Handmaids Tale: Fanfic: Chain of survival

[m_findlow]

Title: Chain of survival
Fandom: The Handmaid's Tale
Characters: Offred, Ofglen
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 653 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for m_findlow's prompt "Any, any, making a daisy chain to pass the time" at fic_promptly
Summary: Even in Gilead there are still some things that fight to survive.

Ofglen cast her gaze back down from the wall. She didn't want to see the bodies hanging there any longer. Today there was a pastor, the end of his rosary still dangling from underneath the sack they'd thrown over his head. Two more looked like resistance fighters, and a fourth, disturbingly, was a woman. Her grey gown marked her an Econowife. What had she done, I wondered, to earn herself a place on the wall. Maybe she was a resistance fighter, undercover, or maybe she was found out to be a lesbian. Maybe she simply couldn't have children and her husband got rid of her. Or maybe it was worse than that. Aunt Lydia had talked about baby killers - women who despised other women for being able to procreate - snatching children from their cribs and leaving their broken bodies in the street as a declaration. Perhaps we'd gotten it wrong, though. Perhaps they didn't do it out of jealousy. Perhaps they just thought we got what we deserved as a society.

'One day it'll be one of us up there,' Ofglen murmured, quietly so that the Eyes with their guns guarding the wall wouldn't hear us.

'One day, perhaps,' I silently agree, 'but not for a long time.' They'll mutilate us first, take off fingers, hands, feet, and anything else that isn't essential to bringing a child into this world. And there are punishments far worse than losing a limb.

I turn away from the wall myself, remembering that the only reason we came down here was to avoid going home just yet. Home. Even that sounds stupid. There's no home for us, only whatever meager accommodations are afforded us under the roofs of the commanders and their wives.

Ofglen sits down, facing the river that flows east and west through the city. Once it might have been beautiful, but even the river is murky and polluted, brown and turgid. It despises this existence just as much as the rest of us. I sit down next to her and wonder what the Eyes must think of us, sitting here and staring out at nothing, two women in red and white. My hand brushes the ground and underneath it. There's a small daisy, forcing its way out though the hard ground. Not far away is another, until I realise that there are dozen of them, tiny and frail but somehow clinging to life, just like us. I pluck one from the earth and then another, until I have a small posie. With a fingernail I pierce the end of the stem and thread a second daisy through it.

'What are you doing?' Ofglen hisses, trying hard not to turn her wings too far in my direction.

'I used to make daisy chains with Hannah,' I murmur back. They were beautiful, bright yellow flowers that I would weave until I had a small crown of them to place on her head, like the princess she was. These ones are not so big, just the tiny white ones that usually spring up in the lawn, only to be mown down. We are rather like daisies, I think, plucked to be put on display, to suffer a slow death wilting away far from the nurturing homes we once knew.

Ofglen continues to stare out at the river whilst I continue making the chain longer and longer. I wonder how long I could make it before the Eyes get nervous and move us on. Instead I pick one final daisy and loop it back through the very first, completing the circle. I hold it out for Ofglen so that it comes within the limited view from her wings. 'It's for you,' I say. Reluctantly she takes it, fingering the soft petals. I expect her to hand it back, but instead she slips it into the pocket inside her sleeve. There's no thank you, but for now acceptance is enough.