I'm scribbling away on day 3 of this year's NaNoWriMo project. Set on a distant world, where the people are not human, this scene's purpose is primarily to build a bit of the world and give some sense of the people that live there. It may or may not make it into the final draft. I give you the scene thus far:

Evaline Goes to the Store

Evaline walked to the store. She didn’t want to walk. She wanted not to go to the store at all. And while Evaline could, in theory, make bread, they didn’t own a cow or chickens and she didn’t have a clue how to milk a cow if she were to magically find one on the apartment balcony.

The store was where people like Evaline got bread, milk, and eggs. Evaline wore her habit, though she didn’t want to do that either, but her mother was visiting and Mother was big on tradition.

Tradition said people of Evaline’s tribe (Evaline rolls her eyes, says, Kercjix haven’t been a tribe since before the invention of bread). Fine, her mother amended, people of Evaline’s heritage, wore habits when they went out.

Evaline’s mother wore her coif and veil all the time and her habit every time she went out. Even on Sundays, when she might spend all day lounging around the house in her pjs, she’d still have the coif and veil on just in case someone dropped by. If she stepped out to the curb, or ran over to the neighbors, she wore her habit. The habit was for going out. A coat with only one style for everyone. Men, women, married, single, good, bad.

The Kercjix, Evaline’s people, made certain everyone looked alike when they were out in public. Visual equality was a huge part of their cultural identity. Traditional Kercjix believed the standardized outer layer with head covering brought visual equality and wanted everyone to wear them. While most of the world’s cultures wanted to see the colour of a person’s past choices and use it to judge their future choices, Kercjix wanted everyone to be treated the same, regardless of their past choices. Everyone started equal, every time. As if a Kercjix couldn’t remember the colour of a person’s hair when they couldn’t see it.

Evaline kept her chin up, refusing to acknowledge the unspoken questions in her neighbor’s eyes as they rode the elevator. None of them had seen her in her habit before, but when none of them asked aloud, she held her lips closed in a neutral face. Out on the street, she watched the toe of her not quite traditional shoe stick out every step on the way to the store and wondered if visual equality had ever really worked.

Way back when there were populous cities filled with Kercjix had it worked? She thought it was pretty clear that in small-towns Kercjix people would recognize each other and know what colour hair was under the veil, but in big cities where most people are strangers? When even acquaintances didn’t have a full picture of who did what to whom back when, then maybe the ideal was realized. Everyone treated equally in public. You could be good or bad as you desired without being held to other’s expectations. Even better, most people would assume goodness in others because everything is easier when you expect people to smile at you, not stab you, when you meet on the street.

Pushing her cart around people in all manner of clothing Evaline felt she stuck out like an orange in the peppers bin. Even the few Kercjix who remained in the traditional homelands must stand out when they wear traditional clothing in public. The homelands now hosted more immigrants than natives. Once travel became easy and people could stay in touch across continents, no one wanted to live where their ancestors did. Everyone wanted to live in new regions. Global the-grass-is-greener-over-there syndrome.

Evaline regretted not bringing the car when she emerged from the store with heavy bags of milk, eggs, sweet roots, steak, cheese, spicy pickles, and onions. She walked halfway home before remembering the bread. Shrugged and decided she could make pop-up biscuits for dinner and start a loaf of bread for tomorrow’s sandwiches.

Mother would like that, real traditional, making bread.