The Gender Lottery Read online

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

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  Quote

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Title Page

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

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  Other Works

  The Goal

  My Life Thus Far

  Copyright

  THE

  GENDER

  LOTTERY

  William Oday

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  When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

  First Corinthians 13:11

  ONE

  The old ones tell stories of a time before the scourge when girls were born just as often as boys. They say a lot of crazy stuff that no one believes.

  A time before the scourge among them.

  Like there ever was a time different than now.

  Female babies are so rare that I’ve never seen one and no one I know has ever seen one. But I know that some are born because only girls can live and work at the nurturing centers.

  Some of the younger men say it’s wrong that girls have to live at the nurturing centers. They say they should be free to go and live wherever they want. There aren’t very many that believe that.

  But there are a few.

  Me?

  I don’t know what there would be to complain about. The women have great lives. They live and eat like polits, for crying out loud! The polits are the bosses that run everything. So if you’re living like the polits, you’re living the good life.

  All the women have to do is take care of themselves and nurture a man when his monthly nurturing night comes around. And that’s for the good of society.

  They don’t have to work in the fields under the blazing hot sun. They don’t have to haul everyone’s rotten garbage to the dump outside of town. They don’t have to do any of the dirty work that I have to do all the time.

  What I wouldn’t give to have life that easy.

  And the crazy part is that a few of them don’t want the easy life. Not many. That’s for sure because it makes no sense. They reject all the privilege and luxury that all of us hard working men do so they can live like that in the first place.

  Just enjoy it.

  Is that too much to ask?

  It must be because every now and then one of them tries to run away.

  I say try because they’re always caught.

  We have a name for those ones.

  The Ungratefuls.

  And they are admonished for the misdeeds. Even though it isn’t my call, I say it serves them right.

  Give any one of them a single day in my shoes in the fields and they’d run right back to the nearest nurturing center and promise to never leave again.

  At age fifteen, my palms have more calluses than skin. The sun has tanned and wrinkled my face to where I look like a forty-year-old white coat.

  Those guys have it the easiest of all… except for the polits. The polits are the bosses and it’s expected they’d have it the best. The best houses. The best food. The best women at the nurturing centers.

  I don’t begrudge them for any of it.

  My biggest dream is to leave the fields and become a tracker. But my wildest dream is to win the lottery and become a polit.

  I know the odds are like finding a flea in a pumpkin patch. I’m not an idiot.

  But it can happen.

  It does happen, to the lucky few.

  The old ones say people didn’t used to be so stuck in the life they were born into. The polits don’t like all the stories the old ones tell. Especially not that one. But that is one of the stories I believe because I’ve seen it happen to a few lucky kids over the years.

  Like them, I could win and leave all this misery behind.

  And having turned fifteen since last year’s lottery, tonight is my one chance.

  “Hey, Haran!” a voice echoed through the evening the air. From the across the street, my best friend waved.

  “Come on, Thest!” I shouted back without slowing down. “We’d better not be late to the lottery!”

  TWO

  Thest raced over and joined me with a slap on the back that nearly sent me face-first into the mud covering Main Street. His usual stink arrived soon after.

  I pinched my nose shut. “Oh, man! Did you even bathe? You smell like pig dung!”

  A broad grin broke out across his face. “I dabbed a washcloth behind my ears and scrubbed down into my butt crack. Does that count?”

  I laughed hard enough to slip again and caught myself on his broad shoulders. The stink of being a swine monger hung on him like an earthy perfume, to put it the best possible way.

  He reeked. Always. But it didn’t bother me because I was used to it and, besides, I didn’t usually smell that much better.

  “Okay by me, but if a fight breaks out from people trying to get away from you, you’re on your own. This is my only good shirt, and I aim to keep it that way.”

  He shouldered into me with a wink. “You’ve always wanted to be a prissy polit.”

  “To be a tracker would an honor. But to be a polit would be unbelievable.”

  As we rounded the corner into the town square, the orange light of sunset added to the feeling of emptiness all around.

  It was creepy quiet.

  On any other day, the square would be filled with people going for their evening walks or sitting at benches enjoying each other’s company.

  On this day, there was only one person.

  An Ungrateful.

  One of the women that tried to escape.

  She hadn’t been there yesterday so the trackers must’ve caught her this morning. News of her escape had made the rounds yesterday afternoon, but I hadn’t heard anything since.

  I walked up to her with contempt coloring my face.

  She tried to look up but the stocks kept her from doing so. The large circular opening in the split wood bars pinned her neck in place. Smaller openings on each side bound her wrists tight.

  Anyone who had been through the lottery, and so had become a man, could do whatever they wanted to her.

  Aside from kill her.

  That was forbidden.

  But anything else was allowed and encouraged.

  She had rejected us. It was only right that we rejected her. Because it was what she deserved for being Ungrateful for all that our society did to make her life possible.

  For the bloody blisters on my palms. For the sun burns on my face and back. For the excruciating ache in my shoulders as I lay down in bed every night.

  Working the fields was torture.

  And for this woman to reject my labor, to think so little of my suffering, was a personal insult.

  But as much as I wanted to take out that anger, I couldn’t. I couldn’t so much as touch her. Not until the lottery had made me a man.

  But afterwards, that was another story. Depending on what I drew, my first nurturing night might not be for a month. Even if it was tomorrow, I wouldn’t have to wait that long if I didn’t want to.

  Not with this Ungrateful in the stocks.

  I leaned down so she could see me b
etter.

  Her face was a pulp of purple bruises and dried brown blood. One eye was swollen shut and the other opened only a sliver.

  I stared into it. “Remember my face, Ungrateful. I’ll be back later tonight. And I’m going to take what you owe me.”

  The thought made my manhood stir. Like everyone else, I took care of myself on the infrequent moment when I had the time and energy for it. But the thought of being inside this woman, even being an Ungrateful, was intoxicating.

  Thest pulled at my shoulder. “Come on, man. Leave her alone.”

  I yanked away and spun on him. “Don’t be such a coward!”

  His face reddened from shame.

  We both knew he avoided conflict like the scourge.

  “I’m just saying—“

  “Saying what? Do you think she’d trade places with us? Our blood and sweat make her life possible!”

  Even though he was half again bigger than me, Thest raised his hands in surrender. “Easy, Haran. I’m just saying we don’t want to be late to the lottery.”

  That’s not what he was saying and we both knew it. He was too soft to administer deserved justice. He’d never make it as a tracker or a polit.

  I would though.

  “Fine,” I said as I straightened my shirt where he’d bunched it up. I turned back to the woman and spat in her face. The saliva landed across the bridge of her bleeding nose. “I’ll be back later. And that’s a promise.”

  THREE

  The gathering for the lottery stretched from the river all the way to the ruined road that led to the ruined city where nothing lived and no one dared venture. With the setting sun silhouetting their forms, the towering hulks looked like nothing so much as the decaying bones of long extinct animals.

  The olds one said the city used to be twice as tall. That the tallest buildings touched the clouds. That people used to live inside them, up in the clouds.

  I’d worked and bled into the soil every day for as long as I could remember. As much as I wanted to believe that we could live that far up, to be so far removed from the dirt and dust, I didn’t believe.

  It was just another fairy tale that everyone stopped believing sooner or later.

  The truth was that we had no idea what the truth was. Whoever had lived there had done so hundreds or thousands of years ago. All they’d left behind was their rotting cities and the promise of death by scourge for anyone foolish enough to walk among the ruins.

  “Keep one half of your ticket and place the matching half in the box.”

  I looked up at the polit running the lottery. The height of his single raised eyebrow told me he wasn’t happy that I was daydreaming and holding up the line. I nodded and tore the ticket in half, looking at each half to ensure the numbers matched.

  I didn’t want to leave anything to chance.

  What if my number was drawn but somehow the number didn’t match the half I kept?

  There was no way I was going to let that happen.

  “Place it into the box, young man,” the polit said with irritation in his voice.

  “Oh, sorry,” I said. “Sure.” I dropped the ticket in and said a quick prayer to Aneesh, the god of the field and all growers. I hoped he didn’t hate me for wanting to leave his fold and join the trackers or polits.

  Would he spoil my luck to get back at me for wanting to forsake him?

  I hoped gods weren’t spiteful like people were.

  Thest followed behind and dropped his ticket in the box. We continued forward, following the line toward the back of the gathering since we were some of the last to arrive.

  Not long after, the polit began the ceremony with the words that we’d all memorized long ago. I knew them well enough to repeat them aloud while my mind wandered to my possible glorious future.

  Visions of fine clothing and clean fingernails filled my mind. White ceramic bowls filled with ripe, purple grapes atop polished wood tables. Servants that made sure my bed was made and floors were clean. And best of all, a bathtub so big it could hold three Thests. And full of steaming hot water that I could spend all day in if I wanted to.

  Trackers didn’t get that kind of luxury, but polits did.

  What a change it would be from the freezing cold dips in the river that left me smelling vaguely of fish more often than not.

  I didn’t know how long my dreaming went on, but the polit had finished the ritual words and was assigning nurturing nights when I finally started paying attention again.

  Thest snorted and then coughed a couple of times. “If you win the lottery, will you still be my best friend?”

  I turned to him and smiled. “Buddy, you’ve got to toughen up. We live in a hard world. Outside of the once a month nurturing night we’ll be assigned tonight, there isn’t room for being soft.”

  He punched my shoulder, and to his credit, it hurt.

  I winced and rubbed at the pain. “And yes, I’ll always be your best friend. Even when I’m a polit and you have to slaughter and bleed the pigs that I eat for breakfast bacon.”

  “Who will I hang out with if you move away?”

  I shrugged. “You’ll make new friends. You’ll be fine.”

  “I hope you don’t win.”

  I punched him back, even harder than he’d hit me.”

  “Owww! Come on!” he said with a grimace.

  It took a few hours, but everyone eventually got assigned their nurturing night. Mine ended up being on the same night as Thest’s which was about as cool a coincidence as anyone could wish for.

  The rumbling and whispering of the crowd of fifteen year old boys all around suddenly went silent.

  This was it!

  “Next, we will draw the winner of this year’s lottery,” the polit said from the platform way up at the front.

  The polit drew a carved wood number out of a brown leather bag and placed it in the first number spot.

  Kids around us murmured with excitement. Others moaned as they’d lost on the first draw.

  Terrible luck, that. Whatever god they prayed to must not’ve liked them.

  “What number is it?” someone nearby shouted.

  “I can’t see! What is it?” another said.

  “The first number is seven,” the polit said through the amplified sound system.

  My first number was seven!

  Three more numbers were drawn, and three more times my wonder and shock jumped to a new high.

  I’d gotten every number right and there was only one to go!

  I checked my ticket. The last number was two.

  I said a quick prayer to Aneesh.

  The polit pulled and placed the final number.

  And it was a two!

  I’d won the lottery!

  Being fifteen years old and not understanding a lot of things, I had no idea of what winning truly meant.

  But I soon would.

  FOUR

  The first time I woke up after the surgery, the assistant white coat told me that it went as planned and everything turned out beautifully. I’d would’ve screamed a single question if I could’ve mustered the energy.

  Who’s plan?

  Certainly not mine.

  Winning the lottery wasn’t anything like I imagined. It was all a lie. I had no future as a polit. I had no future at all.

  Not one that I could live with anyway.

  But whatever drugs they had me on made my new reality strangely remote and acceptable. I knew it was wrong. It didn’t feel right.

  I didn’t feel right.

  This body wasn’t my body.

  I lay in the hospital bed in a daze, only vaguely aware of a deep ache inside me. Everything was too fuzzy to be more specific than that. It was probably my heart and how it had been crushed into nothing.

  Dr. Sauer, the white coat that had performed my surgery, entered the small room and stopped beside my bed. What little hair he had left was white as my bed sheet. He smiled at me like I was his grandchild over for a weekend visit. “Hello, Han
ah. It’s nice to see you fully awake.”

  A dull rage bubbled in my chest. A chest that under a thick wrap of bandages felt heavier than it ever had. “I’m not Hanah! I’m Haran!”

  I tried to shout at him but the words came out strangely muted.

  He smiled again. “That was who you were before you won the lottery. Your name is now Hanah and you’ve been blessed with the opportunity to nurture our society in the ways that it desperately requires.”

  “I am a man and my name is Haran!”

  He shook his head like he was denying me a request for candy after I’d brushed my teeth for bed. “No. Your name is Hanah, and you are a woman.” He looked down and wrote something on the clipboard in his hands.

  “What are you writing?”

  He glanced up at me without moving his head. “Nothing of interest to you. Does my writing make you nervous?”

  I wanted to jump out of bed and tear his throat out with my teeth. And then again, lying in bed was fine, too.

  “Doctor, is my… did they… do I have a…”

  The words trailed off into eerie emptiness. An emptiness that was better than the truth I knew would soon fill it.

  He clicked the top of his pen and gave me his full attention. “Are you asking if you still have male parts?”

  The horror of it said aloud turned my stomach. Of course, I did. I was a man and a man had those parts.

  He shook his head. “No, you do not. They were removed. Parts of the remaining tissue were used to form your fully functional female parts.”

  Sickening dread washed over me.

  “Don’t worry, I understand if you don’t yet accept your new reality.”

  He understood?

  Understood?

  An old man who stood there with his male parts intact who hadn’t endured a gender reassignment against his will.

  He understood?

  No!

  He didn’t!

  Not remotely!

  “In order to improve your transition, I also performed breast augmentation so that you are now a solid D cup. That added to a narrowed lower ribcage will do a great deal to enhance your shapeliness. I also performed a trachea shave. Your old self had quite an unsightly Adam’s apple!”