Julia

by Sandra Newman

no one even blinked at the fact that Julia also signed out a plumber’s auger. Of course, the guards were all blokes; perhaps they thought it was a necessary tool of menstruation.

All was false. It was known to be false, but everyone lied about the lies, until no one knew where the lies began and ended. That whole life had been a game of make-believe, everyone pretending together like little children.

She didn’t have the freedom to think of what was right. She must do what was safe. It was as Ampleforth had said: one had no choice, one must only live through it as if one had.