{14 years later}

I'm a thief, but not just your average thief. I steal experiences, memories that aren't mine, secrets worth telling, and stuff I just overheard. Learning about the past may not seem like stealing, but when it becomes your whole life, a life that isn't yours, you start to reconsider

Capsule 43: Karaoke

"Eli, who is slim shady?"

"You mean Eminem?"

"No, I mean slim shady."

"They're the same person"

"Really? But -"

"Well, actually his real name is Marshall Mathers"

"I'm so confused..." this was the first time I had ever learned about Karaoke. Also, the first time I had ever learned about rap music. The year is 2090 and no one has time for music. The first song I ever heard was something by a group called Toto about a place called Africa. I had never been there before, but I'm guessing it rains a lot.

"Oh," Eli chuckles, checking the capsule number on the machine. "You're finally learning about karaoke. I watched that one last week"

Eli is my best friend. While the issues of racial discrimination aren't as prevalent as they used to be, or so I've read, people still find it odd that we are so close. He's white, short dark hair and blue eyes - the epitome of looking like a "rich white boy", even though he's poor. I'm brown-skinned, and for some people, that's all they care to know about me in order to make a decision on who they think I am. However, I don't always follow suit with their expectations. My hair isn't the same texture as my father's, curly and thick, it's more like the opposite. I am light enough that, if you just glanced, maybe Eli and I could be brothers. Although, when you look closely, you'd see we'd come from two very different worlds.

We both collect capsules, which are our lenses into the past. They're recordings of important or interesting facts about long ago. Apparently, karaoke was important to people in the 1970s and it became a sort of personality trait for women in bars during the early 2000s.

"So they just sing along to songs in front of strangers...for fun?" I ask, not too fond of the idea.

"That's basically the premise of it. I'm guessing you haven't gotten to capsule 52 then?"

"What's that?"

"Musicals, it's almost the same thing, except those people can actually sing, he remarks. He looked like he was going to elaborate, but his smile turned almost into a frustrated frown and he answered his phone.

"Dad?" he asks, although I'm sure he knew it was him.

Eli's father suffers from Huntington's disease, which results in the death of brain cells. It is similar to that of dementia and he is starting to lose his ability to speak. His memory is also starting to fade, and there's not much hope for him left. The green eyes he once used to see are now dull and squinted. His skin was a sickly pale and he didn't have any hair, but a mustache that paraded over his mouth and chin. He used to say that God took away all his hair and left him with a mustache so that he could get a woman. He didn't. He's on the epidemic list. There are tons of people ahead of him for disease transplant, but crime has decreased so much, he may never make it in time.

I remember the conversation going something like this:

"It's Eli dad, you called me," he whispers, possibly embarrassed that his own father doesn't remember his only son's name or the fact that he called him.

"No... I haven't looked at it. What's going on? Is everything okay?"

Eli turns to me with a worried look on his face. I had no idea what his father was telling him on the other end, it sounded like just a bunch of urgent, unintelligible panic. He tapped his foot vigorously, walking in a frantic shuffle.

"Alright- okay, we'll be right there," he answers, then hangs up the phone.

"We need to go Demetrius" Eli insists, starting to stuff all his belongings in his bag, not really caring about the organization of it. He never calls me by my full name. It felt like he was addressing someone I didn't know.

"What's going on?" I ask, even though I felt like I didn't really want to know the answer.

"President Acosta is calling for citizens to gather in the town square. He's declared it a state of emergency. Everyone is required to attend"

An uncomfortable sensation started to make its way through my body. I recall the last time we had a state of emergency. Citizens that lived near the prison center became sick. It was later found out that the disease chamber had a leak that contaminated the air. Everyone was told to stay inside and wear gas masks as a defense mechanism. It was terrifying because there was not much that could be done to save them. No one wanted to be around them, and almost 60 people died in the process. Including my mother.

"Hey, everything is gonna be okay. We just need to leave before they do a sweep" Eli urges, knowing why I appeared hesitant.

There were hundreds of people outside, walking towards the town hall. Some seemed afraid, children asking their mothers where they were going and how long until they get to go back home. There were guards on every street corner, and the air felt stale, which made it hard for me to breathe. Or was it my own fear choking me up?

I slowed down for a minute to catch my breath, leaning over and balancing my hands on my knees when suddenly I heard a voice coming from beside me.

"Hey, keep walking" a guard commanded, eyeing Eli and I intensely as I try to get myself together. The guards in our neighborhood are usually very strict and aggressive, however, this particular guard seemed to not like us very much - especially Eli.

"Don't be an asshole" Eli barked, but the guard didn't respond to that very well.

He inched closer towards us, "What did you say?" he asks, the base in his voice causing the others to look over in concern, but not daring to slow their stride. 

"I'm sure you heard me -"

Before Eli finished his sentence, the guard grips his shoulder fiercely and shoves him against the wall.

"Stop! Let him go, we don't need any incidents today" another guard yelled from the opposite street corner.

The guard in front of us slowly let go of his grip on Eli and let out a frustrated sigh.

"Watch yourself" he adds then makes his way back to his post as if the encounter never happened.

After that we didn't say much, the crowd was getting bigger and more congested the closer we got to the town hall. Murmuring filled the streets and the screens of the monitors were black, blank, and quite ominous. We stood there waiting for something to pop up. Eli's father had joined us by this point, and his expression was not one of content. It was almost as if he knew something was terribly wrong.

Suddenly, a face appeared on the screen, but it was not one we were used to. It wasn't President Acosta, but instead, it was his twelve-year-old son. He looked paler than his normal shade of fawn, almost ghost-like. He had dark rings around his eyes and his shoulders were hunched over. He didn't say anything at all, just sort of stared like he was in a trance. The screen backed out of focus on the boy's face and then showed both President Acosta and his son in one frame. He too looked sickly but in a different way. You could tell he hasn't gotten any sleep and whatever is worrying him was surely getting the best of him. You could probably go shopping with the bags under his eyes, those being the only dark features about him. His build that is normally very tall and strong, seemed flat and kinda shy - shy in the sense that he didn't want anyone looking at him, but he knew they were.

"Citizens, my son Patrick is dying, and I need your help".