The next morning there is breakfast, eaten sitting in a circle around the bowl. There is quiet conversation, but it isn't as animated as the night before. Everyone is in a rush. They have to get to work, except for Nora. 

"I can take you closer to the garbage chute," Nora tells Maybell. "I can't take you there all the way. It's a few days journey away. But I can get you closer. Then you can spend the night at someone else's place."

"Will I ever see you guys again?" Maybell asks.

"I doubt it," Nora replies. "But we'll always remember you. And you'll always remember us."

"And who knows," Aunt June adds, "maybe we will see each other again. In the next life." 

"Yes, it's good to always have hope," Jack agrees. "Hope can get you through the darkest of situations."

"No matter what, we love you," Auburnee tells the little girl. 

"Aww, thanks so much. So ... anyways, what are your jobs?"

"I work in an electric power plant," Auburnee replies. "It's terrible, so hot and heavy and suffocating. I have to keep the fires going." 

"That does sound very hard," Maybell realizes. 

"It is," Auburnee agrees. "It's absolutely mind-numbing."

"I used to work there myself," Jack adds. "But now I work in a factory. It's so achingly repetitive. You have to do the same thing over and over and over and over again. But it's okay. You do what you gotta do for your people."

"I'm so sorry," Maybell states with a haunted voice. "You deserve better. You all deserve better."

"My job's not so bad,"Aunt June starts, "It's still bad, but it's not as bad as it could be. I deliver food to all the households, and to the people living in the streets."

"That sounds very important," Maybell remarks solemnly. 

"Oh, it is. And it's so rewarding. But it just breaks my heart that there isn't enough food to go around."

"It's not fair," Nora cries out. "There isn't enough food to go around. There isn't enough water. There isn't enough firewood. There isn't enough housing. There isn't enough of anything to go around."

"Wow. That's horrible." Maybell's words are thoughtful. 

"But anyways," Auburnee starts, "I'm sure there's enough in the city. I'm sure there's more than enough."

"Oh there is," Maybell answers. "But it's not fair. Not fair at all."

"You're very right," Jack tells her, "it isn't."

"But we have each other," June states, "that takes the edge off the harshest of the harshness. It makes everything bearable."

"Bearable, yeah right," Nora comments. 

"I heard that there are going to be some fruits coming soon," Auburnee pipes up."

"Ooh fruits. I love fruits." Jack smiles. 

"Who doesn't?" Nora remarks. 

Maybell thinks about how she much prefers chocolate and ice cream and other sweet things over fruits, but she decides to keep that little tidbit of an opinion to herself. She doesn't think it would be respectful to say. 

After breakfast everyone hugs each other and they hug Maybell. 

"We'll remember you," Auburnee whispers to her solemnly. "We'll remember you always. And we'll love you."

"Yes," Jack echoes, "we won't forget you. You'll always be in our hearts."

"Don't worry little one," Aunt June speaks, "we'll get you back home."

"I'm going to miss you guys so much," Maybell tells them through tears. 

"Oh we'll miss you too," Aunt June tells her. 

Eventually it is time to go to work and everyone sets off. 

"Come on." Nora takes her hand and leads her through the dark streets. 

She walks quickly, and Maybell struggles to keep up. But she understands why this is. They need to cover as much ground as they can in this short day, so that Maybell can be closer to getting home. 

"Do you not have a job?" Maybell asks Nora. 

"I don't have one right now. But I'm looking."

"Why are you looking?"

"Because everyone has to work."

"Why does everyone have to work?"

"Because it's the only way to get by. It's the only way to get food and water and other things that we need. Not having a job means death."

"That's horrible." 

"It really is." 

"What kind of a job are you hoping to get?" Her voice is lightly hopeful. 

"I'll have to pick the first job that accepts me. I need money fast."

"Oh that's sad. Hopefully it's a good job."

"I don't think good jobs exist in the downworld."

"The people who sleep on the streets, do they have jobs?" 

"They do, most of them."

"Then how come they have to sleep on the streets?"

"Because there aren't enough rooms to hold everyone, young one. And some people get the short end of the stick. And they can't find anywhere to live. We take turns though, letting people from the streets live and sleep in our rooms while we sleep outside."

"Even for the people without jobs?" 

"Of course even for them. Everyone deserves to have a roof over their head and protection from the elements and somewhere to be and to rest their bodies. It doesn't matter whether they have a job or not. And anyways, it's not anyone's fault that they can't get a job. No-one wants to have no money."

"That's very wise."

"It's the type of wisdom all the downworlders have."

"You guys are really nice people."

"We have to be. If we don't stick up for each other no-one will stick up for us."

"Isn't it hard though, sticking up for each other?"

"It is hard. But the rewards are more than worth it." 

"What would you wish for, if you could have one wish?"

"I'd wish for my people to go back to the surface. I'd wish for my people to go back to the world we left behind, which was wild and connected and good."

"How do you know about the world before?"

"I've heard the stories, and the stories do not lie."

"How do you know they don't lie?"

"Because I know it in my heart. We all do."

Each of the two young women take long pauses before speaking, gathering their thoughts and thinking about their next words very carefully. They continue talking as they walk through the greatness and the grit and the grime of the world. Maybell thinks about how ugly it all is, but she also thinks about how even amidst all this ugliness, there is a strange beauty that cannot be put into words, a strange beauty that is completely intangible. 

"This is as far as I can take you," Nora speaks after a while. "Let's get you to another household."

"Thank you so much, Nora."

"You're welcome, Maybell, good luck on your journey." 

Nora knocks on random doors in a worn-down apartment building. There, in the darkness, she explains their situation to the people inside. People are surprised, to see a young girl in pretty clothes and nice shoes. But they wish her luck on her journey to get home nonetheless. 

The first three doors open to groups of people who are already at full capacity, who do not have room for another person, no matter how small. But the fourth room lets her in. 

Here, Nora and Maybell exchange tearful hugs, and bid each other farewell. 

"Don't forget us," Nora beseeches.

"I won't," Maybell promises. 

"So what's your name?" A man in a worn brown shirt asks. 

"Maybell," she replies."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Desmond. And this is Ali, Arrow, Hope, and August."

They sit down in the tiny room and talk about their lives.

———

So Maybell goes from house to house to house to house. And each day she meets new people, people she wishes she could spend more time with, people she knows she cannot spend more time with, people who teach her more than she ever thought it was possible to learn. People who transform her into something haunted, something haunting, something beautiful and unholy and otherworldly and real. More real than she ever thought herself capable of being. 

She almost wishes she could stay. She wishes she could stay in this cold world of ugliness and brokenness and strange streetlights and even stranger people. She feels more at home here than she has ever been anywhere in her life. But it's a strange sort of at-homensss, both perfectly soothing and deeply painful all at once. 

She stays in the downworld for two weeks, meeting more people than she has ever met before in her lifetime, forming more connections than she knew herself capable of forming. Creating more space in her increasingly red, increasingly bleeding heart. 

But eventually she comes upon the trash chute, and the mountains of garbage that are piled before it. 

"I can't come with you to the chute," her companion Cloud says, "because downworlders are not allowed up into the city. But I can come up with you to the top of the trash mountain."

Maybell thanks them but says that it's okay, she can climb the mountain herself. 

"Are you sure?" Cloud asks. 

"I am," Maybell responds, "don't worry about me."

"I guess this is goodbye then."

"I guess it is. Thank you for everything. I hope that fortune favours you. You deserve happinesses."

"Hey, I hope fortune favours you too. Good luck in your future endeavours."

"You too."

The two of people share a long, sweet, warm and desperate hug, before parting on their separate ways. 

Maybell climbs over the reeking piles of plastic and paper and rotting food and tossed out ends of vegetables. She climbs over apple cores and orange peels and Saran Wrap and torn-up cardboard. It's horrifically disgusting, but she forces herself onwards. It's the only way to get home after all. 

Though she's not even sure that she wants to go home. 

Finally, after what seems like a lifetime, she reaches the top of the trash pile. She pauses for a moment to catch her breath, looking up at the long, steep, cavernous tube that slants its way down from the ceiling of the downworld. 

She turns back one more time, taking in the piles of trash and taking in all the darkened streets and buildings behind it. She pauses for a long time, just simply looking out at it all. She thinks of all the people, living their lives and loving their loved ones there down in the streets and buildings of the downworld. She thinks of all the people who she met, who she's leaving behind, and all the people who she didn't meet who she's leaving behind as well. Sadness settles in her heart. 

Finally, she turns back around and hoists herself up with her arms into the empty trash chute. It's empty right now, it's smooth and slippery and hard to hold onto. So she grabs the walls with her hands. She uses her hands and feet to climb her way up through the darkness, with only touch to guide her. 

As she climbs up further and further away from where she came from, she thinks. She thinks about all the people she has met and everything she has learned. She thinks that there must be a way to help the downworld, that there must be a way to decrease the sorrow the people there are put through. She vows to do something, to somehow decrease the inequality between the city and the downworld, to somehow help people get to the surface. 

She hears a rushing sound almost like rain falling, and gets hit with a deluge of garbage up to her knees. She presses her hands tighter against the sides of the tube, and holds herself there with all of her strength as the garbage hits her and slides down around her. She has a chance now, she supposes, to go tumbling back. But she holds herself there nonetheless. 

Afterwards she starts climbing again, amid the strange, rancid smell and the darkness. She is terrified that there may be something coming after her, some monster hidden in the shadows, some creature set out to harm her. But she knows that she has to go on, past the fear. She knows that she's alone, climbing up here. And so she continues. 

Eventually she comes to the opening of the tunnel, closed in by a large iron plate. She walks up to the small bit of flatness and takes another moment to catch her breath. She then pushes the large lid with all her might, until it creaks open. 

Harsh, bright daylight floods in and assaults her eyes. She squeezes herself through the crack she made and emerges, all alone, out into the bright, shining world of the city. She stands there in agony for the few minutes it takes for her eyes to adjust. And then she looks around, at the world she has been born into. 

Everything is so eerily familiar yet so achingly foreign. This is where she spent her whole life but absolutely everything seems foreign, seems strange, seems unrecognizable. It's as if she's stepped into an alien world. 

The beauty of her surroundings is sharp, harsh, apathetic. It cuts into her and leaves her bleeding. She feels as though the pretty buildings and trees and bushes and flowers she used to love so much now hate her. She doesn't feel at home at all. She feels lost, and isolated, and unwanted. 

She walks in the direction that she knows the nearest police station is, hoping that they can return her to her parents. 

———

Her parents cry when they see her. They hug her hard, so hard that she feels as though she cannot breathe. Her older sister does the same. 

"We were worried about you!" Her mother exclaims in a voice that is too bright and too joyful and too strong.

"I was alright," she replies. 

"Alright? In the downworld? It's a wonder that you didn't die." Her father's voice feels hard like gravel. 

"Come on, let's get you home." Her sister pulls at her arm. 

Inside her house everything feels strange and foreign. It feels too big, too full, too cluttered.

"Do you want to watch a movie?" Her sister asks. 

She shakes her head. 

"What about going to the amusement park?" Her mother suggests. 

She shakes her head again. 

They sit at the large, polished table to have a dinner filled with meat and vegetables. 

"The downworlders deserve to come to the surface to live with us," Maybell states at dinner, her solemn voice ringing clear. 

"The downworlders? What a preposterous idea!" Her father scoffs at her words. 

"Why not? They're people just like the rest of us."

"Everyone knows that the downworlders are lazy and violent and dangerous," her mother exclaims haughtily. 

"They're not, Mama. They're just people. And they're suffering."

"Do not say such preposterous things," her father tells her. "And do not assume you know more than us. We're older. We have more experience."

"But Papa, they helped me. Without their help I would never have been able to go back home."

"They probably only helped you because they thought there was something in it for them," her sister states surely. 

Maybell eats the rest of the meal in silence, as her family chatters on happily, chatters on obliviously, around her. 

That night, after everyone's gone to sleep, she steps out into the darkness of the city streets and she starts walking. She walks away. 

———

If you like this piece check out my Twitter my handle is @FSairuv and I post about human rights, social justice, and the environment.