learn without any technology in front of them is something I’ve only seen in the history books. They also were so inquisitive. They had no fears about being judged or saying something wrong. I wish I grew up in a world that did not judge so immensely. These kids know no different. Everyone in the Forsaken Haven have been judged at the highest level that there is no point in doing any further judging here. Everyone just is. For kids stuck within a small radiance, their imagination goes beyond their boundaries. All I could think about is how our future fiction books are in the best hands. It makes me hopeful for our future for the first time in a long time. Hopefully I can put my abilities to use and find some purpose teaching them. 

Twice a month, Tyson, the book delivery man, drops off books for us at the library. He usually sits down for half an hour and tells us about what is going on in the city. Wendy and I have developed a good bond with Tyson and he told me that he would drop off this letter for you. I cannot repay him enough. He also let me know that there are a whole bunch of original paper records in the back storage that had been uploaded to the system in the city and were sent here so that they would not create waste in the city.

This gave me an idea. I needed to do my own investigation into how my face was seen on this surveillance. One evening, I had a dream that I was a little girl again in my old room. I was lying down on my bed and in my hand was the book The Lying Game by Sara Shepard. I woke up and thought about that dream. I started thinking about that book and remembered how the twin sister was impersonating the other sister. It gave me an idea. I stayed late that night at the library and looked through all of the birth records from my birthdate. I found my name and then attached to my folder was a paper with my mom’s name on it. On that paper were adoptive signatures. The paper also had the name of my birth mother. I went to her record folder and found that she had identical twin girls and kept one and gave the other up for adoption. It all made so much sense. The only way someone could have 99% face identification was if they had the same exact face as me. I would’ve thought the system would be sophisticated enough to detect the difference but maybe she’s not in our systems or something. I tried to find her name so I could get you to give it to the courts but she must have taken the father’s last name or changed her name and I have no written records of that. I’ve kinda accepted my fate anyways. 

Honestly, sometimes I don’t wish to go back to the city. Yeah I cannot leave this small area, and yeah I don’t have a whole lot of freedom. And of course I don’t have you here. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows all the time. I still have to do my community hour chores and sometimes I don’t feel the safest knowing I’m among people who have actually murdered people, but it’s a lot better than I was expecting and I want you to know that I am doing okay. I’ve had a lot of time to reflect in these 2 months and I have realized that life in the city is not much better. Perfection is definitely not all that it seems. Sometimes you need to be away from a situation to truly understand how badly it treated you. Remember when I was a teenager and used to pick fresh flowers from my backyard and create little bouquets for you? I stopped doing it 4 years ago because I was afraid that I would somehow ruin plants or do anything wrong that would get me in trouble because of a rule that I did not know. Remember how we used to have those late-night karaoke nights? I stopped inviting you because I was scared to get a disturbance complaint. I was so afraid to do anything wrong in the city that I stopped doing everything I loved. It can’t get any worse than where I am now so I’ve learned to let my hair down, literally. I’ve been inspired by the kids and stopped putting so much pressure on myself and started picking flowers in the park again. 
I hope you are doing well.

Miss you,
Kaye.