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When We Sing

“When we sing, we rejoice.” The words are written on a piece of paper long ago stuffed in the front of some old forgotten book. As it turns out, this particular book had not been touched for many, many years — until today. There were policies and procedures to make sure something like this wouldn’t happen. Checks. Double checks. Sweeps. The damage this kind of illicit information could do is unmeasurable. They knew the danger. Sammy Swee has the paper now. It fell out as she paged through a book she picked up by accident. It now sits on the edge of her terminal in her living quarters.

When we sing, we rejoice.

She knew the words, but the meaning was lost. She dared not type the words together. Maybe separately, one by one, but together? Not together. The paper sat there. Days went by. Months went by. Slowly she pieced together the meaning. Singing was an old Earth tradition that was now lost. No one remembers why. To rejoice because of singing?

When we sing, we rejoice.

When they sing, they rejoice.

When I sing, I rejoice.

I want to sing, thought Sammy Swee.

And so the revolution began.

Published in Fiction