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As I walked along the harbor towards the island the number of people around me grew until I was immersed in the bustling activity.

I was still intrigued by those in the loose blue clothing. Closeup, I could see their hands and faces showed scars, their bodies seemed desperately thin, and you could make out the shape of their bones through their forearms. But most of all, I found it strange how they seemed detached from any connection. None of them so much as even met my eye.

I kept trying to make eye contact with them, hoping to find out more, but my attempts were futile. Eventually I decided to take a bolder approach. I stood in front of blue-clothed man carrying a crate.

“Hello. Good day,” I said.

The man stared at me with wide and worried eyes. Still, his eyes didn’t meet mine. They were tilted at my chest, his head bowed slightly. “Sorry sir, have I done something wrong?”

I tried to process the response. But before I could speak I was interrupted. “You don’t talk to him,” a gruff, aged voice called out from behind me. “Get back to work.”

The blue-shirted man turned and left, scurrying away.

I turned to the voice to see a small, stout man, with a curly gray beard. He walked towards me. “You do not speak to any of the blues,” he said.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I am visiting.”

“Visiting?” the man asked, his tone still short and harsh.

I explained, as succinctly as I could my plans and the purpose of my visit. Slowly as I talked his posture relaxed, and his attempts at intimidation seemed to give way to bemusement. By the time I had finished, he was bordering on giddy excitement. “I have never heard of anything so strange,” he chuckled. “Let me buy you a drink.”

The man introduced himself as Malcolm Lowe, and walked me to a nearby cafe. There a hurried blue-shirted man rushed to bring us two hot drinks. The drink was dark and bitter. However, Malcolm was my one contact, and I felt obliged to accept any kindness. Despite my efforts, Malcolm seemed to pick up on the instinctual grimacing.

“It’s called coffee,” he said. “It’s a delicacy here. I assume you didn’t have any on Kadear Coalfields.”

I shook my head. I didn’t respond in voice, concerned the air would increase the bitter flavor on my tongue.

“It’s an acquired taste. You’ll get used to it,” Malcolm laughed. “So you knew nothing of our island before arriving?”

“I had heard of it by name,” I replied.

“Well, let me educate you. What do you need to know?” He gestured out to the islands with his arms.

I knew what my first question had to be. “Who are the people in blue?”

He smiled, his white teeth blending with the gray of his beard. “Ah, the blues,” he started. “They keep the island running. They are the backbone of the Ministration. They work the hardest so the rest of us need not.”

“I don’t understand."

“They are the common workers of the island.” He paused. “Most people here work just two days a week, and live the rest of our time in leisure. However, that lost time must be made up. So the blues work near 100 hours a week each. Citizens take holidays. The blues do not get a single day off. We get paid handsomely and share the spoils of the island’s wealth. The blues get enough food and water to live, but otherwise no pay at all…”

“They sound like slaves,” I said. I was taken aback at my own sudden brevity, but the morally repugnant nature of what I was hearing led to a subconscious reaction.

I had expected outrage, or guilt. Instead, once more Malcolm just laughed. “I had a funny feeling you would say that.”

“Are they not?”

“Slaves were property of people. No one here is property,” Malcolm mulled.

“They are slaves to the island?”

“Are we not all? I am a slave to my island. I just happen to have a better agreement with my island than the blues,” Malcolm said. “Anyway, there is another important distinction between the blues and slaves.”

I looked at him quizzically and allowed him to continue.

“With slavery, many people serve one person. You’re more likely the slave than the slave owner. So, the average result for everyone’s happiness was misery. There are four citizens for every one blue here. You have far greater chance of being a citizen than a blue.” He paused to take another sip of his drink before continuing. “Therefore, the average result is great happiness. The average citizen of Bluekira Ministration has greater happiness because of the Blues.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I looked around. The numbers certainly seemed correct. The blue-shirted men and women stood out due to their costume, but they were outnumbered by the others by a considerable margin.

It was then I also noticed that every male blue-clothed worker was clean-shaven, while almost all regular citizens wore thick, unkempt beards. I reached my own hand up to my face, feeling the wiry curls of hair on my cheek that I worried would leave me looking unpresentable. The culture had changed. It was another quick reminder how foreign everything now was.

I still had many other questions, but Malcolm was eager to show his hospitality. He insisted I stayed at his home for the duration of my visit. I was unsure if I wanted to stay with the man who was defending this caste system, but I was in no place to deny any hospitality. It was a safe place to stay, one that was being offered for free with no caveat.

On the walk back to his home I began to suspect the motives for his hospitality. Frequently on the walk he stopped to point out certain buildings or geographical features. And even more frequently, he would stop to talk to other residents, each time going out of his way to point out his strange guest. “He’s just visiting”, “He’s not even from here”, “I’m hosting the visitor while he is here.”

He seemed desperate to humor and to be loved, at least in the superficial sense of an entertainer. To me, he would show off the island and educate me in its ways. But more importantly, to everyone else, I was the spectable; a small curiosity to show off to colleagues and friends. I estimate the walk should have taken only half an hour. In the end, given the regular stops, it took us nearly two.

--------------------

At his home, Malcolm introduced me to his daughter, Tamsyn, a fair-faced woman about eighteen years old. She had long brown hair that came down to her waist that was tied in a loose ponytail.

The three of us took a seat in the front room of his home. I looked on the walls around me. On each of the four walls, there were etchings of men and women. Most of them were simple charcoal portraits, but still made with considerable talent; with the care of a professional artisan. They seemed to spiral around the room, until coming to an end near the floor on one side. The last two were a clear resemblance to a younger Malcom, and a current Tamsyn.

Malcolm smiled. “There are portraits for every member of our family going back just under two hundred years. No other family on the island has such a great record of where they come from than we do.”

I looked at the flattering picture of Malcolm. I wondered if he had once been so handsome and fit, or if the portrait was being overly generous.

“I hope that Tamsyn will continue on the family name and keep our heritage going. Her children would take us past two-hundred years of history.”

“Dad likes to remind me of this desire,” Tamsyn added. “It adds a small amount of pressure to the future of my life.” She chuckled gently, brushing off the sentence as a joke. But there was no denying that she meant the truth behind the words.

“Tamsyn’s mother died in childbirth,” Malcolm said, a brief grimace on his lips. “I thank the Earth each day that Tamsyn survived and wasn’t selected as a blue.”

I tilted my head. Tamsyn answered me. “That is how the blues are selected. One in every five children are chosen at random. At the age of seven, you pick a ball from inside a cloth. If the ball is black, you become a citizen, if the ball is blue…” She trailed off.

“Why age seven?”

“That is when children are returned to their families.” She responded. “When children are born they are taken away, and raised by the island, away from their parents. Aged seven, if your child does not pick a blue ball, you are returned to your family.”

Malcolm seemed to have returned from his moment of reflection, and jumped into the conversation, eager to share his knowledge. “The founders of the island realized that family bonds are strong. Everyone knows the blues are destined to lead tough lives. If you knew that one particular blue was your child, how would you treat them the same as all the others? The risk that they would be given preferential treatment, that rich and wealthy families would try and rescue their own children was too great.”

“So you wait anxiously till the child is seven to find out what will happen to them?” I asked.

“Yes and no,” Malcolm replied. “Between the dangers of birth and infancy, only around three-quarters of children will make it to seven. You never know what happened to your child if they do not return. Many will choose to believe death over the idea that their child is alive, but beyond your hope.”

Malcolm’s tone remained calm throughout, seemingly unphased by the brutality of what he was describing. I couldn't help but question his tone. “You don’t seem sad at the plight of...” I found myself placing an uncomfortable emphasis as I used the term familiar to Malcolm, “the blues”

Malcolm thought for a moment. “Everyone on the island understands their situation. But everyone is behind it, it is the fairest system.”

“Fair?”

“Indeed. On Kadear coalfields, you had some people work more challenging jobs for lower pay, did you not?”

I nodded.

“But what determined those inequalities. How good your education was? How your parents raised you? That’s unfair. Here, everyone must go through the process. The very richest families, through to the very poorest. Everyone has an equal chance.”

The rest of the day passed with relatively polite chatter. Malcolm paid great efforts to let me know of each portrait on the wall, and who they belonged to, regailing me with stories of former generations.

As warm as the reception was, I couldn’t help feel some anxiety. The state of the island, the lives led by the blue-shirted workers, and Malcolm’s calmness with which he discussed their culture threw me. He was so hospitable, so kind to me, that it was making me question my initial disgust.

At dinner that night, my mind was made up. If I were to understand the Bluekira Ministration I would have to speak to and meet the blue-shirted workers. As we sat over a large bowl of bread and pasta, I asked Malcolm if it would be possible to meet them.

Malcolm shook his head. “They lead unpleasant, difficult lives. Why would you want to spend time with such sadness.”

“I want to understand more about the island, about your culture. I want to see what all experiences are like here.”

“What more could you possibly learn from speaking to them?” he replied.

“To understand what they go through. To understand what their lives are like...”

“But I have told you,” he interjected.

“I came here to explore and understand…”

“While you are here you are my guest,” Malcolm interrupted me again. “I will do my very best to show you great hospitality, to treat you and show off our great island. And what kind of host would I be if I made your stay an unpleasant one?”

I turned to Tamsyn, hoping she might back me up. She shrugged back at me.

Malcolm continued. “While you are on the Bluekira Ministration you are under my watch. I cannot let you visit the blues.”

I was beginning to feel like a prisoner again, but not one trapped by walls and padlocks, but instead by hospitality and kindness. I was being charmed into my cell, and I was unsure if I would manage to escape and see the island for myself.