Misery grates through me like razors floating softly down my throat. I feel the hunger burning inside me, burning me alive. This is not different than it normally is. Not different at all. 

Beside me Bollen lies on by the clay floor of the thatch-roofed hut, facing the wall, body wracked with fever. I don't know if he will make it or not. Sometimes people make it. Sometimes they don't.

Bollen is kind, with a bright smile and a sparkle in his sad, dark eyes. He is good with children and easy to make laugh. But like all of us, he carries deep grief inside of himself. 

The rest of the room is filled with fifteen other people, all crammed together, all leaning on one another. We are all varying degrees of sick, but not enough for it to be life-threatening. We are all hungrier than we should be. We are all weary and overworked and full of grief. The room is bare, except for the little clay stove beside the window. 

But none of that is new. We are always in such a state of affairs. 

What is new is that all the people who were away working in the city are back. The children are back. The factory labourers are back. The construction workers are back. The people locked away in the high rise apartments of the rich are back. And the whole village is full to bursting. 

But this is not a happy occasion, as glad as we all are to be united. There is a sense of danger in the air. A heavy, suffocating sense of oppression. We have to get these next few days right. We have to get them right and we have to be ready. 

We are preparing ourselves for the census. The one day every three years where clean, well-dressed researchers with high degrees come into our little village to tell the government and all the other well-dressed, well-fed academics what we think and feel and do. 

What we say to them could make or break us. 

That's why Emmaline is talking to us about what the rich people want to hear from us. She knows what she's talking about. She knows how to behave around the rich people. She knows how to stay safe. 

She knows all this because she has to spend her life as a servant for the comfortable and and well-housed. And it's a dangerous job. One where your mind and body always have to be on high alert. One where you have to smile through your pain and lie through your teeth. But it's a job that taught her well. 

"They expect gratitude from us," Emmaline is telling all of us gathered on the floor of this bare hut. "They get very angry if you don't show them gratitude." Her voice is oddly calm. Unnervingly thoughtful. Unbearably kind. 

I think about everything I have to be grateful for. My people. My relationships. The sky. The earth. The sun. The moon. The stars. All those things were given to me by God and God alone. 

I think about all the things I have to be miserable for. The hunger. The unending work. The people that die every year, too young for death and too worn down to be useful anymore. The long days under the bright hot sun in the fields without enough water breaks. All this misery is directly due to the comfortable people in their high apartments. 

But we can't tell them that. And I know exactly why. 

"Why do we have to be grateful?" A young child named Dannenne asks, their voice heavy with darkness and their eyes wide with curiosity. Dannenne is cute. They're thoughtful. They do well in school, even though their school barely teaches them anything, as all the kids often complain. At least they're going to school. I didn't go. 

"Because, Dannenne," Emmaline starts, "they give us jobs and they buy our crops and that gives us the money to live." There is something dark and rueful in her tone. 

"But I don't like living," the young child complains. Their voice carries tones of weariness that no child's voice should have. But they're weary. Too weary, already, of this worrisome life. 

"No-one does," a young man named Dellson agrees. "But we have to anyways. It's just the way things are." He echoes his sentiment. But with the terrible resignation that comes with experience. 

"Maybe one day things will be different," a woman named Laycia suggests, cradling her cooing baby in her arms and leaning against her friend Asilla. She has to stay strong. For her baby. She tries to give her strength to the rest of us. 

Bollen coughs, and I stroke his back to help him feel better. It's a horrible, dry, cracked sound. It chills me to the bone. 

"Anyways," Emmaline continues, "there's nothing that the well-to-do hate more than poor people who complain. The well-off say that they provide us with so much. They give us jobs and business and whatnot. So if we complain it really annoys them. They say that if we're not happy with our lot they could stop providing for us. They could take it away." There is something terrified under the solemnity of her words. 

My breath freezes in my chest. I knew that this was the case already. That the cushy wanted our loyalty and our devotion as well as our work and our suffering. But hearing it like this sends chills up my spine. 

"And say that you're happy with the way things are," Emmaline warns us. "If they ever catch even a hint that you're unsatisfied, they will hate it. And they will hurt you for it." Her dark, dark eyes makes the blood in my heart swirl with fear. Not directed towards her. But towards those who she warns us about. 

Of course. Those who were alright in the status quo wouldn't want us to show any ill feelings towards it. Not even a hint of anything that could be construed as or lead to anger against the way things are. Anger against a system that took much from us and took little from them. 

"Always pretend to be hopeful," Emmaline goes on, ensuring that we're all listening to her weighted, indispensable words. "Because if they think that we are hopeful, they will think that we are complacent." 

"Just, tell them what you think they want to hear," an older woman named Auburnee tells us. "Tell them what would rock the boat least." She carries a sense of simple conspiracy in the way she talks. In the way her eyes flicker with the barest hint of a flame. 

"But won't it help us if they know how miserable we are?" A preteen girl named Sailee asks. "Won't it make them change?" Her voice is deep and thoughtful and curious. She carries with her the illogical hope that so often gets us through hardship. 

"They'll never change," I reply. "Not really. They won't make things better for us. All we can do is try to avoid their anger." 

"Have we ever tried making them change?" Sailee asks. 

"They know we have not even barely enough to get by," another young girl, Mila, states, resentment in her voice. "They know they have parties and fun and new dresses and all kinds of nonsense. They don't care about the unfairness though. Why should they care about us?" There is a sharp, serrated edge of anger to her. And I wish it had somewhere to go. 

"Exactly," a young adult named Karell states, "they don't care. And they won't care. The best thing to do is to tell them what they want to hear."

"To keep us safe," four-year-old Lethey declares. There is still brightness in her voice. Still happiness. But there is also a piercing sort of fear. A fear she soaks up from all the grief and the poverty and the need. I wish I could sooth away all her fears. 

"Yes," I agree. 

Bollen coughs again. And I think about how very not safe we are. But still, we have to cling to any shreds of safety we can get and we need to cling to them hard. 

"And so we have to appear content. Grateful. Loyal." Emmaline's voice rings through the room. She speaks so calmly and surely, despite having been through so much hardship. Despite still going through so much hardship. 

"Even if they don't care," an older man named Gray tells us, "we care. We care about each other. And we are together. That is our power. And we have to keep it hidden." He cradles his baby daughter in his lap. I worry about that child. She'll almost inevitably have to grow up without her father. He's not as young as he used to be. Though his tired, worn-down eyes still flicker with as much spirit as before. 

"Exactly," a teenager named Ruthia declares. "We cannot let them know our power. We have superior numbers. They know we have superior numbers. They cannot know that we're united. They cannot know that we support each other." There is something bright and shiny and unwavering deep, deep down in her tone. It gives me hope. It gives me strength. We have each other. We have strength. 

"Because then we're a threat to their power," Laycia adds. "And we are a threat to their power. But we can't have them knowing that."

"So don't let them know how much you care about your people," a man named Jamis tells us all, "pretend your relationships are strained. Pretend you let age and gender and all those other things divide you." His words are soft and reserved. We have to quiet ourselves to hear them properly. Janis has always been on the shyer side, as far as I know. But when he has something important to say he says it. 

I let out a small giggle, even though I know that this tense, solemn room is not the place for it. The idea of my people being divided, the idea of letting my people divide themselves, is just too hilarious to not laugh at. 

It's absurd. 

We all know we're suffering, though sometimes in different ways. We all know we're slowly dying. The last thing we would do is turn around and make it even harder for any one of us to live. 

Everyone looks at me silently. Not rebukingly. Just curiously. 

"What's so funny?" Dellson asks me softly. His expression is concerned. 

"The thought of us hating each other," I reply, too lightly for the day. 

"That is funny," Auburnee replies. Something sparkles in her eyes. 

The children are talking to each other. The children always talk to each other, talk to individual adults, talk to themselves. The children are adorable. I love hanging out with them, talking with them, being with them. 

"Are you going to be brave for the researchers?" Mila asks me. Her wide, large eyes look into mine like the sun shining through the clouds. 

"If I get picked, Mila, Of course am. And I'm sure you'll be very brave as well. But it's okay if you're scared. There's nothing wrong with being scared. It doesn't make you any less brave." I try to put as much strength and as much kindness into my reply as I can. 

"I know," she replies confidently. And it's great to hear her confidence. In a world where everything will try to take her confidence from her, it's great to hear that she has it now. 

"We need to talk about politics," a man named Jereki starts. "Because there will definitely be questions about politics in the interviews." His eyes are serious and pragmatic, flashing anxiously with purpose. But still they are like water flowing over rocks. 

"What is there to say?" A woman named Kaylena asks. "Just say we support one of the two parties that are powerful and that's that." She's strong. She's thoughtful. She's right. It's what we must do. Pledge allegiance with our fingers crossed to the status quo. 

"Fuck both those parties," Bollen states, straining to speak. He has to say it anyways. He has to say these words. And he's right. Both parties are the exact same elitist right-wing bullshit but we have to vote for one of the two anyways. We always have to vote for one of the two. None of the smaller, better, still terrible parties that also run. 

"But what about Rached Zanviv?" The ever-thoughtful woman Asilla brings up what's probably on everyone's minds. "If we're asked about her, I think we should say we don't know anything." At the mention of the name, her voice lights up. But still she keeps it even, smooth. Though I can tell that she has to fight for it. 

Rached Zanviv. The star falling to earth. Of course we know about her. A budding politician from our ranks. A young woman who has left the comfortable shaking with fear. We know about her. Of course we all know about her. But we're not allowed to say we do. 

Bollen coughs again. And I go out to give him a twig of arkena to suck on, to maybe take the sharpest edges off of his sickness. 

"That would make sense," a young woman named Jaylee says. "There's no way we should know about her. Unless word got around. /Which it didn't/." She smiles conspirationally at that last sentence. I can tell that she feels a certain sort of joy at tricking the comfortable. Though I muse that we all do. 

"Yes," Karell agrees, "/it couldn't've./"

"I live in the city. I've seen the way the contented ones rally around their favoured parties. They love them. They're powerful. Terrifying. Almost violent." 

There is silence at Jereki's words. 

"So I think that covers everything," Ruthia begins, "unless anyone has anything more to add." 

"Does everyone agree to the plan?" Mila asks. And we do. We all agree. We never make any plans without all agreeing. But it's ever so easy to agree. It feels as if the whole community is just different parts of the same mind. 

Everyone rises and files out of the room to go check on the state of affairs with the people in the other houses. Gray stays with Bollen.