Cockerelles & Posies

#0

I was born a cockerelle. What that means in our society is that I was born a very pretty girl just like all of the other girls in the world. I had perfect white teeth, perfect brown hair, and a perfectly cute nose that poked out the front of my perfectly pretty face. I was about average.

"Get up, nutsack!"

That's the name my sister Becka, one year my junior, uses to get me riled up in the morning, so I'll hop up out of bed and do my things that I'm supposed to do.

Because that's what our society is all about. That's the spirit of Heartseed. Hop! Hop! It won't happen unless you make the magic happen. It's a world where dreams can become reality, but it'll cost you some blood, sweat, and tears not to mention a slew of other requirements written down in the universe's long list of hidden rules. Rules I'm not afraid to wink and nod at when I can get away with it.

"I'm up," I say, rocking onto my fine, regal haunches. "I had a jog last evening, or don't you remember, Becka?"

"Well, you can go to bed earlier tonight to feel fresher in the morning. You don't want to be late for your cockerelle destiny."

"Ahgk!" I sputter, pushing out the morning yuck. Got to get myself in order for dressing time. It's always a job putting these things together. Got to have the right outfit or the influential girls won't admire you. You have to show them that you're on top of your game and ready to charge out into the world filled toe to brow with ambition. I like to shock them a little if I can.

I stand up from my bed and twist this way and that. I've got a day out ahead of me. More like a life really. First day at Fission, a lyceum we go to when we come of age after the end of our second decade to get our heads straight. It's a transition from a life of pondering the future with your head in the clouds, to a life of climbing the ladder to actually get it up there.

I pull on my good-morning robe to get showered, shaved, and a good meal in my tummy before I'm off to win my fortune.

In the upstairs common room, I find my sister Becka dressed for her last year at prep school. She's got a yellow dress outfit on and raring to go.

"Going to wow them with your sunny disposition?" I ask her, taking the edge of her skirt in my fingers to test its suitability.

Becka swats the fabric of her new look-how-smart-I-am skirt out of my fingers and fixes me with her discerning eyes.

"Well, you've managed to drag yourself out of bed. Fantastic work, your highness. Your alarm was going off at six AM, and I had to come in and shut it off because you weren't waking up. I'm going to get myself an extension cord for your alarm clock."

"I was hoping to get up and stretch before school," I moan. "I wanted to have a jog. I'm pretty sure I'll make their track team."

"Yes, track, jog, got to keep that testosterone flowing in your charge to the head of the pride. Did it occur to you that your sisters and mother might need their rest? The brain functions best with a goodnight's -"

I slip into the bathroom and close the door before she can finish her sentence. Truth is, I shaved the night before in anticipation. I've been shaving for years, actually, learning how to do it just right so I don't end up with that icky rash at the end. It's embarrassing and ugly. I like to have all my parts smooth and soft, with just a little touch of, 'Hey, the hair is coming back. Can you feel it prickling just a bit?' The little irritations actually make for a fun birthday suit whenever my mind goes erotic.

"I've told you, take the Ruute route," says my yellow-garbed underling, tapping a fingernail annoyingly at the door. "You can stop all of this silly shaving and have the smooth look all the same, and still keep those silly fantasy sensations of yours you seem to like so much."

She gets it, but she doesn't get it.

"I don't trust it. How can your skin feel shaved like I like it all the time? Doesn't your brain just get used to it and ignore it?"

"Blah, blah, blah," she says walking away from the same argument we've been having about hair removal for the past three years. I mean, if the hair doesn't grow back, what's there to tell your skin that it's coming back? And even more so, what's there to show you it is indeed coming back so you don't forget the reason you felt the sensation in the first place?

Yes, my mind tends to wander into paradoxes and finds itself lost in its own words.

I do my shower thing, as I intend to do. I get my long, brown hair all fluffed up into a tempting waterfall of sensual, soft threads. Then I bundle it here and there, snap a barrette, put in a clip, and weave it round and round to where I like it, to show it I'm in control of its presentation. I like hair on my crown, my eyebrows, and in my thick long eyelashes. But I don't really need it anywhere else because I think it shows people who see that I am not a regular old cockerelle like those who came before me.

#1

Life in the breakfast kitchen is as boring and unexpected as ever. Mother Olive stands by the sink dressed in her skin-tight youth-ware as I call it. Her maple-red leggings don't even try to meet the aurora-green tank top she's wearing at her belly, something commonly seen when she was pregnant with me, so I'm told. Now she's trying to shrink back into her teens.

"Going for the ripe and savory look," I say, kissing her good morning on the cheek. "Whatever happened to our proud gardener?"

"I'm still the groundskeeper around here. For now," she says, shrugging off my accusations. "All my little flowers have bloomed, and this noble spruce is not a young sapling anymore."

"I'm lost in your metaphors mother," I jibe back. "Which one of us is the young sapling?"

I do respect my mother. She stood over us, protecting us and raised four seedlings beneath that sky-red canopy of hair.

I look up at up at her, and for a moment I want to play again among the strands of that fiery, vibrant thatch which rolls so playfully over her perpetually sun-touched, slender boughs.

The other girls and I tend to see each other in a different light.

When I look at my oldest sister, Josie, I see a farmer's harvest, languishing in the market unsold. The melons are juicy, and the skin on the zucchini is taught and swollen in just the right places to make the mouth water. Unfortunately, the products have been sampled so often by so many that indulgence has diminished its allure.

Then there is that sense of disappointment and frustration I taste in our every meeting. I get it. She's not a cockerelle, and she wants to be a cockerelle. I mean who doesn't want to be a cockerelle in our society? Cockerelles get all the best of everything just because they're cockerelles. It's like we're superior to the posies which I don't like to push on anyone, because I believe a person's genitalia has very little to do with how acceptable they are to society.

Josie is a posy. That's just how things happened when she was born. She has the same equipment for making babies as the other girls in our little family.

"Okay, hero, it's time to eat your breakfast and get ready for your first day," says Olive, curling a finger around a lock of her fine, red hair. That's where I get the hints of red in my hair, I tell myself. Mom's side of the genome. "I am so proud of your accomplishment, graduating from prep school," she says.

"She's wearing posy clothes," says Maddie, my second oldest sister giving a crafty wink in my direction. "Look at her. You called me rebellious, Mother."

"It's not posy," I say in retort. "It's a skirt. I just like the ripe greens against the dandelion yellows is all. Colors make a statement about one's intentions, whether they're cockerelle or not. Cockerelle colors are just the old way of doing things. There are other cockerelles like me who are learning to safely bend the fashion squad rules. I like my clothes."

"Cockerelles generally wear pants on their first day at Fission," says Josie. "Long pants. It's like you're mocking the poor posies."

I shove a long stick of bacon into my mouth and follow it with a slurp of whole milk to clean the shared airway before I speak again.

"It's not like you all must wear skirts and dresses and hose and those kinds of things. If you would all just stand up for yourselves, you would see that the cockerelles are really just posies with a pecker. That's all I am."

Maddie poses looking at me as though she's studying the painting of a master artist.

"Ah, yes, we should all be inspired by your artistic flare," says Maddie, grinning as she's the only person in the house who actually owns an easel made for such pursuits.

#2

Mother and I are in the car with Becka who is sitting in the front seat. I take the back because I think it's gallant to let Becka sit up front. Mother likes to test my potential. I should be driving the car at my age. I am the cockerelle of the house, after all.

We roll through neighborhood streets. We see people we know on their way to work. It's a sunny, happy, late-summer morning. We must always be happy, I think, that we are blessed to live in such an encouraging culture.

The topic has changed from breakfast. Now they're prattling on about the mysterious powers of charms, accessories steeped in the higher sciences.

"Mom, it's not like Josie and Maddie haven't tried," Becka is saying to Mother.

"Josie did a little more than tried," I interject.

"We've all tried," says Mother. "It's just that I don't think I trust the people who are running our government. I think they lie to us about the truth. They don't tell us how our bodies really work, because they want to keep us in line. They need posies. Cockerelles require posies. All praise the cockerelles."

"Settle down, Mom," says sis. "It's Margot's first day at Fission. You don't want her to think we don't support and love her."

The car rolls to a stop on Fission Way. We all get out of the car to say our farewells for the morning.

I hug mother, squeezing her adequate bosom against my youthful breasts.

"You could get implants," says Becka kissing me on the ear.

"Your attentiveness to my every thought and desire will be missed today," I tell her, with a little curl popping up to one side of my grin. Her lovely black hair will be missed too as she's an even better hair sculptor than I am.

"Look," says mother huddling close so only the two of us can hear. "There'll be a lot of posies in there looking for their cockerelle. The motivations of posies can be hard to read. How are you going to present yourself to people as a big girl, right? That's all wishy washy in your brain right now, and it will get better, dear. Just remember to keep one thing in mind while you're here. There are quite a number of posies inside who want to become cockerelles too. And just because you have the advantage of already being a cockerelle, it's no reason to treat your peers like they're beneath you."

"Equality," I recite. "Yes, Mother, but what shall I do with my childish rebelliousness?"

"Use it," she insists. "Use it to fan the flames of your deepest desires. You walk into Fission for your first time only once in a lifetime. Make it a day that you can look back on for inspiration in the future."

I kiss mother on the lips. I kiss Becka on the lips too.

"Look at me," I say. "I'm practically a princess coming into Fission to shake things up. I won't let them bring me down."

"A cheerleader princess," Becka snorts, referring to the fashion crown I wear on my head. We all have a laugh. "You're a little scandal, Margot."

Becka slides back into the car for the last leg of the trip to prep school.

Mother pats my rear.

"Make certain the other cockerelles know that you're a cockerelle too."

Olive kisses me again on the forehead. Mother will always be the tallest posy in our house.

#3

The school building for Fission was constructed reflecting the purpose of the institution in its flowing architecture. Its structures cling to the side of a tall cliff going down hundreds of feet to the ocean beaches below. It was artsy how they did it, because if you took a boat out into the ocean and looked back at the school, the buildings down the face of the cliff took on the shape of a posy on her knees. I had this thought in my head of a girl subdued as I walked inside and made my way down the hallway.

It was a living thing this Fission experience. That's what it evolved into, at least, over the centuries. Thirty floors winding along rocky crags, providing various spots to hang out and talk about the future on the side a cliff's towering stone face. You can meet a professor here and join a class if you want to learn something. You spend a few years coming to Fission over the course of your life, and you can come out an engineer or a doctor or whatever jobs are needed in Heartseed. I walk into Fission that day not certain at all what I want to do with my life.

"Let me trade you your drop slips," says an official looking cockerelle, who, like many other staff members, are trying to spot the new arrivals as they come in.

"What's this for now?" I ask, looking at the colorful pieces of paper-currency in her hand.

The girl apologizes quick as she can.

"Sorry, Miss, your skirt and stockings threw me off. But you are wearing a pendant around your neck, I see. Wouldn't be fair if we just handed a cockerelle a stack of d-bills, now would it?"

"Not for the economy of Heartseed," I reply. "I'm one of us, on the other end of the exchange, I'm afraid. But I see a few posies coming along."

"Yeah, sorry, my fault," she says, tipping her official cap. "No harm, right?"

The greeter sells each posy two d-bills a piece, dropping their craft coins into the black leather purse strapped like a collar around her proud buttocks. She calls me back for another go when she recognizes who I am.

"Oh yes, Miss Song, wasn't it? I'm sure you'll earn a few d-bills on your first day," she says, eyeing the crown I put in my hair that morning. "Come to Fission with thoughts of joining the elite by the look of it. I remember when your sister Josie arrived for her first day. That was a site. She bought every d-bill I had in my hand. I was like, you don't have to buy them all on your first day."

"Really?" I ask, giving a stifled laugh.

"Yeah, she bought them all with her c-coins. Saved them up, you could tell. She really wanted to be one of those few who go in a posy and come out a cockerelle to make her mother proud. I've seen it happen a few times in my time here but not too often."

"Some are just compelled from within to become cockerelles, hungry for the exotic greens on the fence's other side," I reply.

The money changer runs her fingers over the tight-fitting leather leggings she wears, giving the round of her rump a quick pop and me a blown kiss at the same time.

"Posies can dream," she says. "Your sister Josie bought all of my d-bills on her first day. Cleaned me out. I had to go to the teller and get another pack. And the funny thing is, I still had most of that second one by the end of my shift. Had to hand them back to the teller. I sold more that day than usually I do in a week. Your sister is a hoot."

I blush with embarrassment for Josie. Oh, she was such an energetic posy back then, so thin and agile. Her stare could still pierce right through you. I imagined when we were kids that she would grow up and get herself a powerful cockerelle to start a family. She was a climber. Instead, she wasted three years at Fission trying to force a transformation from posy to cockerelle.

Thankfully, big sis washed up and became a fixture at mother's house. She still carries the marks of her insane struggle to become a cockerelle though, bulging breasts and curves engorged. 'She didn't quit when she should have' would be an understatement. Funny what ambition can do to the mind when unchecked by reason. I wish she could have kept her reputation like Maddie.

"I worried how the girl was going to eat," she says, continuing her go at my sis. "Not like she can spend d-bills. Handing wads of them to a cockerelle doesn't guarantee a relationship, I told her. She had the nerve to glare at me. It was like I didn't know what she was really up to or something."

"I'm not one to tease a posy because she wants to change sides," I say, putting my fists to my hips as a sign of my displeasure with her stabs. "Sis had plenty of craft coins stashed away. She's industrious despite her position in society."

"Yes, but with purchasing power at twenty c's to a d-bill, trading all those coins at once seems a little desperate, doesn't it? She can't eat paper money or even spend it. Got to have more than seed in your diet. And it's not like consuming it guarantees a transition. You can't force a root to sprout."

"She was showing her tenacity," I snap. "Besides, they've yet to prove the ability to change hinges solely on genetics. There is some heart in it too, I believe."

It's a waste of time, I know, trying to convince a hickory root. They're a bunch of zealous tools who believe all that sexist garbage about a cockerelle's right to positions of power. This one was born that kind of nut.

I turn my head to walk away and let it go, but the bill dispenser is having too much fun.

"Yes, but I believe there's a difference between being optimistic and charismatic. As the Sisters of Light say, 'If you want a transition, drink a cup. If you want to be sick, drink a gallon. Well, she drank a gallon and then some."

I feel my hand curling into a fist to defend my sister's honor. Then I remember it's my first day at Fission. I'm all grown up now. No point in doing that.

#4

Each floor of Fission is not the same length or proportion. The top areas are short considering they compose the head of the posy.

I decide to go down through the neck of the building, which is incidentally the neck of the Fission architecture as well, to get to the breasts and see what the view looks like from the tip of her nipple.

Yes, poor Fission, is stuck on her knees with a cockerelle's root plunged between her lips. It all looks quite somber from the ocean as the girl's pose puts her in a sort of daze between desire and obligation. I mean, she's down there on her knees willingly, of course. She's got that root in her mouth. But the artist who designed the eyes of the structure decided to give Fission a stare of duty as though the posy's having yet one more in an endless series of gulps.

I spot a posy sitting on a bench out on the tip of the nipple. As I walk closer out of curiosity, I find an enchanting beauty marked by a sullen look. Sensing a fellow novice in her disposition, I decide to go over and talk to her.

"I can imagine what a first day must be like for a posy," I say. "Nervous?"

"Oh, it's not my nerves," she says. "I didn't set enough coins aside this summer."

"Hard times?"

"No. I like to play cards. A lot."

I give a sympathetic laugh as I find my seat on the bench next to her. Together we look out over the ocean and enjoy the morning sun glistening on its surface.

"Yes, gambling. A cruel mistress. Sorry to hear that. Can become a real problem for a posy on her first day."

"Yes, I could only afford one drop slip. Can't get a planter with this kind of money."

"Those are stunning grey eyes of you have," I say in a bid to cheer her up. "The day is young. You've just come of age, and you are very pretty."

"No girl is ever pretty enough. A d-bill won't even get me started on the changes I'll need to make. No one is ever perfect at the beginning."

"Okay, you're a pretty girl with a gambling problem and self-image issues."

"I'm Neea Planter, by the way," she offers, leaning into me. "Funny little name my mother gave me."

I notice the tattoo that wraps around her wrist bears the likeness of Kumis, the god of children, working with her tools of motherhood.