A different opening to Vessel

I tried many openings to Vessel, and this one was from 2018, maybe the fourth or fifth full revision. I always wanted to open the book with Paige and Mott together, because their love story is such a big part of the book--and Paige's own spiritual journey. This was one of my favorite openings because of the normalcy that fades into something disquieting, and I hope you enjoy it.

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​Paige preferred the Edufice exactly how it was now: afternoon light pouring through the windows, illuminating the shiny silver nameplates attached to the students' box-shelves, no one in sight while she straightened up her books at the end of the day. It was a quiet, calm sanctuary for learning, except for her best friend, Mott, who was tapping her foot impatiently to the beat of younger girls jumping rope outside: Firetruck red, firetruck red, sound the warning bell. Paige had many years of practice ignoring Mott's impatience. She pressed the books in her own box-shelf together as deliberately as she could, even taking the time to move James-of-2072's Survivors of the World, Unite! in slow-motion to the other end of the stack.
              Mott, to her credit, held on almost a full ten seconds before she spun around and let her back hit the wall, sliding down its smooth white paint until she curled up with her knees buried against her face. "Oh, come on."
              Typical.
              Paige laughed and flipped the little wooden door shut. "I'm done, I'm done," she resigned, flinging her book bag over her shoulder. "I can't even have thirty seconds--"
              "You've had thirteen years in this building with that same stinkin' box-shelf," Mott whined, lolling her head backward until it made a soft thunk against the wall. "We were supposed to be at the games cottage ten minutes ago. And you were doing that on purpose."
              "Five minutes ago," Paige corrected, "and of course I was." She tried not to think about how many years they'd taken this same path to and from the Edufice, how many days they'd walked to school and home again and how there was only one more day of it after this. She willed herself to move toward the door.
              "Saturday's going to come whether you like it or not," Mott said as she led Paige toward the heavy entrance doors—one of the few metal objects in New Standard, though the doors were painted white to keep the shininess from distracting anyone. Paige shrugged, nonchalant, while her stomach clenched, but she knew Mott wouldn't believe her cool demeanor. But Mott wasn't paying attention, anyway; she was charging ahead, her arms cutting haphazard shapes into the air as she talked. "It's like overnight--bam—you're a functioning member of society. We'll make the world go 'round. We'll re-build a world beyond this place. We'll talk about really boring stuff. Like CommProps and children."
              Mott, talking about Community Propositions? Paige thought she'd never see the day.
              "Oh, hey, speaking of CommProps—"
              "Mercy have me, you're already boring." Mott opened the door for Paige: a ridiculous gesture, made even more ridiculous by Mott's curly dark hair frizzing at the edges of her face and her shirttails hanging out over her skirt. Paige hated the formality of door-opening—something the Ancients had done and that the people of New Standard had only read about in books—and Mott knew it irritated her. Paige stepped through the doorframe only so it would be over.
              "Shut your mouth for just ten seconds and listen," Paige chided. "Pepper told me something interesting today."
              "You listened to Pepper?"
              "Just this once."
              "Must've been important, then."
              "You tell me: Hannah and Thren are pregnant."
              "Why is that interesting?" Mott slapped her hands in front of her, then in back of her, then in front of her, and then in back, generating a rhythm to fill the space between her steps as she walked. "They're Age-Twenty-Threes, aren't they? Everyone's pregnant in Twenty-Threes."
              "Yeah, but they're Twenty-Fives."
              Mott frowned. Her dark face was slightly larger than Paige's, and more angular, so that when she frowned she reminded Paige of a fox. Not that Paige had ever seen a fox, to be sure, but she'd seen images of them in books. She liked how Mott's lips pursed together, how she crossed her eyes in concentration, like she was looking straight at the freckles spattering across her own nose.
              Sort of pretty, Paige thought.
              "Twenty-Fives?" echoed Mott, steamrolling ahead. "Don't they already have two kids? The Council'll never let them keep it."
              "Except if the third-child CommProp goes through, they could."
              "What? It's that close to getting a ruling?"
              Despite her confusion, Mott was almost skipping in the sunshine now that they were en route to the game cottage. She was easy to please: as long as she could move around, she'd be in good spirits. Paige marveled at how carefree Mott was about all of this end-of-childhood-beginning-of-adulthood ridiculousness. Then again, knowing Mott, she was probably so focused on challenging Pepper to a round of Word Jumble or gossiping about the three-child Community Proposal that she actually wasn't. Paige kept herself from staring longingly at the group of younger girls jumping rope, on the third verse of "Firetruck Red." The large, pyramid-shaped Renewal House shone in the distance behind them: a beacon of the Statutes of Equality and everything beautiful they stood for. Those jump-roping days had been so carefree for Paige. Now they were gone.
              The girls sang:
              "The sky was blue, the trees were green, and all our lips were red,
But a mushroom cloud cried blackened rain and now we make our beds."
              "Yeah," Paige murmured. She watched her shadow get larger on the sidewalk as they walked away from the sun. She imagined her shadow with a large belly, something living inside it, and wanted to shudder. "Pepper thinks it might be a full-fledged amendment just after Peace Week."
              "That's not even a week from now," Mott marveled. "Well, even so, it's not passed yet, that's really risky—"
              "Get your hands off me!"
              The cry tore through the air, shattering the atmosphere of afternoon playtime. A few of the children playing tag stopped to peer up at source of the voice, though the crowd of maybe fifteen, twenty young mothers quickly forming two rings around a too-thin distressed woman prevented too much of a view. The mothers' long skirts formed a protective curtain as they circled around her. Many of them balanced infants on their hips; others sought out nearby spouses and handed off their children in order to focus their attention on the interruption.
              "I knew she was going to do this," grumbled a very short woman near Paige and Mott who handed off her baby to someone who looked old enough to be her mother. "It was only a matter of time."
              "Keep sweet, Jen," the mother hissed at the short woman. "Rumor volat."
              Jen waved her hand over her shoulder, already halfway toward the growing crowd of women. They were humming—first all on the same pitch, and then, soon, harmonizing. The girls who'd been jumping rope had stopped now to observe; spectacles like this happened so rarely.
              "We should go," Paige murmured to Mott. "She's getting help, we don't need to—"
              "Get back!" cried the circled woman. There was terror in her voice, crackling like breaking glass.
              "Should we call a medic?" Mott asked. She seemed more distressed than Paige would have expected her to be: her nail beds were white clutching the strap of her book bag.
              "It's okay, Chang," said a tall, pointy-nosed woman holding her hands out, palms up, in that good-Samaritan fashion. "We're here for you. Let's meditate together."
              Paige hesitated, half-reassured by the women in Chang's cohort. If Chang was being supported by women in her cohort, why would she need a medic?
              She should have recognized the panic sooner. Most people knew Chang for having been an at-risk youth, growing up in a family with weak moral devotion, only doing enough to be considered in good standing. Her family was investigated once on suspicion of hosting Theorist meetings. The ruling from the Maintenance Crewmembers was that their teatime was simply very quiet, but no one really believed that. People held their children a little tighter to their chests when Chang walked by. Sometimes, Paige thought this reaction was a little harsh.
              Chang spit on the tall woman.
              Other times, Paige thought people's reactions were fine.
              "What do you know, Sarah?" shrieked Chang, blond hair matted in sweat to her face, "you had no problems, no Medic intervention—I'll bet you you're already pregnant with your next one. I'll bet it's the healthiest damn kid in New Standard."
              "Language, Chang," griped another woman.
              "Let's meditate together," suggested another woman, who led the mothers in joining arms behind their backs around Chang. They started to hum.
              "Get away. I said, get away!"
              Chang was pregnant, but only just so—to a point where if she weren't on the verge of being an Age-23, she might have been summoned by a Nutritionist for early warning signs of overweightness. It would be a boy, of course; her first child was a girl. Paige was surprised that she was so far along in her second pregnancy already—most Age-Twenty-Threes weren't visibly pregnant until at least a month after the community birthday party—but it made sense, given the complications she'd had with her first one. Paige remembered the strained silences whenever Chang came around after she'd been instructed to terminate not one but two pregnancies due to problems found in the early detection phase. Her first child was finally born healthy, but she was born more than a few months after all the other Age-Twenties had given birth. Per the Statutes of Equality, everyone was kind to her, but it was plain on every face: the child was slow. Slower to walk, to crawl, to talk, to learn. This was exactly why abortions were mandated in the first place.
              Paige absently rubbed a hand over her own flat belly. She still had three years before she would be expected to give birth, but it seemed like no time at all. Everything was moving too quickly. In two days she and Mott would be Age-Seventeens, spouses assigned at Age-Eighteen, first child at Age-Twenty . . . she wondered, with a slight shiver, whether Chang even liked her assigned spouse, Pierce. She saw him now running in the distance from across the lawn, their daughter riding piggy-back, and heard him shout Chang's name from a distance. The mothers drowned him out, their humming buzzing louder.
              Paige shook her head. Of course Chang liked Pierce. Look how he ran toward her, with outstretched arms.
              Sarah, unfazed, wiped her face slowly with one sleeve. "Chang, I'm here to care for you," she said, her voice so soothing that Paige started to feel calm just listening to it. Sarah put her arms back up to show that she wasn't trying to harm Chang. "Why don't we make a trip to Sister Nadine—"
              "Oh, sure." Chang growled. She was sweating under the sun, eyes flashing in panic. "Send Chang to the bucket, that's the ticket. Either she needs therapy or she's a criminal—hand her off to Sister Nadine, take away her child. Not this time! They can't take her this time. I can't do that again. I can't—I can't—"
              The sentence broke off in tears and hyperventilation. Paige was beginning to get nervous. She couldn't go, but just staying felt like gawking. She wasn't helping. She had to help somehow. To make things better. She didn't have a role yet, though. She couldn't do anything until they gave her a role. She just had to stand and watch and meditate. Would it help if she hummed along?
              "Forget the medic," she whispered to Mott, standing on tiptoe to reach her ear. "Let's just—you know—"
              She started humming. Mott pursed her lips to the side and didn't hum. Paige didn't like that face as much—it was more annoyed. Less pretty than the other way.
              "Chang," Pierce huffed, finally arriving at the circle. "Chang, it's okay, I'll meet you at the medical center, okay? Chang, it's okay." It was like a circular rhythm, like a rhyme he'd practiced. He shifted the toddler to his hip and bounced her, if only to distract himself. The lines etched into Pierce's face moaned into their preset molds. Paige wondered how many times he had been through this; she had only been privy to this once. How much was a routine? How many times had they practiced this plan? The medication they kept Chang on was supposed to keep this all from happening.
              Paige felt helpless.
              She turned to Mott, gauging her reaction, half-afraid that Chang's pain was contagious and she'd catch it if she kept looking. Mott seemed angry, though. Or confused, she wasn't sure which; Mott was focused on the scene at hand, her eyebrows furrowed and her arms folded across her chest. Paige wanted to ask her if she thought Chang was okay, but that seemed like the wrong question. She'd only ever heard of Chang's outbursts like this; she'd never actually seen one. They'd been like ghost stories, things kids told each other at their annual cohort sleepover, things to giggle about because they were a world away. Once she'd heard that Chang had burned her copy of the Statutes in a secret Theorist bonfire. A wave of nausea crept its way up Paige's throat now and she stopped humming. Instinctively, she reached for Mott's hand. Mott let Paige hold it. She squeezed it back.
              They were still standing there. Why were they still standing there? Paige couldn't think of a reason except that she couldn't not stand there, out of respect, or something fabricated. It felt rude to look away. She had to face this, the truth of what was around them. This, Paige understood, was pain. The very thing New Standard aimed to prevent, or at least mitigate.
              The medic, who had been trying to inch his way into the crowd of humming women, finally stepped forward with a syringe. Chang saw the glint of it and instantly tried to run.
              The crowd of women tightened their circle around Chang like a swarm of ants around a piece of fallen honeyed bread, despite her flailing and kicking and screeching for them to let her go, despite her attempts to bite them. "No, you don't understand," Chang gasped, "You can't let them take me." She said this over and over again, and every few breaths, Paige heard: "You can't let them take him."
              Her eyes were rolling back and she was crying in an undignified, animalistic way. Tears were leaving darker streaks down her face; Paige wasn't entirely sure Chang even noticed that she was crying. She was scratching as much as she could, digging her fingertips in people's shoulders if it meant she could get a good look at her spouse and her daughter. The little girl peered over Pierce's shoulder curiously while Pierce said, "Wave at Mommy, we'll see her soon;" the toddler balled up her little fist and stretched her fingers straight and repeated this twice more, almost a wave but not quite. Pierce shifted their daughter onto his back again and began walking toward the medical center in Business Complex Two. He didn't look back.
              Paige ached to help Chang, but she didn't know what she could do to help. The medic entered the circle calmly, towel in-hand, making a soothing sound like the Age-23s made to the children clinging to their legs. He was swallowed into the crowd of women, who had begun to sing a familiar hymn:
Sweet is the peace the Statutes bring to seeking minds and true
With light refulgent on their wings, they clear the human view
Faithless tradition flees their pow'r and unbelief gives way
The gloomy clouds, which used to low'r, submit to reason's sway
              A few moments later the crowd released, exhaling. Paige searched for the medic's syringe: empty. The medic continued his soothing sounds as he placed the syringe smoothly in his emergency kit, like he did this all the time before brushing his teeth and kissing his spouse and their children goodnight, then motioned to Sarah to help with Chang's legs. Together they hoisted her onto a gurney.
              Chang was quiet on the gurney—awake, but relaxed. Or more than relaxed: the fight tired out of her. Her arms stayed where they were, though she gazed longingly at the playground in the park as she left the scene. The other Age-23s watched with concerned expressions, hands over their hearts, some of them now reunited with their spouses, who draped arms over their shoulders. Some of them called peace be with yous to Chang; others covered their mouths and shook their heads sadly. But as the gurney was rolled to the medical center in Business Complex Two, all of them melted back into other conversations, and soon the scene returned to its pristine normality. Parents chatted with each other, making plans for tea and re-arranging volunteering schedules; children played tag in the background and whooped at flying down a slide; older kids strolled around along the sidelines or absently picked grass while sitting in the park, just talking. Birds chirped, the sun shone, an array of puffy clouds sat idly in the sky as if they had nothing better to do. In the center of the park, the Renewal House's solar panels caught the light, reflecting the sun brightly, largely ignored except by a few children using it to hide from a tag predator. Paige understood: if they hid behind the Renewal House, they could believe they were safe. At least for a moment. At least for now.