The Graduation

JAKARTA, 2060

The thing about invisible doors is I always forget to snap my fingers and show my face to the censor on the ceiling. It’s the blaring alarm that makes me stop before I hit the actual invisible door. I don’t hate that I almost smash the door with my face; I hate the attention I get every time that high-pitched tone screeches from the ceiling. It’s the faces of the people on the other side of the door, a judgment added to the smug facial expression of that robotic red panda guard. It’s the audible side-eye from pedestrians across the street. But I’m used to this. The everyday rush and the chaotic air route of flying bikes don't help. My ADHD bracelet is sometimes on silent mode because I don’t like its constant vibration.

This month is special. After two years of extensive training, I'm finally graduating from the School of Second Food Science along with 58 other scientists. But I’m not a scientist, even though I'm supposed to earn the right to call myself one. My brain isn't wired that way, to remember combinations of components and what reacts to what. My mind works great with colors. I can differentiate colors with the slightest distinction of grade. I can remember all colors, even from the time before, and I know a way to replicate them.

Zaul, now the head of the School of Second Food Science, found me three years ago in the cornfield near the foot of Mount Singgalang. I was only 15, dragging sacks of dry corn leaves bigger than myself to earn cash for school. I was collecting the dry leaves and sorting them by how brown they were. The people from Cytrus who collected crops from my village would also collect the graded leaves. I never knew what the leaves were for, not until my first year in this school. Zaul came to the field to check on how our farmers were using the Cytrus fertilizers. He saw me sorting the leaves, asked me how I did it, and I told him I just see it differently.

The next week, Zaul came with a truck that had the big Cytrus logo on its side. Inside, there was a set of screens and a table with boxes on top. In the corner was something that looked like half of an ancient telephone I saw in a museum, with a long iron cable hanging from it.

“Come here, kid,” Zaul said, and he held out his hand.

I walked a step closer, my eyes focused on the fancy-looking tools on the table.

“What did you have for breakfast this morning?” he asked.

“Boiled egg and corn milk,” I replied.

“What do you think about them?” he asked, taking a step toward me.

“Enough,” I said. I wasn’t lying; I would be fine just having corn milk all day. I like them.

“I mean, how do they look?” Zaul raised his eyebrows.

“Like they're real?” I said, doubting myself.

“How?”

“Because it tastes like eggs?” I knew it was a stupid answer the moment I said it. I’d never tried the real ones.

“But you’ve never tried real eggs,” Zaul confirmed.

“Well, it looks like the ones in the books at the library,” I said, staring at my feet, the black boots looking brownish from the dirt.

“Yeah, they look like them,” he said. Zaul walked a few steps back to the table and opened one of the boxes, taking out a sphere-shaped white thing wrapped in bubble plastic. A mist surrounded it.

“This is a real one. Open it,” he said, handing the package to me. My right hand opened hesitantly, and Zaul placed the object in my palm.

“It’s alright, it’s my present for you,” he added.

When my Nana was still here, before the fertilizer poisoning took so many people in our community, she would take me to the library in the town near our village. That’s where I'd spend half the day roaming around, flipping through books like they were the most interesting thing in the world. I mean, how would I know what was interesting when all I’d ever seen was acres of cornfields and the foggy sky? But those books—encyclopedias, Nana told me—had pictures of animals with patterns on their skin, birds with colorful wings, and fruits with different shapes. I remember looking at a page detailing how a chicken came from an egg and found it surprising that people ate them. My younger self thought it was creepy to eat the baby of a bird, even before it looked like a bird.

Now I held a real egg, wrapped in plastic, feeling like it had been frozen the entire time. So my guess was right: the mist was cold air from the box. I looked at Zaul's face. He nodded and smiled slightly, his left eye crinkling at the corner. I slowly ripped the thinnest part of the plastic, trying to grab the seat near him, afraid I would drop the package and lose what could be my only chance to experience a real egg.

“It’s okay,” Zaul said.

Feeling encouraged, I ripped it quickly. My fingers shook slightly as I put my hand inside the now-open bag and grabbed the sphere.

“Is this the real one?” I asked, looking at Zaul, whose smile was now wider. He nodded.

I stared at the egg closely, looking all around it as if I didn't want to miss a single spot.

“Is this boiled?” I asked again, my eyes still glued to the egg.

“Yes,” Zaul said. He walked toward me and took the telephone-shaped thing from the wall.

“This is the egg from before, and it’s boiled so we can preserve its looks, its taste, its originality, and its color. Otherwise, it would have rotted. The yolk inside could have been a dead baby chicken, or just disgustingly rotten,” he added, taking the egg from my hand.

I paid close attention as he knocked the tip of the egg with his knuckles. I heard the crack.

“Here,” Zaul handed me the egg back.

“Open the shell and take a closer look at how it looks before you take a bite.”

“But,” I said. I didn't know how to react. I admit I really wanted to try a real egg because Nana had told me they were different from the ones Cytrus distributed. And I bet my old self I would regret it if I didn’t, because I didn’t know if I'd ever encounter the real stuff again.

“We have more of this if that’s what you’re afraid of,” Zaul said, as if he knew what I was thinking.

I put my finger inside the crack and pulled a piece of the broken shell. The firm, white surface was revealed. Just like my egg that morning. Thinking about my breakfast egg, the unreal one, I had a sudden urge to compare it to the real one. In a rush, I pulled the shell off in small pieces until it was all gone. I watched the entire egg, my eyes feeling like they were about to tear up. I was thinking of my Nana. She always talked about how much she missed having real food like they used to. I could share this with her if she were still here. If only the Cytrus people hadn't forced us to use their fertilizer, Nana would still be here. But I could feel Zaul’s breath on my neck, waiting for me to do something with the egg.

I looked at him after a quick glance at his shirt with the Cytrus logo. He’s one of them, this man is a Cytrus person. One of the people who ruined my village. I think he’s responsible for my Nana’s death and a lot of others from my village.

“Why?” I asked, putting my eyes back on the egg.

“What?” Zaul corrected his position so he could see my face.

“Why did you give poisoned fertilizer to the farmers?”

“What do you mean?” he asked in a steady but raspy voice.

“That was the reason why my Nana and other people from this village died. The fertilizer was poisoned. You took them all away,” I swallowed hard. Something burning was stuck in my throat. I tried to steal a look at Zaul’s face. His expression didn’t change; he was still looking at me with those smiling eyes.

“We can talk about that after you try the egg, I promise,” he said, sitting in front of me.

“But why?” My voice was getting heavy, and I could barely hear myself.

“Because, Suri,” he said my name for the first time. “Yes, I know your name. You’re the granddaughter of Saur Dee, and I was here when the fertilizer program came to your village. I was the one who taught the farmers how to properly use it. Your Nana isn't the only one, but we discovered something that could help our species survive this world a little longer, far better. The egg in your hand is from the last chicken that survived the wave, and it’s thanks to your Nana. We will talk about the fertilizer, I promise. I just need you to try the egg. Please?”

I didn't want to believe this man. It was only our second time talking. But I knew Cytrus people would have every kind of information about us, the farmers, the villagers. So if Zaul knew my Nana, it was probably true. And if this egg was what he explained it to be, I wouldn't mind taking a bite in exchange for a little answer to the question I just found needed to be asked a moment ago.

So I put the egg in my mouth. I gave it a bite. I let the white part of it fall to the floor of my mouth, revealing a yolk that was still frozen. It tasted different. I brought the egg in front of my face to see the color. It was not the same color as my boiled egg that morning.

“It’s not the same, huh?” Zaul took the egg from my hand and put something else on it.

“You can make it all look like it was from before,” he added.