At age five, in kindergarten, I remember being given a pencil. They placed it in front of me and told me to pick it up with one of my hands. Then, try to write or draw something. Next, try the other hand and do the same thing. They told me to tell them whichever felt more comfortable. So I picked up the pencil, like all the other children, and drew a pattern on the paper in front of me. Most of the class raised their hands to indicate this felt comfortable. But I did not. In this hand, the pencil felt awkward and loose. I tried it in my other hand and found that I could write like the other kids could with the first hand I had tried. After the teacher was done, I raised my hand and told her that the pencil felt most comfortable in that hand.

After that, I recall seeing the teacher looking around the room at all the other children. She had put bracelets on their hands. All of the bracelets, however, were on their other hand, the hand that they had held the pencil in. She kneeled in front of my desk and asked me, “Are you sure you feel most comfortable with that?”

I simply nodded. She sighed and put a bracelet on the wrist of the hand I was holding the pencil in. As she stood and walked to the back of the class, ignoring all the impatient children with their hands up, I studied the bracelet. It was put on tightly, and it was simple. The bracelet was large, but not large enough to fall off my hand. It was made of small, black ball bearings all connected together, and had no charms or special accessories other than that. I had seen the bracelets before; we all had. Every person on the whole planet wore one of these bracelets. But we had never known why.

That afternoon, when I arrived home, my mother noticed the bracelet on my hand and gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. I noticed that her bracelet was not on the wrist mine was. It was one the other one. She called out for my father, who walked into the room, and pointed at my wrist. He analyzed the bracelet and sighed. I was confused, but when I asked about it, they smiled the smile they smiled when they didn’t want me to know something and told me it was nothing.

As I grew up, many people stared at my wrist and gasped, seeing the bracelet on my left wrist. In school I was always placed in the back of the room with the others whose bracelets were on their left wrists. It usually ranged from two to five, but sometimes, I was the only left-handed person in the class. When that was so, it was lonely, because I was not permitted to play with those who wrote with their right hand, or “correct hand,” as some people had learned to call it. Any Rights that mixed with Lefts were immediately punished, the severity depending on how the interaction was. Usually, though, the Right got off with a simple scolding, but I got in greater trouble, ranging from a detention to a beating.

I specifically think of one occurrence in third grade, when I had just turned eight. Playing around with my bracelet, which had been replaced for a larger size on my birthday, I hardly noticed the pretty girl sit down next to me on the bench. It was a cold day, and the other Left in my class was sick, so I was alone, waiting for my mother to pick me up. Also, I was wearing too-small jeans and a ripped T-shirt, because the stores my parents were allowed into did not allow them to buy clothes for Lefts. This meant that unless I found money, because my parents were not legally allowed to give me any, and bought my own clothes at a shop for Lefts, I was stuck wearing my Right brother’s old clothing. The girl noticed my attire.

“Here, take one of my jackets.” She put her outmost layer over my shoulders, but I took it off and forced it back at her. Her cuff was rolled back on her right wrist.

“No, I cannot accept it.” I said. With a glance at her wrist, I told her, “You should not be here. It will only lead to getting you in trouble. And you have been kind to me, so I cannot allow you to get in trouble on my accord.”

“It’s not your accord, it’s mine.” she said, draping the jacket over my shoulders again, but I put it back on her.

“I told you, I cannot accept your jacket.” I said, finally looking into her eyes. “Please, go before you get caught. I don’t want you getting hurt because of me.”

She smiled at me and stayed where she was. “Your name is Charlie, right?” she asked. I was shocked.

“Y-yes. How did you know that?”

“The teacher tells us to stay away from Charlie and Henry unless we want to get in trouble. You look like more of a Charlie than a Henry.” she said. I smiled. “You have a nice smile.”

Suddenly, a woman came up next to us, along with whom I recognized to be the school principal. The woman grabbed the girl by the ear and pulled her up. Her hand pulled back and then forward, hitting the girl’s bottom with a hard, sharp spank. The girl and I both winced, her at the pain, I at the sound. I then felt my ear being tugged, and the principal did the same to me. The girl winced as I was spanked. I turned to her mother.

“Please, ma’am, don’t punish her. It was my fault.” I said, hanging my head sheepishly.

“It wasn’t your fault, Charlie!” the girl cried, only to be spanked once more, this time, I guessed, harder, because the sound was louder. We were, luckily, the only two students still in the waiting area. Lefts had to clean up the classrooms after school, and the girl’s mother must have been late.

I was spanked again by the principal. “I do not tolerate lying!”

My mother appeared. “What’s going on here?” he asked, eyeing the principal, who still had me by my ear. After looking around, she saw the girl and her mother. Her eyes strayed to the girl’s bracelet. A look flashed over her eyes that I have never seen before, and she grabbed me out from the principal’s grasp. “What happened, Charlie?”

“She offered me her jacket, but I refused, but she kept trying to give it to me. Mother, she knows my name.” I added quietly so only my mother could hear.

“You tried to give this Left your jacket?!” the girl’s mother screamed. “What have I told you about mixing with these—these people?!”

The girl did not look sheepish, not even after another spank was given. My mother, however, let go of my shoulders and approached the woman. “I will not have you call my son such things! He is human just like you and I and your daughter!”

The woman scoffed. “He should have been killed like the rest of the Lefts in his class.” After spanking her daughter once more, she started to walk away from us. The girl, however, did not move. She continued to stare at me. Her mother spanked her several times before getting fed up and tugging her by the ear to the car. The principal stalked off, leaving me and my mother the only people in the waiting area. She stared at me, and I stared at the diminishing backs of the girl and her mother.

“M-Mother, they—they kill people like—people like me?” I stuttered, my voice shaking.

My mother sighed. “Most who are determined as Lefts are killed at age five. However, some are saved, such as yourself. But now, Lefts have started to be killed that are older than five and younger than eighteen. We have tried to keep it from you so you wouldn’t be scared, but…”

I stared as the car the girl and her mother got into disappeared from the parking lot. “Why does it matter what hand I write with?”

“Only one in one hundred people are left-handed these days, Charlie. It is a difference some people will never accept.”

After that day, I desperately tried to learn to write with my right hand. Though every time I was caught, they punished me severely, worse than I had ever gotten. It was a malfeasance worthy of death, apparently, for a Left to try to become a Right. But I was lucky and did not receive such a fate.

Though at a certain point, I think I would have graciously accepted death over the life I was living.

The girl’s name was Tanya. She helped me through harder times. I helped her when she got caught. Tanya was the first true friend I ever had, someone who liked me because of me, not because the bracelet on our wrists destined us to be friends.

A/N OBVIOUSLY this story has wrong statistics, but I would have them killing one-third of earth’s population otherwise. So now it’s only one percent, and half of them don’t even get killed. That’s the greatest I could come up with. Sorry.