The Widemouth

The clock struck twelve pm and around the main citadel in the city of Exacta sat forty people. Some were clearly malnourished, some mentally worn and a lot in cheap and ragged clothing. What every single person present shared, however was one physical trait, a mouth which was much wider than 'normal.' On a bench that was placed perfectly to absorb the sunlight sat Ainsworth with his dear friend Meadow. They had spent most of their short lives as best friends, and despite all the hardship they had endured during the past year the bond they shared was stronger than ever. "It certainly is a beautiful day today, don't you think Ainsworth?" said Meadows.
To understand how this group of people came to be is a very interesting matter. It has generally been agreed by the worlds most advanced scientists that the sudden appearance of the huge number of these people was nothing other than a 'touch of God.' There was no evolution here, no gradual progression over millions of years, it just so happened that one year a substantial amount of new born babies were had exceedingly wide mouths, wider than ever before. While this was very shocking to the community at first (as a baby with a wide mouth is one of the most peculiar sights to behold) it generally became clear that this was in a sense, an evolutionary process.
The 'widemouths' were on average more artistic and more athletic than the vast majority of normal people. It is probably safe to say they were also more intelligent, although after several years, when schools began to have classes where 20-25% were these obviously superior beings, some subtle marginalisation began. Teachers were told to be much harsher in marking the widemouths as they were a potential threat to the livelihood of all the decent people of Exacta. As the years passed on it became clear that, despite the efforts of the government to influence the educational system, all the aspiring intellectuals and creative forces in society were going to be members of this odd demographic. What had really became scary was the biological power of the widemouth condition. Two regulars now had a 15-20% chance of conceiving a widemouth, a widemouth and a regular had an 80% chance and two widemouths had basically a 100% certainty. This trends became very worrying for more than a few people.
A turn against widemouths began, and it was just as swift as their arrival to the city. Clearly fearing for their positions, the top men and women of the cities largest corporations aswell as many senior members of parliament filed to have "any adult which does posses a mouth with a gape of 6 inches or more, or who's mouth is specially deemed to be unnaturally wide in relation to their face and head, is not to be judged or appreciated at an equal level of a normal citizen." Overnight, widemouth unemployment became rampant and they became no more than second class citizens, subject to verbal and physical abuse with no legal recourse (And this was despite a number of exceptional modern film makers, painters and musicians being classed in this variety) They began to be referred to as "lazys" due to their large unemployment rate and were forced to live in squalor.
The widemouths weren't like normal people or normal groups who lived unemployed or in poverty, though. Their natural instinct was to work or to be creative so, without jobs or roles in society, they could always be seen to be walking the city streets for hours on end each day. The unemployment rate for the regulars was basically 0% due to the large number of positions that had been created due to widemouth departures (and due to a large number being employed in the 'Workers Police Force,' set up by the government to patrol the newly established minority with basically no regulation over its members)
On the day in question, a group of widemouths were sitting around the cities citadel, the home of government and police affairs. Whilst they knew it was not a wise place to be, most widemouths were attracted to how beautifully the sun hit this spot around this time every day, they had a natural sense of where to be and when, something which the regulars resented.
A few minutes after twelve four memebers of the workers police force arrived to sent the widemouths home. "If you haven't got jobs then fucking go home!" One bellowed at the group. Never ones to seek violence, they began to disperse whilst being prodded and geered by the workers dressed in dark blue. Ainsworth and Meadow found themselves at the back of the leaving group as they had been sat in the very middle on their favourite bench. As they were leaving a baton struck meadow in the back of the head with a huge thud. She fell to the floor. "Move it you fucking lazys" A particularly old and ugly member of the police stated. Meadow tried to raise but was again hit, this time right in the mouth. Ainsworth swore he saw a tooth flying. "If you're not going to move it then stay down you freak!" he screamed. The workers began to surround her and pepper her with kicks and blows with their batons. "Why are you doing this?" Asked Ainsworth "We conformed to your orders, we neither caused nor wished you any physical or mental harm, just because we look different does not give you or anybody the right to such brutality," he spoke, loud enough for the guards to hear, but not so for them to care. Most of the group had no turned around to Meadows screams, but the workers did not stop for several minutes.
When they did cease they seemed to care little weather the crowd had gone or not and began to leave, obviously satisfied with their work. Ainsworth knelt down and lifted Meadows head, her face barely recognisable. He used his fingers to try feel the pulse at the back of her neck, it was very slow and weak for the moment he could feel it before it became fully non-existent. She had been beaten to death in the city center in broad daylight, and now Ainsworth felt an anger over take his body that he had never known. Now he was walking towards the police, they had their backs turned and were laughing amongst themselves. Now he was jogging. The oldest, ugly member of the squad turned around and Ainsworth pounced like a lion and tackled him to the ground. With his large mouth Ainsworth wrapped his powerful teeth around the workers nose, his screams giving Ainsworth an immense satisfaction in another humans pain that he had never felt before. As the other workers tried with all their might to pull him off, Ainsworth knew their efforts were only causing their colleague more pain as his teeth sank deeper and deeper into his flesh. He could even begin to feel the murderers nose separate from his face. When they finally did manage to pry him off, a deep red hole took the place of where the twisted old nose once was. One of the mans younger friends hit Ainsworth a savage blow with his baton, but it merely knocked him a few steps back into the large crowd of widemouths that had gathered behind him. If anything, the hit just fueled the rage and the energy for justice that had so quickly consumed every singe inch of Ainsworths being.
The time was around quarter past twelve. In the square around which the main citadel stood there was the corpse of a once beautiful woman and around thirty nine widemouths. Each had a burning anger and passion that would have seemed unimaginable even fifteen minutes ago. Four members of the workers police stood there, more scared than they had ever been in their lives as they knew they had started something previously confined to their worst nightmares. Their lives were surely over.

[To be continued!]