An Official Update of My Outer Self
Not long after the new Officials had assumed power with violence, they issued a mandate. This was approximately three years ago. It’s still in effect. Citizens, the Officials announced, it is in your best interests to update yourselves. Your identities, they said, do not represent our new Way and our new Goals and our new Direction, and that means you will not be able to progress with Us. Your identities represent the old Way, the one that is now irrelevant. So, for you to progress with Us, they said, you will need to shed the old, and by that, we mean not only your old thoughts and beliefs and desires, but even your old physical identities. We don’t want you to be dependent or reliant on what is outmoded. You need to be new and open to newness. And we can assist you. We will assist you in what is in your best interests. We will help. They used the word “help” as a synonym for “force.” We knew what they meant. We saw how they had assumed power in the first place.
My original adult self had shoulder-length brown hair and hazel-coloured eyes and an average nose and thin average lips and a mole on my left cheek and a tattoo on my left shoulder. It’s an old memory now. There wasn’t a sensor embedded in my right forearm then.
During existence before the new Officials took control, there used to be a day called Christmas. It was joyous and exhilarating. Often, when we looked outside first thing on Christmas morning, if we were fortunate, we saw ground-covering snow and blazing bright sunshine and lightly shimmering leaves. Then we celebrated and embraced happiness and our good fortune, and we gave gifts unselfishly, and we received gifts with gratitude and, when the gift-giving was complete, we enjoyed warm and hearty meals, and we tasted the best tastes, and we smelled the best aromas and we talked with exuberance. When we were satiated and spent, we rested comfortably, content.
The sensors in our arms are synchronized with the Department of Hygiene. The Department is in control of our outer identities. Initially the Officials invited us, first digitally, to the application appointment. We received a digital invitation on our screens. They used the word “invitation” as a synonym for “command” in the same way that they had used the word “help” to mean “force.” If we did not respond adequately with the speed they preferred, if they felt we were hesitant or lackadaisical or worse, rebellious, their “invitation” became personal in a face-to-face way and had the potential to include their specific form of “help.”
Christmas was a celebration of birth. When the Officials annulled it, they reasoned that the birth it represented was irrelevant and most likely mythical. You have been deceived for too long, they argued, by a religion that really was, like all religions, a fraud. To continue to recognize it, they explained, was illogical and unproductive and unhealthy for our progress. It is representative of the old Way, they said, and therefore it is our priority to abolish it so that you can move forward for the better.
The insertion of the sensor into our arms was relatively easy if we allowed it to be, if we didn’t resist. An Official of Hygiene applied a topical anesthetic, waited momentarily, then sliced open a small patch of skin about the size of an old coin. It bled briefly as the sensor was inserted. Then the cut was cauterized and bandaged. When we removed the bandage the following day, the spot was clean and dry. The sensor shows through the skin. It is light red. When it is activated by the Department, it turns dark red and vibrates and makes a buzzing sound. We can’t ignore it. If we wait too long to respond, the vibration starts to intensify, and the sound gets louder and then it starts to cause pain.
We had birthdays before. The Officials annulled them using different words. Now that your identities are going to be regularly updated, they said, your former birthdays are no longer valid. They represent something that no longer exists. They have become fiction. Each time your identity is updated, they continued, that is, in effect, a new birthday. It is your rebirth. So be grateful, they congratulated us insincerely and celebrate your progress and your path along the new Way and embrace the advancement we are so willing to offer. They used the word “offer” as a synonym for “enforce”. We recognize our place in this time.
I liked the smell of freshly cut grass and the look of a field of sunflowers, and I liked holding buttercups under my friends’ chins to see whether a bright yellow reflection would develop. I liked looking for four-leaf clovers and listening to the croaking of frogs and searching for peering eyes of small fish in shallow ponds. I liked watching the flight of birds and its seeming effortlessness, and I wished, even then, to be so free. We’ve been allowed to keep our memories, despite the fact that it seems contradictory to the new Way. Or perhaps we haven’t been specifically allowed to keep our memories. Perhaps the Officials just haven’t started yet on the commencement of their annihilation. The birds, when I see them infrequently, still appear to be as free as ever. It is bittersweet. They have avoided what we had no power to avoid.
There is no schedule for our identity updates because spontaneity is good for us, the Officials say. It keeps us from developing tendencies of laziness or dependence. The sensors in our arms can activate any hour of the day or night, whether we are asleep or awake. If we are occupied, we are interrupted. It is priority, the Officials repeat, solely for our benefit.
The last time my sensor was activated, I was asleep, and the buzzing and the vibration woke me up, and I saw the gleaming on my arm of dark red instead of light red. I got up and scanned it with my phone as we had been “instructed” to do, linking myself to the Department. The Officials used the word “instructed” as a synonym for “ordered.” I went back to bed and laid down on my back with a pounding heart and waited for the unknown inevitable. A sedative began to overwhelm me, and I passed into deep unconsciousness.
We don’t have friends the way we did before. It’s not possible. When known identities vanish, even if internal personalities remain, when the externals are suddenly eradicated and we become unrecognizable, relationships are severed. In the earliest days of the new Way, we tried idealistically. “It’s really me,” we said to the friend whose identity had not yet changed, “it’s me from before. Believe me, please.” We learned quickly, however, that it was just too hard. Never being sure of anything is too hard. Now we’re socially disjointed and never fully at ease. The Officials knew exactly what they were doing. It’s a brilliant strategy for maintaining power.
As I slept, I dreamed I was watching a soaring hawk. It circled in the blue sky, wings outstretched but not moving, seemingly in complete peace. Then I saw images of my family. They were walking in the field below the hawk, pointing and looking at it and smiling and laughing and holding hands. I dreamed that they shared the same peace as the hawk. They were gliding in their own way. My family never experienced an identity update. They didn’t survive long enough. They were victims during the Officials’ initial strategies. Sometimes I wonder if this was perhaps to their advantage.
There have been several iterations of my original self since the old days when I had shoulder-length brown hair and hazel-coloured eyes and an average nose and thin average lips and a mole on my left cheek and a tattoo on my left shoulder. I have been bald, and I have been blond. I’ve been red-haired with freckles. My eyes have been blue, and my eyes have been brown. My nose has been long, and my lips have been full and my face has been round. I’ve never had another tattoo or mole.
When the sedative wore off, I awoke with immediate trepidation. The sensor in my arm had reverted to silent and light red, and the message on my screens from the Department of Hygiene said “Identity Replacement successful. Congratulations.” I rose from my bed and walked to my mirror to discover my new reflection. There was no sense waiting. Whether I looked or waited to look, it was already the new truth. My hair was now grey and thin, and my skin was pale and wrinkled and my eyes were bright turquoise. A scar ran vertically down my left cheek like a wound from a blade. I touched it with my blue-veined left hand. I breathed in and out deeply and then hummed a few sounds. I didn’t feel any different, only externally was I unrecognizable to myself and, therefore, unrecognizable and now a stranger to anyone who knew me previously.
Underneath, I had to believe that my essence still existed.
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