The Change

            The Change happened. It was the biggest thing that had happened in Gem’s life. He was to be taken from Donoterase to another place. Out of Donoterase! To a new place, new walls, new rooms, new people. He paced around his room, wondering what it would be like. Would he—would he get to see outside? Perhaps as they traveled…

            One of the things Gem had never been able to hide was his curiosity. He tried to learn everything he could about everyone and everything around him, to somehow put a picture together about the outside world. It was a dark, dangerous place, he knew that from his simulations, but it was also wide and intriguing. He observed the things people brought in to Donoterase and tried to figure out what they were for. He listened to conversations—about cars breaking down, about dates, about a football game—and he tried it imagine what all these things were like. He’d seen flowers once, carried past him by a woman, bright, fragrant things that glowed in his mind when he remembered them. He had seen people eating things he had never seen before, round red things that crunched and square brown things in plastic packages. What exactly was chocolate? he wondered.    

            Once he had heard someone say, “Merry Christmas,” like a greeting, and he always wondered what it meant. Merry—happy—laughing. Christmas was meant to be pleasant. An event maybe, or a time, since people always said, “Good morning,” and “Have a nice day.” An event for merriment. He couldn’t quite imagine it, but sometimes he said it over to himself. “Merry Christmas, Gem.”

            Once he had seen someone give another person a box covered in brightly-colored paper and the person had admired it, smiling, then—strangely—ripped apart the paper she had admired, open the box, and pull out a shirt. Which was strange. Why would you put a shirt in a box and then decorate the box, only to have someone destroy your work and take out the shirt? The woman had looked pleased. She had hugged the person who gave her the box, and her friend looked as pleased as she did. It was most perplexing, but it had given Gem something interesting to mull over for days. Why did other people do these things, but he didn’t?

            But now the Change was coming, and he might get to experience some of those things other people got to experience. He could never be like other people; he knew that, and he didn’t want to be. But he wanted to know what it was like.