His name was Walter.
He had been named after his grandfather. There was the original Walter, and then Walter Junior,
which was him. His first memories: blinding light. The drone of words. A sharp cry- an
impassioned cry- and fragments of smiles.
His first emotion: fear.
Mother and Father were always there to soothe him, to love him. It was this love that was his
whole world. A world of two halves. A big and scary one; and one with Mother and Father. It was
this presence- this theredness- that characterised love. Walter knew that Mother and Father
would be there, and they would not leave.
His happiness consisted of:
The aforementioned theredness of Mother and Father
Slipping away into a world of his own making where down was up and up was down and people
could do whatever they wanted to do at any time.
And so Walter’s first years passed like a summer rain, like a strange and wonderful dream in the
early hours of the morning.
~
When Walter was of the appropriate age, he was sent with all of the other children to the Block.
This would be his second home for the foreseeable future. At least, until he was ready to
‘integrate into society’, as Father had told him.
A soldier with a face that creased and a voice that flayed. He was a scarer, and the children were
scared- all wide blue eyes and pale skin turning paler by the minute. But excited. This was their
rebirth; this was where the grown ups came from, where the serious soldiers got their guns. That
would all come in due time.
First: the dread of roll call.
“Schmidt, Walter!”
“Present!”
“You will be Seven.”
He was an executioner, and the axe went down. ‘7’ was emblazoned across Walter’s wrist in
black ink. Laying there like a dead fish.
“My name is Seven,” said Walter. He sat.
“Mayer, Anna!”
“Present!”
“Eight.”
“My name is Eight,” said Anna.
“Fischer, Hans!”
“Present!”
“Nine.”
“My name is Nine,” said Hans.
“Ten,” said Noah.
“Eleven,” said Luis.
“Twelve,” said-
~
School.
A cold day. The sharp words and dull attentiveness of a lecture.
“You’re broken.” The teacher began. The children reeled. Broken? What did that mean? She tried
to explain.
“Look outside- do you see the other children?” (Yes, they saw the other children). “You’re not
allowed to play with them. They’ve been fixed. They’re Good children. Now you, on the other
hand-“ pity filled her eyes- “You’re Bad children. We will teach you to be Good soon enough.”
Walter watched her with fascination. Her face seemed to be frozen in an almost religious
exultation- her movements solemn, her wrinkles joining hands. Even her silences held weight,
each word carefully crafted and delivered on a golden platter.
“Yes, Miss,” chorused the Bad Children.
She looked affronted. “No, no, none of that. We all need to call each other by our numbers now.
You’ve been given your numbers, yes?”
“Yes-“ they answered, the end of the sentence flopping to the floor, awkward and confused.
“You will call me Eighty Two. Now, you try.” She drew herself up, the black ‘82’ on her wrist
beaming proudly. “Yes, Eighty Two.”
“Yes, Eighty Two.”
“Good.”
That was the first lesson.
The second lesson manifested itself when Walter came home for dinner. Mother had sat him down
and showed him the lovely curves and ears of a ‘25’ on her wrist.
“From now on, you call me Twenty Five, okay?” She smiled. “What number did they give you?”
“A seven,” said Walter. “But Mother, I’m not really named Seven, am I? My name is Walter.”
“Well, yes...”
“So why did the man say my name was Seven? And your name is Mother. Walter and Mother. Not
Seven and... oh, what was it again?”
“Twenty Five,” she replied. Her smile faltered. She leaned forward to rest on her elbows. Her gaze
bore into his, pleading.
“...Seven.” The word sat on the table like a slug. It oozed. “That’s your new name now, do you
understand? Walter was your old name, but now...”
“My old name? But-“
“And now, your new name is Seven. It’s just like... getting... new clothes, you see? Only this time
it’s your name.”
“But-“
“Do you understand?” Mother said curtly, in a voice that sounded like this was Serious Business,
even though her eyes were sad and didn’t quite meet his.
Walter nodded.
He didn’t understand.
~
Drills: of the up, down, up, down variety.
Feet scuffing the road.
All of the Good Children were perfectly healthy, they said. Good at sports and good at fighting.
Good at eradicating enemies. Despite the sweat that watered the concrete, all had smiles on their
faces. They were so grateful- oh, how wonderful it was to be Good!
It was as he was going up, then down again, that the world took an alarming shift and Walter saw
it.
An it- him? Her? No, it couldn’t be a human being. Humans didn’t have coat-hanger spines and
wire arms. Humans didn’t make dying noises when they opened their mouth. They didn’t have the
smell of desperation clinging to their skin.
Walter simply stared with concern. The beginnings of a question blossomed on his tongue. Before
it could leap out, a soldier went to the thing and said words that made Walter cry and wonder how
someone so Good could be so mean.
~
Bad Children asked questions.
Was Walter a Bad Child after all?
He had asked one during class. The teacher- an intimidating hulk called Forty Two- was leading a
biology lesson. On the wall, a mural came to life in chalk. There was a pathetic little rabbit- all
buck teeth and scrawniness- being eaten by a wolf. The wolf represented the soldiers, he
explained. The rabbit represented all those who were ‘different’ (a word that grown-ups used to
mean ‘Bad’).
Forty Two’s gaze landed on Walter and ripped him out of his chair by the collar.
“Seven!”
“Yes, Forty Two!”
“Explain why the wolf did the right thing in this situation.”
“I- I-“ he took a deep breath and tried again. Stuttering was not allowed. “I don’t think the wolf did
the right thing. I think...” He remembered the thing he had seen and how sad it had seemed to
him. He remembered the scary words of the soldier. “...the rabbit was treated badly. It did nothing
wrong and the wolf ate it anyway!”
Walter had a funny feeling that what he had said was very, very Bad. He wished he could snatch
back the words; but there they were, loud and clumsy and shivering under Forty Two’s glare.
“Wrong answer, Seven. The rabbit deserved it. The strong defeat the weak, and are defeated by
the stronger still. This is how our world works.” He punctuated the end of his sentence by jabbing
a cross onto his crude semblance of a rabbit. Screech. Screech.
“But- Mother-“ he caught himself- “Twenty Five taught me the Golden Rule! She said to treat
people the way you want them to treat you! Even if they are a bit different,” Walter added.
Forty Two looked up sharply. “Twenty Five. Is that so. I believe she needs a reminder about what
kind of... filth she is teaching her children.”
Judging from the depth of his scowl, Walter didn’t think that reminder would be very pleasant.
“But, Forty Two- what about the golden rule?”
“I have a rule for you, Seven,” he spat. His meaty fingers curled. “Don’t. Ask. Questions.”
The lesson had been delivered immediately, and quite forcefully, into his skull. That night, the
stains of blood and shame still hanging in the ugly air, he had heard his mother crying.
He heard men shouting, too. There were the sounds of a scuffle and the door being forced open,
of heavy objects being thrown around. Mother’s cries grew fainter and fainter. Then silence.
What was-?
He bit off the thought. Only Bad Children asked questions.
Don’t. Ask. Questions.
~
The next day, Walter had been woken by a new mother- ‘Thirty Six’- at his bedroom door. She
was just like the old mother, except for the fact that her skin was a little paler and her eyes a little
more blue. The biggest change was that she was never, ever, ever, ever Bad. “Unlike Twenty Five,”
Father declared, surveying her with satisfaction.
Walter never saw one of the things again, either. One day, they had all just packed up and left,
leaving their houses behind. He didn’t know what it meant, apart from the fact that the soldiers
were very happy about it and he got a brand new coat for winter.
~
Walter’s last memory of the Block was of happiness.
His happiness consisted of this:
Graduation.
The chance to ‘integrate into society’.
The gift of a special badge that marked him, not as Bad, but as Good.
In other words: It was not Bad Child Walter who stood there, watching the ceremony. It was Good
Child Seven. And Eight, and Nine, and Ten, and... all of them were there. Marching proudly,
uniforms polished to perfection, they were Bad no longer- but obedient zealots serving a higher
cause. Their numbers shone and stood to attention in the fading afternoon air.
A sharp cry- an impassioned cry- and fragments of smiles.
And fragments of memories, left to drown in the gutters where the Bad things dwelled.
~
His name was Seven.
He suspected it had something to do with his age. Number Seven. Seven years old. Yes, he liked
it- the hiss and the way it bounced like a rock on a piece of curb. ssssssE-ven.
Many times, Seven sat outside and waited for the marching soldiers to let him join the parade as
well. Over time, he noticed something funny. They didn’t look like... people anymore. All he saw
were sharp, ironed-down creases and the same soldierly expressions on the same soldierly faces.
And the numbers... endless numbers...
One day, when Seven glanced at himself in the mirror, he realised he looked just like them now,
too. His soldierly expression broke a little bit as he smiled.
He wasn’t one of the Bad Children anymore.
He had been named after his grandfather. There was the original Walter, and then Walter Junior,
which was him. His first memories: blinding light. The drone of words. A sharp cry- an
impassioned cry- and fragments of smiles.
His first emotion: fear.
Mother and Father were always there to soothe him, to love him. It was this love that was his
whole world. A world of two halves. A big and scary one; and one with Mother and Father. It was
this presence- this theredness- that characterised love. Walter knew that Mother and Father
would be there, and they would not leave.
His happiness consisted of:
The aforementioned theredness of Mother and Father
Slipping away into a world of his own making where down was up and up was down and people
could do whatever they wanted to do at any time.
And so Walter’s first years passed like a summer rain, like a strange and wonderful dream in the
early hours of the morning.
~
When Walter was of the appropriate age, he was sent with all of the other children to the Block.
This would be his second home for the foreseeable future. At least, until he was ready to
‘integrate into society’, as Father had told him.
A soldier with a face that creased and a voice that flayed. He was a scarer, and the children were
scared- all wide blue eyes and pale skin turning paler by the minute. But excited. This was their
rebirth; this was where the grown ups came from, where the serious soldiers got their guns. That
would all come in due time.
First: the dread of roll call.
“Schmidt, Walter!”
“Present!”
“You will be Seven.”
He was an executioner, and the axe went down. ‘7’ was emblazoned across Walter’s wrist in
black ink. Laying there like a dead fish.
“My name is Seven,” said Walter. He sat.
“Mayer, Anna!”
“Present!”
“Eight.”
“My name is Eight,” said Anna.
“Fischer, Hans!”
“Present!”
“Nine.”
“My name is Nine,” said Hans.
“Ten,” said Noah.
“Eleven,” said Luis.
“Twelve,” said-
~
School.
A cold day. The sharp words and dull attentiveness of a lecture.
“You’re broken.” The teacher began. The children reeled. Broken? What did that mean? She tried
to explain.
“Look outside- do you see the other children?” (Yes, they saw the other children). “You’re not
allowed to play with them. They’ve been fixed. They’re Good children. Now you, on the other
hand-“ pity filled her eyes- “You’re Bad children. We will teach you to be Good soon enough.”
Walter watched her with fascination. Her face seemed to be frozen in an almost religious
exultation- her movements solemn, her wrinkles joining hands. Even her silences held weight,
each word carefully crafted and delivered on a golden platter.
“Yes, Miss,” chorused the Bad Children.
She looked affronted. “No, no, none of that. We all need to call each other by our numbers now.
You’ve been given your numbers, yes?”
“Yes-“ they answered, the end of the sentence flopping to the floor, awkward and confused.
“You will call me Eighty Two. Now, you try.” She drew herself up, the black ‘82’ on her wrist
beaming proudly. “Yes, Eighty Two.”
“Yes, Eighty Two.”
“Good.”
That was the first lesson.
The second lesson manifested itself when Walter came home for dinner. Mother had sat him down
and showed him the lovely curves and ears of a ‘25’ on her wrist.
“From now on, you call me Twenty Five, okay?” She smiled. “What number did they give you?”
“A seven,” said Walter. “But Mother, I’m not really named Seven, am I? My name is Walter.”
“Well, yes...”
“So why did the man say my name was Seven? And your name is Mother. Walter and Mother. Not
Seven and... oh, what was it again?”
“Twenty Five,” she replied. Her smile faltered. She leaned forward to rest on her elbows. Her gaze
bore into his, pleading.
“...Seven.” The word sat on the table like a slug. It oozed. “That’s your new name now, do you
understand? Walter was your old name, but now...”
“My old name? But-“
“And now, your new name is Seven. It’s just like... getting... new clothes, you see? Only this time
it’s your name.”
“But-“
“Do you understand?” Mother said curtly, in a voice that sounded like this was Serious Business,
even though her eyes were sad and didn’t quite meet his.
Walter nodded.
He didn’t understand.
~
Drills: of the up, down, up, down variety.
Feet scuffing the road.
All of the Good Children were perfectly healthy, they said. Good at sports and good at fighting.
Good at eradicating enemies. Despite the sweat that watered the concrete, all had smiles on their
faces. They were so grateful- oh, how wonderful it was to be Good!
It was as he was going up, then down again, that the world took an alarming shift and Walter saw
it.
An it- him? Her? No, it couldn’t be a human being. Humans didn’t have coat-hanger spines and
wire arms. Humans didn’t make dying noises when they opened their mouth. They didn’t have the
smell of desperation clinging to their skin.
Walter simply stared with concern. The beginnings of a question blossomed on his tongue. Before
it could leap out, a soldier went to the thing and said words that made Walter cry and wonder how
someone so Good could be so mean.
~
Bad Children asked questions.
Was Walter a Bad Child after all?
He had asked one during class. The teacher- an intimidating hulk called Forty Two- was leading a
biology lesson. On the wall, a mural came to life in chalk. There was a pathetic little rabbit- all
buck teeth and scrawniness- being eaten by a wolf. The wolf represented the soldiers, he
explained. The rabbit represented all those who were ‘different’ (a word that grown-ups used to
mean ‘Bad’).
Forty Two’s gaze landed on Walter and ripped him out of his chair by the collar.
“Seven!”
“Yes, Forty Two!”
“Explain why the wolf did the right thing in this situation.”
“I- I-“ he took a deep breath and tried again. Stuttering was not allowed. “I don’t think the wolf did
the right thing. I think...” He remembered the thing he had seen and how sad it had seemed to
him. He remembered the scary words of the soldier. “...the rabbit was treated badly. It did nothing
wrong and the wolf ate it anyway!”
Walter had a funny feeling that what he had said was very, very Bad. He wished he could snatch
back the words; but there they were, loud and clumsy and shivering under Forty Two’s glare.
“Wrong answer, Seven. The rabbit deserved it. The strong defeat the weak, and are defeated by
the stronger still. This is how our world works.” He punctuated the end of his sentence by jabbing
a cross onto his crude semblance of a rabbit. Screech. Screech.
“But- Mother-“ he caught himself- “Twenty Five taught me the Golden Rule! She said to treat
people the way you want them to treat you! Even if they are a bit different,” Walter added.
Forty Two looked up sharply. “Twenty Five. Is that so. I believe she needs a reminder about what
kind of... filth she is teaching her children.”
Judging from the depth of his scowl, Walter didn’t think that reminder would be very pleasant.
“But, Forty Two- what about the golden rule?”
“I have a rule for you, Seven,” he spat. His meaty fingers curled. “Don’t. Ask. Questions.”
The lesson had been delivered immediately, and quite forcefully, into his skull. That night, the
stains of blood and shame still hanging in the ugly air, he had heard his mother crying.
He heard men shouting, too. There were the sounds of a scuffle and the door being forced open,
of heavy objects being thrown around. Mother’s cries grew fainter and fainter. Then silence.
What was-?
He bit off the thought. Only Bad Children asked questions.
Don’t. Ask. Questions.
~
The next day, Walter had been woken by a new mother- ‘Thirty Six’- at his bedroom door. She
was just like the old mother, except for the fact that her skin was a little paler and her eyes a little
more blue. The biggest change was that she was never, ever, ever, ever Bad. “Unlike Twenty Five,”
Father declared, surveying her with satisfaction.
Walter never saw one of the things again, either. One day, they had all just packed up and left,
leaving their houses behind. He didn’t know what it meant, apart from the fact that the soldiers
were very happy about it and he got a brand new coat for winter.
~
Walter’s last memory of the Block was of happiness.
His happiness consisted of this:
Graduation.
The chance to ‘integrate into society’.
The gift of a special badge that marked him, not as Bad, but as Good.
In other words: It was not Bad Child Walter who stood there, watching the ceremony. It was Good
Child Seven. And Eight, and Nine, and Ten, and... all of them were there. Marching proudly,
uniforms polished to perfection, they were Bad no longer- but obedient zealots serving a higher
cause. Their numbers shone and stood to attention in the fading afternoon air.
A sharp cry- an impassioned cry- and fragments of smiles.
And fragments of memories, left to drown in the gutters where the Bad things dwelled.
~
His name was Seven.
He suspected it had something to do with his age. Number Seven. Seven years old. Yes, he liked
it- the hiss and the way it bounced like a rock on a piece of curb. ssssssE-ven.
Many times, Seven sat outside and waited for the marching soldiers to let him join the parade as
well. Over time, he noticed something funny. They didn’t look like... people anymore. All he saw
were sharp, ironed-down creases and the same soldierly expressions on the same soldierly faces.
And the numbers... endless numbers...
One day, when Seven glanced at himself in the mirror, he realised he looked just like them now,
too. His soldierly expression broke a little bit as he smiled.
He wasn’t one of the Bad Children anymore.
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