Polluted

It is windy. The papers in my lap whip around as I sit on the park bench. I am unable to concentrate.

I look up from my studies to see an Ebony girl staring at me. Her eyes immediately dart away, and I struggle to quiet the voice in the back of my mind chiding me for making eye contact with someone outside of my channel.

It's funny really, how you can feel someone looking at you. I always wonder what it would be like to see myself from someone else's perspective. I've always wanted to ask someone of another channel, what they see when they look at me.

But of course, I cannot. It would be a shame brought onto my mother, to have such an ill-mannered child, who does not know how to keep to her own sector's people.

I glance back up at the Ebony girl, sitting under a tree maybe fifty feet away.

She looks to be about twelve years, but she must be a little younger to have plaits in her hair. That style is one of the Ebony youth. Once the children turn eleven and enter secondary school, they are allowed to choose a different way to wear their hair for the rest of their lives. Very few decide to keep the cornrow braids.

At least this is what I've learned in my Contemporary Sector Education class.

I imagine her mental processing of me and wonder if she thought of Ivory traditions as she took in my wavy brown hair, my rounded green eyes, my fair skin, the beauty mark on my left cheek, the amethyst clip in my hair that Ivory girls receive on their sixteenth birthday with their birthstone encrusted in it.

Or was she too young to know much about the traditions of other sectors?

I snap out of my reverie as I notice a group of Canary girls walking past the tree, one casually dropping a plastic cup she'd been carrying right in front of the Ebony girl. The cup barely misses her leg, but Its liquid contents splash onto her pale pink skirt, staining it with blue blotches.

The girls laugh, their squinty eyes squinting further until you can barely tell of whether or not they have eyes at all.

The brown-skinned girl sits stunned as the Canaries walk away.

Just then, a boy with dark hair and tan skin walks toward the Ebony girl. I assume he is a Moreno.

I gawk at the sight of him giving the girl a fist full of napkins and reaching out a hand to help her up. People do not assist individuals of other channels in this way. Especially not the Moreno. They are the largest race, population wise, as well as the least considerate.

The Ebony girl is now standing, dabbing at her skirt. His face is toward me, but he does not notice me as he speaks to her.

I then see that his eyes are colored. I cannot discern their distinct hue. He is too far away. But I can see that they are not dark like those of The Moreno. I also take in that his hair is much too curly to be a Moreno.

He is a Latto.

And he is walking angrily toward me.