Why Differ?
by Evan Angler
We live in a world where things can be easy.
Tablet computers that fit in our pockets and make calls for us and tell us
where we are. Globalized digital networks that connect us effortlessly, all the
time. Modern medicine that works wonders. News that arrives the moment it
happens. Food that stays fresh forever.
This isn’t science fiction. This is reality. And
in the American Union, all you need—for any of it—is the Mark.
So what’s wrong with that? The Pledge unifies us,
does it not? Just as its Mark protects us? No one could argue that
it hasn’t brought us together, that it hasn’t created peace . . . that our
allegiance to the Chancellor hasn’t bound us and given common ground from which
all our ideas and ideologies may grow. Together. Compatibly.
After the years of slaughter, after the decades of
political and environmental devastation that forced more and more of us to
fight over less and less land, water, food . . . was this unity not a welcome
change for all of us?
It isn’t even compulsory. No one has to Pledge. But who wouldn’t? In the
years since its implementation, the Mark has rightfully become the capstone of
a childhood well spent, the crowning achievement in a young man’s or woman’s
life, the opened door to citizenship, adulthood, independence . . .
Every schoolchild knows that in the wake of the
Total War, this Mark has become the very symbol of our commitment to patriotism
and peace. It is the constant reminder of our loftiest intentions.
To be Markless is to reject these ideals. To be
Markless is to be different.
So why would anyone choose to be different? In a world of absolutes, of black and
white, of right and wrong, why would anyone choose
“wrong”?
My name is Evan Angler. I may have answers to
these questions. But I can’t risk writing them. Not here. Not on the Internet,
for anyone to see.
And you wouldn’t risk reading them.
But if you are determined . . . if you are determined
to learn the truth, no matter the cost, then what I can tell you is this:
I’ve put what I know onto paper. Old-fashioned, obsolete—paper. Where it can’t be copied and pasted with the stroke of a stylus,
where it can’t be sent around the world at the press of a button, where it
can’t be recorded and stored forever in a million irretrievable pieces across cyberspace
and time for any watchful eye to see. Paper is intimate. It is between you and
me. It is fragile. It can be destroyed.
And when you find it, if you find it . . . once you’ve read it . . . I do encourage you
to destroy it.
Swipe is the first volume in the chronicles of Logan Langly, Erin Arbitor, and the Dust. Their account
is dangerous; the information within it is forbidden.
I wrote their story for everyone. But if you are
not yet thirteen, if you have not yet Pledged to the Chancellor in exchange for
his Mark of citizenship, if you have not yet made that choice to conform to
given definitions of what may be easy and what may be “right” . . . then I have
written this story especially for you.
For I’m not ashamed to tell you that I’m still
afraid of the dark. And if you too have ever turned out the light only to feel
that tinge of panic, that inkling that someone, somewhere, might possibly be
watching . . . I’m here to tell you that they are.
At its heart, Swipe
is a book about friendship against the odds. It’s a book about a group of boys
and girls who stick together to stand up for one another and for what they
believe in.
But why would they choose to be different? Why
would they choose “wrong”?
Are you ready to learn the truth?
Evan Angler is the author of Swipe, which is a wonderful book! I will be posting a review for it along with the Team Novel Teen blog tour group on June 25th, so stay tuned :)
Abigail
