Centre (Inspi for something promising)

Centre (Inspi for something promising)

-BEGINNINGS-

“What if I told you…that I think this place we live in isn’t real?” I said sheepishly to her. Mimi stared at me blankly for two seconds, and then broke out in her usual, goofy, mocking laugh. I glared at her, hardly believing that we were sisters. “I’m serious!”

“Then I would say you’re crazy, Fay!” she giggled, struggling to breathe. “There’ll be a padded white room with the name Fayrebourne Davies on the door one day if you keep that up!”

My cheeks flushed red with anger. “So if everything we know is a lie, what will you say then? I won’t accept an apology!”

She shook her head, still laughing, and covered her eyes with her hand. “Go to bed, squirt. You’re saner when you’re not tired. I’m tired, too, and I have to work tomorrow, so no more ‘late night meetings’. Mr. Pecchi almost bludgeoned me with a piece of PVC pipe yesterday because I fell asleep at the desk. It’ll be your fault if I get fired.”

I rolled onto my back and then shifted to my side. “I mean, think about it, Mim,” I continued to whisper over a yawn, “what is everyone really afraid of beyond Centre? What if there’s just…nothing out there? And everyone’s been duped into believing the world’s out there, but it’s terrifying, so no one ever travels out of Centre that’s born here?”

“Shut up and go to bed,” Mimi mumbled angrily. “Stop talking nonsense.”

I sighed. I could wholly believe that Centre was just Centre, and nothing existed beyond it. Why else would there be the false impression that the world is frightening? That’s not the way they taught about it in school. And that’s not what I would believe, either. If there was a world beyond Centre, I wanted to see it. If there wasn’t (which I was 90 percent sure of), I wanted to learn more about where we actually did live, and why they taught us about a United States of America that never existed.