Paint Them Red

If you remember back to Alice In Wonderland, you'll remember the part where Alice happens to come across the card soldiers frantically painting the white roses red. The Queen really wanted them to be red, and so the roses had to be covered with red paint in order to conceal that they were the wrong color.
Is that some kind of metaphor for the Handmaids? I don't know.
At first I didn't know what they were. See, in these times, no one can have children. Pollution really messed people up and a lot of them became infertile. The new government is pretty intent on survival and thus made these handmaids. They wear these big red dresses and white hats that cover almost their entire face. They're assigned to a family and more or less used as a surrogate mother. As an Angel, when I get old I can very well be assigned a handmaid of my own.
Usually I'm not around town, but I've seen more than one of those handmaids. They keep to themselves, I suppose they're not allowed to converse with men at all. The few words I could ever get out of one are generic phrases they're taught to keep themselves out of trouble. "Praise be" "God bless" and all that.
One time I was walking down the street and something very strange happened. One of those handmaids, drenched in red cloth, appeared right in front of me and grabbed the front of my shirt.
"Can you?" She whispered desperately.
"Can I what?" I asked irritably. It wasn't like them to even cast an eye on me. I knew they did whenever they could. Phoebe talked about how my looks had been the first thing she had noticed about me.
"Can you make children?" She sobbed.
"Ma'am..." I slowly pushed her away. "Go home."
"They'll send me away!" She wailed, "If I don't have a baby, they'll send me away!"
Guardians were running toward the handmaid and me.
I had the authority.
What could I do?
"She's not in her right mind." I yelled at the guardians, "stand back if you value your position."
They wouldn't dare disobey me in my uniform. Angels fought for peace and justice.
"You should go home and get some rest. Where is your companion?" I asked, "You shouldn't be out by yourself."
"Oh have mercy!"
"Where is your companion?" I growled, reaching toward my belt threateningly.
Slowly, wrenching from sobs, she pointed.
"Go back to her. Go home. Never attempt this again. The great Gilead demands loyalty and obedience of its citizens." The words seemed so sticky. I was reminded hazily of my attempts at learning French, for reasons I didn't quite fathom.
"Y-yes sir..." She whispered. She turned away.
The guardians were glaring at me.
"You'll be punished for this."
"No." I said, "I did nothing wrong. The woman was sick. She'll be better in the morning. Perhaps she even has the blessing of pregnancy."
I was only relieved it was not Phoebe who dressed in red.
Some people really hate the handmaids. They're jealous the handmaids are the ones our country depends on, the ones who are given the gravest medical attention, the one who steals away one night a month from the wife's husband. I do not hold these women in disdain. They are simply offering what little they have to society.

So Yeah Its Ricky...

My name is Ricky.

Have you heard of me? No? Well that's too bad!
Things have changed quite a bit for me in this world.
I'm twenty six years old, I am six feet and one inch tall with somewhat long-ish raven black hair. My eyes are a dark blue with speckles of deep, midnight indigo and black. I have a rather fair complexion but I don't usually burn. Back when we allowed to love whomever we wanted, my girl Phoebe would always gaze deep into those eyes. Truly a special feeling, but you could only understand if you had met her.
Moving on. Nowadays I've decided to keep up my old job and become what they call an Angel. I can't help but think of womanly men with harps, flying high above us all with their shining white wings. I know what they look like, I've seen one, except I'm fairly certain it was actually a girl. I digress once more. As an Angel, I fight to keep peace in this country - what was once the U.S - Gilead. Its an alright job, most of the more useless jobs are pawned off on the guardians who wear their stupid berets and think they own the streets. They're still scared of us though.
I don't have a lot of free time during my work, but when I get it I like to draw. Yeah, its kind of weird considering who I am and what I do, but if I don't take some time to put some graphite down on paper then I fear all my memories of Phoebe and Arc would just float away. Drawing is more dangerous than writing, but I can't say I'm a skilled writer. That was always more of Phoebe's activity, who wrote letters that skillfully made the written words into a representation of her cute quirks like cocking her head and winking an eye. Such things never happen anymore and her letter, still sealed inside my inner-most pocket, is still the sole reminder that she and I once existed together.
So you won't be surprised if I tell you I still dream of her face?
Her and Arc.
They were brother and sister but did not look very alike except the slightly babyish face that suggested they would not take anything entirely seriously. She had the dark mahogany hair that was naturally highlighted in honey by the sun. Arc on the other hand had the blondest hair of anyone I had ever seen. She also had darker eyes like I did, but Arc's eyes were big and blue like the clear day's sky. Sometimes when I dream, I see his face as he was when he visited me in the hospital, a cloudy darkness and so unlike him it its seriousness. Or my Phoebe when she squinted her eyes when she was annoyed, or nestled her head in my arms and say how strong I was. I know she was just boosting my male ego and I also knew she loved it.
My greatest fear and most utter nightmare is the deep mire of death to which I have come so close once before. The instability still rests inside me, a seed, an egg, that one day promises to fester and grow until I can hide my unorthodoxy no longer. Surely only Phoebe can permanently suppress it.
Now I'm not so sure.

... To be continued.