The Woodlands

by Lauren Nicolle Taylor

  The judges both seemed quite pleased with Henri’s desk as well, nodding and whispering in a painful performance that only heightened the tension in the room. We wanted it be over. When they had completed their assessments, the judges walked to Mister Gomez, their gold-embellished shoulders glinting under the fluorescence, and turned to face the class. I looked down the line—eight young men with their futures hanging in the balance. They were all strong, good boys with sawdust in their hair and oil on their calloused fingers.

  “You have all performed satisfactorily in this assessment,” she stated. “Your score will be prepared and provided to you tomorrow morning. Perez.” She motioned for him to step forward and then she placed a hammer in his hand.

  I wish I had been prepared for this. I’m not sure whether it would have changed anything but maybe it would have. There could have been a chance. I could have had a chance.

  Perez’s face looked devilish as he moved to the first table. Without ceremony, without hesitation, he smashed it. I watched each of my friends’ devastated faces as he moved from piece to piece, destroying their work. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. What was the point to this? I felt each blow like he was striking me. My arms held up in defense, my body vibrating with every crash of the hammer. I couldn’t stand it anymore. Three pieces into the destruction, I screamed.

  “Stop!” Everyone stared at me. The boys were shaking their heads, pleading with their eyes for me not to continue. Henri whispered, “Soar, no,” but this was me—I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to. “Please,” I begged, “you can’t do this.” I was shaking. Even as the words escaped my mouth, I knew it was futile.

  Perez took three steps towards me and pounded me in the face with the flat side of the hammer. I flew sideways, knocking Henri’s desk over in the process. I felt teeth from my right jaw rattling in my mouth, which filled with the metallic taste of blood and threatened to drown me. The pain was immense as it spread from my jaw up and around my head, throbbing. The torn flesh of my face was searing hot, each nerve ending screaming. I couldn’t focus, vision blurred but not from tears. I stayed silent. Trying to breathe, trying really hard not to panic.

  As I lay there on the floor clutching my broken face, I wondered why Mister Gomez hadn’t warned us. He had always been strict but never cruel. This was cruelty. Then it came to me, as bits of wood and lacquer rained down on me from above. Shards of my proud creation were landing in my hair and sticking to the growing pool of blood around where I was lying. There were two reasons. One, we probably wouldn’t have tried so hard if we knew. And two, this was part of the assessment. It was a test. And I had just failed with flying colors. In one swift move, I had ruined everything.

  The noise of my beautiful jewelry box being shattered marked the end for me. I knew it, as well as everyone else in the room. Rash stepped forward, foolishly trying to diffuse the situation. “C’mon guys…” he said as he took a step towards me. The expression on his face showed me how bad I must have looked. The grey-haired woman stepped forward and touched a black device lightly to his chest. His body jolted unnaturally and he fell to the floor. I hauled myself over to him, leaving a smear of blood-sticky woodchips in my wake. He was still breathing but he was unconscious. I saw the other boys, my treasured family, moving forward, like they were about to act. I pulled myself up to sitting, a mixture of blood and teeth spilling from my lips as I spoke, “No. Help Rash.” Whatever was going to happen to me, I didn’t want them dragged into it.

  Two men had appeared in the doorway, dressed in the black Guardian garb. They were directed to take me by the female judge, who was definitely not whispering anymore. Her harsh shouting reverberated in my swollen head. “Remove her immediately!” she barked at them, pinching the bridge of her nose like the whole thing had inconveniently given her a headache. They roughly hooked their arms under mine and pulled me to my feet. As they lugged me out the door like a sack of potatoes, I could see the boys helping Rash to his feet. I was thankful that for now, at least, he had escaped further punishment.

  The Guardians were trying to make me walk. I tried but I felt dizzy and uncoordinated, like my legs were made of jelly. My shirt was soaked with blood and my eye was starting to close up. One of the men gave up and slung me into his arms. I had no strength to struggle. Besides, there was nowhere to run to.

  The hall started to narrow before my eyes. I felt my body being hollowed out and filled with lead. Everything that I had tried to build was gone, forever. Any warmth I had in me was replaced with a cold dread, knowing that I would most likely be dead in a few hours. My vision was getting tighter and tighter, until all I could see was a spot of light dancing before my one good eye. I felt my body being dumped on a hard, cold surface. I exhaled, farewelling my life. Hope was gone. Death was imminent. I prayed it would be fast.

  It felt like I had missed something, like there was a gap in my memory. I didn’t know how long I had been here and what they were asking of me. I knew that it was big. Something I was resisting. Things kept slipping and I needed to retrace my steps. I felt like it was essential I figured it out soon, before something bad happened.

  There was an ominous cloud hanging over my head, pushing down on me, pushing me to look deeper. I curled around the emptiness and pulled a yellow quilt around my shaking shoulders. This was home, right? It looked like home, but there were small things that didn’t quite fit—like the small crack above my bed that I used to trace with my finger when I couldn’t sleep and the quilt made from scraps of fabric, sewn by my mother, the faded spot on the curtain where the sun hit in the afternoon. There was no sun here. It felt like we were underground. It was cold. My ears sought noise from the outside world but there were none. No birds, no wolves howling, no lawn mowers grumbling. All that was familiar to me was twisted or simply missing.

  And somewhere at the back of all of this, there was something pushing. A fissure was appearing in the black spots of my memory, one small shaft of light. I felt like if I could get my fingers in and pry it apart, things would become clearer. Thoughts ticked over time and I came back to home. Was I even supposed to be at home?

  I was tracing that imaginary crack over and over when they came in. One, two, three people, smiling unconvincingly. “How are you feeling?” one asked, patting my arm absently. She peeled back the covers and wrapped a black bandage around my arm, inflating it until it hurt while pressing her cool fingers to my wrist. Someone handed me a tray of food and a milkshake, which they told me had the extra vitamins I needed in it. I didn’t register faces, voices. It seemed unimportant. Food, however, seemed extremely important and I eagerly dove into my meal and took sips of my shake, while nodding at their questions. A tall man, with a frightening smile, all giant teeth that didn’t quite fit in his mouth, asked me if I’d had any nausea that day. I shook my head and touched my stomach instinctively. My milkshake stuck in my throat.

  I rolled my hands over my middle, expecting loose clothing and a flat stomach, my fingers pressing down. “What the hell is this?” I screamed. I was bulging. I looked like I had swallowed a sack of rice, or had been blown up with air. My once smooth, smooth stomach had been replaced by a protrusion, a lump. Concern flickered on the blonde lady’s face but it was quickly covered up, her composure a serene mask. The other, older woman, held my hand away from my stomach. She held it tightly, as if trying to stop me from touching it again. I felt her manicured nails digging into my wrist.

  “Now calm down…” someone whispered as I felt my armed pulled upward violently and jabbed sharply.

  A fog rose up around me. I was floating on a grey cloud, unaware and indifferent. I went back to feeling like I couldn’t quite grasp what was happening to me. But somewhere, a thought was pawing at me and I got the sense this had happened before, many times more than once.

  Was I dreaming or was this real? Things swirled around in my head, blood, warmth, shredding pain. I reached out and grasped at the one thing I knew was true. My name was Rosa,
I was sixteen years old, and I surrendered myself to the Classes early because my mother was pregnant. But even this memory seemed wrong. Wasn’t there a boy? I shook my head, trying to clear it, but his face remained a blur surrounded by a blondish halo. I hit my thighs with my fist weakly in frustration. It was like I was climbing the inside of a bowl, always slipping back down to the bottom every time I thought I had made some progress.

  Whoosh! The sound of air escaping from somewhere startled me. But then a calm washed over my whole body and whatever startled me didn’t seem to matter anymore. Every muscle in my body relaxed and I felt myself sinking.

  Whoosh! There was that sound again. I wondered where it was coming from, but at the same time I didn’t care. Curiosity was a vague shape, easily shelved. I felt at ease, peaceful and sleepy. But something sharp kept pushing up inside me and telling me to fight it, drag myself out of this strange fog. This peace was false.

  I pricked my ears, feeling like I hadn’t used them in months. The whooshing sound had come from underneath the slim, metal-framed bed I was sitting on. I dragged my body up to sitting and rolled over and down the side of the bed. Every movement needed my full concentration and energy like I was moving through molasses. Once over the edge of the bed, I felt like I was dragging myself over the edge of a cliff, my legs dangling in the air. I gripped the cold, metal bars of the bed, feeling like I might fall miles and miles into a dark abyss. My body felt uncoordinated and unbalanced but I persisted, pulling my awkward form along the floor like a commando.

  And there it was…

  Underneath the bed was a tiny silver pipe with what looked like a little showerhead over it. “Whoosh!” A flush of cold, sweet smelling air hit my face and everything went dark.

  I woke up back on my bed, with unfamiliar people crowded around me. Men and women in white coats, holding my arms up, pinching my toes, looking in my eyes with small, silver torches. I pursed my lips, trying to concentrate, but explanations seemed just out of reach. Were these doctors? Or perhaps scientists? In Pau, well, in the rings I had been to, there were a few people who dressed like this. They poured out of a dingy looking building in Ring Five at quitting time. They quickly shrugged off their white coats and shoved them in their packs as they walked home. Shedding their skin as they returned to their other, separate life back in the housing areas. Pau was like that—no one ever talked about what they did for a living. Pride was not a rewarded attribute.

  “I think she must have rolled off, or fallen,” the tall man said. “I don’t think she’s compromised.” I tried hard not to raise an eyebrow at the word ‘compromised’.

  The younger female smiled at me, patting my head soothingly. “You fell, darling. Try not to move while we examine you.” I felt like saying, I’m not a wounded animal, but at the same time, I wanted to snap at them like one.

  A harsh voice barked, “Don’t bother, she can’t hear you. She’s not even registering that we are here.”

  On closer inspection, I could see the kind, younger woman wore a flesh-colored facemask over her mouth and nose. This seemed important but important kept dissolving in front of me. I was trying to reach above the fog, trying to hold my breath and climb past it. Silver pipe, shower head.

  A bloody taste developed in my mouth, filling it with metallic-flavored saliva. I felt dizzy. I leaned over the side of the bed, the room tipping and tilting, and vomited on the floor. The two women jumped back in unison. The tall man raised his eyebrows, displeased. He wasn’t fast enough. He had vomit on his shoes and halfway up his pants.

  He looked down at his shoes and frowned. “Keep an eye on her and make sure she keeps her food down over the next day or so,” he muttered to the women and hurriedly exited the room, his pants making a wet, flapping sound as he walked.

  I watched him go, struggling to remember why he had left so quickly. My brain was still foggy but the vomit cleared my head a little. Vomit, right. I pressed my fingers to my mouth, trying to suppress a smile. I had the feeling I shouldn’t smile or even show any emotion to these strange people.

  After the younger woman had cleaned up my mess, she placed a tray in front of me and left. I held the large, paper cup in both hands and twisted it around, inspecting it. Carefully, I took a small sip. The milkshake inside tasted very familiar. I opened the lid and peered inside; it was grey and sludgy, the consistency of wet cement. The food looked more normal, some meat, cooked to death, mashed potatoes and peas. The food didn’t taste exactly right. It tasted more like the milkshake than mashed potatoes, and the meat taste like charred wood, but I found that I was starving. I ate a little, drank a little, very slowly. Thinking over what I thought I had worked out.

  This fog I was lost in was something they were doing to me. The masks meant it could be something inhaled.

  “Whoosh!” I instinctively pulled the bedclothes over my face, trying to block out the invisible poison. A silver pipe pushed up into my memory. Had I seen something or heard something? I wasn’t sure but the picture in my head was clear, a silver pipe. I pulled myself over and out of the bed, realizing for the first time that I was attached to several lines and monitors. Still holding a sheet over my face, I clambered towards the wall under my bed, the shiny grey floor reflecting my face as I crawled along. I looked thin, well, thinner. My odd eyes popped out of my head, framed by purple circles. When did my hair get so long? I ducked under the metal bed and there it was, a silver pipe and a tiny showerhead attached to it. As quickly as I could, I shoved the sheet over the opening, hearing a muffled ‘whoosh’ as I sat back on my knees.

  I wrung my hands together, thinking. I couldn’t leave the sheet there. They would work it out and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do yet. I needed them to think nothing had changed. I needed to find something else to seal the opening to that pipe. My eyes searched the room, really seeing it for the first time. There was nothing I could use. It was so bare. Four painted walls, a sink, a door leading to a bathroom, and shiny grey tiles climbing halfway up the wall. There were some things I recognized, items from my room. The small details were there, but enough was changed that it now felt very wrong.

  I stood up too quickly, feeling very light-headed. I held myself up against the side of the bed and took it in. It was bizarre. A lot of the details were actually painted onto the walls. My dresser with the few ornaments I possessed—a bottle of perfume, a book. All two-dimensional representations of the real thing. How could I possibly have believed this was real? I pulled my fingers through my hair, snagging them on all the knots. The looming question that was now flashing in my brain like a broken streetlight was—how long had I believed this was real?

  The perfume bottle that used to sit on my dresser in my bedroom looked so real, the green faceted glass glinted in some nonexistent sunlight. I reached out to touch it, feeling only cold, hard wall. The bottle was now reflected on my hand. I removed it sharply, like the image would somehow stain my skin, but of course it returned to the wall. I searched the ceiling and located a little camera or, I guess, projector, streaming light over this one wall. It was a photo from one corner of my bedroom at home.

  I thought of the perfume bottle. It had never moved from that position, the whole time I lived in that house. It was empty, had always been empty. It was a gift my father had given my mother. When he left, she threw everything away, except that. She gave it to me one night before Paulo had come home from work, placing it carefully on my dresser. She didn’t say anything except, “Here, I don’t want this anymore,” and stole out of the room like a thief. Thinking about Mother was strange, almost new, like I was reinventing a long-lost memory, colors and shapes swirling, mixing together in confusion. Her face faded in and out as an unseen force pushed her away from me.

  Scanning the room again, I realized there was one real thing on the wheeled table across my bed. The food. I scooped up some mashed potato in my fingers and crawled underneath the bed again. Dragging machines with me, their wheels squeaking and whistling painfully
, I edged closer to my target. Carefully, I unscrewed the head of the pipe and shoved the potato into it, placing the showerhead back over the top. I rolled back on my heels and sighed. No more whooshing.

  As my head cleared, memories assaulted me one by one. Joseph, warmth and love that turned twisted and hard, Rash and the boys, something to live for, a purpose, and a new family. It hurt so much. It was a real, physical pain. I breathed long and slow, trying to calm myself. I made a decision. At this moment, in this already overwhelming and frightening situation, I would push it down. I couldn’t acknowledge this pain, this loss, not without falling apart. It would have to wait.

  It would have to wait because that morning one thing became very apparent and, all of a sudden, glaringly obvious. I stared down at my round belly and sighed thinly with absolute exhaustion. I was pregnant, probably about four or five months. Looking back over the foggy days, it made a lot more sense. How starving-hungry I was, how uncoordinated and unbalanced I felt, and the way I was being treated by the staff. What I couldn’t understand or remember was how I came to be this way.

  I’d tried to hide it the first time I remembered being taken to the exercise yard, but I couldn’t help a sharp suck of breath in shock. It was difficult not to reel backwards, turn to the door, and run. There, padding their socked feet over the fake grass, the projected trees not swaying in the wind, the birds frozen on the branches, were at least a hundred girls walking around the yard. All at different stages, but most were quite obviously pregnant. They were all being ushered into different circuits that were roped off with nylon tape and were mindlessly walking through them. They would bang into each other occasionally, unaware of their swollen stomachs bouncing into each other’s backs. There was no sound apart from the soft swishing of padded feet on the fake grass. I looked up at the bright blue sky decorated with puffy white clouds projected on the ceiling and wished it were real. This was nightmarish.