Sam awoke that morning to the sound of a jackhammer pounding the pavement outside. He blinked in the inky blackness of his apartment. From his bed he reached to the nightstand and flipped on the lamp. His eyes adjusted to the light as he looked down the rectangle of his room towards the front door. The room was about seven feet wide and fifteen feet long. It had no windows, no cooking equipment, and no personality. It did however have a bed and a few sheets of wood boldly called a desk. Along the opposite wall there was also a toilet, a sink, and a small dresser full of fifteen identical outfits. The walls were greying prematurely to match Sam's hair.
He stretched a moment, sighed, checked the time, stretched again, pulled back the sheets and stumbled out of bed. His feet padded along the chipped wooden floor to the toilet where he relieved himself, to the sink where he washed his hands and brushed his teeth, then to the dresser where he pulled on his black pants and black shirt. He put on his shoes and walked to the door, paused for a moment with his hand on the knob, then pulled it open.
The hallway outside was dimly lit in fluorescent hues. Sam slinked past countless doors identical to his. He could hear other men bumping around in their apartments getting ready for the day. Ahead of him, the morning sun streamed through the windowed front doors, he braced his eyes for its impact as he entered its warmth. The street was bustling with construction and traffic and pedestrians. Sam spotted another man wearing all black and gave him a solemn nod, then joined the throngs of commuters along the sidewalk.
He wasn't approved for car ownership due to his social status so he had to take the bus to work. After waiting for three full buses to pass the stop, one finally came with enough room and he trudged onto it with his head down. Without a second thought he walked past all of the well-dressed elites in their pearly white suits and dresses. They sneered at him and watched him go to the crowded back of the bus. He took the only empty seat in the back surrounded by other men who were also wearing all dark clothing, but Sam was the only one in all black. There were no women back here.
They bustled along the busy city streets. People boarded, people exited, then finally Sam hopped off of the bus at his stop. Sam worked as a cashier at a regional grocery store. He enjoyed how it kept him on his feet and was a well air-conditioned job. Today he felt particularly good about work because he would be going straight from work to his yearly inspection and then on a weekend getaway that he had been planning for months. After entering through the back door and donning his all black apron, Sam walked out of the employee area to the store and took up his spot at cash register number three. After a few minutes of quiet daydreaming, his first customer of the day approached.
She was tall and dressed in all white. Her basket was full of food and Sam immediately went to ringing her up and bagging the items. She watched him with a face full of pity. "That'll be thirteen dollars and fifty cents," Sam said.
The woman pulled out a twenty and put it on the counter. Sam took it and gave her the requisite change. Before picking up her bags she slid fifty cents back to him and said, "Take this, you need it more than me honey." Then she walked away with her bags. Sam gazed down at the charity and then slid it into the register drawer. This was a usual occurrence from the few friendly privileged people that actually interacted with him.
The rest of the day droned on, customers came and went, some in black some in white, some in grey or red or brown. Just before Sam's clocked out, two young women came into the store. They were dressed in self-chosen colors indicating to Sam that they were only twenty. They had one more year before they were forced to declare their status with their clothing. They came through the line with a bunch of bananas and two cucumbers giggling the whole way. As Sam rang them up one of them said through chuckles, "So why are you in black?"
Sam turned red and prepared his legally required response. The woman who did not ask him looked agog at her friend and whispered, "Oh my God Karen you can't just ask someone why they're in black!"
Karen turned back to her friend and said, "No, shhhh listen!"
"I have chosen to wear black to share with the world that my penis is inadequate," Sam said robotically.
The two girls erupted in giggles and Karen said, "What is inadequate to you?"
Sam who dealt with rude customers regularly swallowed his frustration and said, "It means I have a small penis." He continued ringing up their bananas
Karen's friend gained some courage and said, "So tell me about yourself."
This was a question Sam and all of his friends in black received daily ever since the overthrow.
Fifteen years ago a guerilla faction of men and women usurped the country. They called themselves the Mights and always touted their slogan of "might power." Once in power the Mights quickly began imposing sanctions against all of those who didn't fit their mold of the ideal specimen. It began with a penis tax that was inversely correlated with the size of the man's penis. The more inches a man had, the less he paid. Women were given extreme tax breaks. Then yearly inspections became mandatory for men. Slowly but surely small penis men were phased out of the upper echelons of society. Colleges began only accepting 4.0 inch penises and higher. It was written into law that IF the president is to be male, then he must have at least seven inches of dangle below the belt.
The final disenfranchisement of the small penis man was that he was forced to wear all black. Every man was required to wear a color to show where he fell in the hierarchy of penis size. White clothing meant he was packing at least eight inches. Then as the penis gets smaller, the color of the clothing gets darker. Sam was a humiliating two inches when flaccid and that meant he was clad in the doomed all black clothing.
Sam was pulled back to the present by women impatiently saying, "We said, 'tell us about yourself.'"
Sam cleared his throat and said, "I am two inches when flaccid, would you like to see for yourself?"
The women leaned into each other in giggles and Karen said, "God no," then turned to her friend and said, "See I told you they have to say it. Let's go find more."
With that, they paid in a rush and took their phallic foods towards the door. They were Sam's last customers of the day. He had a knot in his stomach as he took off his apron. He closed out his register slowly with lightly shaking hands and brought his locked tray over to his manager's office. His knees wobbled on the way there. At the door of the office he took three rushed breaths and then knocked. Immediately the woman on the other side said, "come in."
Sam walked in and said, "Hey Loren, I'm just clocking out for the week. Here is my cash drawer."
She accepted the tray from behind her desk without looking up from her paperwork.
Sam stood. She wrote. He leaned from side to side. She kept writing. Finally he said, "There's also something else I'd like to talk to you about."
