Marigold

by Heather Mitchell Manheim

  Duffy ran through the procedures that Davis was familiar with after a lifetime of having them done to her. Starting with the dreaded female check, although it made her feel better that it was with Duffy. She always felt so uncomfortable when she got a male doctor for those. Next, she went into the adjoined bathroom with a cup. After that, breathe in, breathe out while Duffy listened with a stethoscope. The doctor did her job, looking in Davis’s eyes, nose, and ears with a lit scope. Reflexes checked with a little rubber hammer. Then the questions: Had she felt ill at all? Where had she been kept? Davis and Duffy previously agreed on the answer: A room; she was unsure of the location or type of building. Davis explained they made her wear a hood in and out of the building. She added that they never let her outside, and she was always escorted to the restroom every time she needed to use it. Duffy said her lines with ease, “It’s good you were kept for the most part inside, at all times. It limited your exposure to the outside world and, therefore, dangerous viruses and germs. We’ll still keep you here for a few days since you interacted with these people who took you. But I think you’ll be fine.”

  Duffy then had to administer the injections and a blood test; this was perhaps the only tricky part. She would give Davis a legitimate blood test and flu shot because they wouldn’t harm her, and it would help prove that she was being taken care of properly. However, the Marigold Injection would be saline, and an excessive dose of beta-carotene only, no pharmaceuticals or brain control chemicals. The beta-carotene was to give Davis carotenemia, a harmless condition that turned the skin a light orange color. It wasn’t the same gold hue that would generally be associated with the Marigold Injection, but it was all they had. Namaguchi, Brookshire, and Duffy had all received these beta-carotene shots in place of the Marigold Injection, and nobody had ever questioned it. But Duffy knew that a much tighter spotlight would be on Davis.

  Davis was never fond of injections or blood tests in the first place. They always made her feel woozy. She asked if she could lie down, and of course, Duffy was okay with that. She lay down and tried to focus on other things. She was amazed that the uniformed hazmat orderlies were back in her room, sanitizing and cleaning the transport cubicle. She could tell they were trying to hurry so as not to be near Davis any longer than they had to be, which she thought was funny since there was no way for them to get infected by anything. “What happens after you leave this room, Duffy? I mean, the orderlies are so careful not to have any cross-contamination, but how do they manage after they leave? You always carry some kind of germs with you, don’t you?” Davis chuckled to herself when she saw the look of horror on the faces of the orderlies. Duffy raised her eyebrow questioningly as if to say Davis should watch her words.

  “Well,” said Duffy. “There is a one-way door from your room to the offices of myself and the orderlies. When we walk out the door, we walk through an anti-bacterial and anti-viral gel that coats the shoes. Also, the hallway is flanked with blue lights in every direction. Then, we take a shower in the suit and then take another shower outside the suit. It’s quite extensive to keep everyone safe.”

  “That is extensive. I can’t imagine that anything would be carried back to your rooms, after all.” Davis said, realizing the more she heard, the crazier some of these things seemed.

  “All done, Davis, you good? Do you need anything?”

  “I’m alright, thanks, Duffy,” said Davis sitting up.

  “Okay, great. I’m going to run your labs. You have an entertainment console in here you can use. It has some movies, music, books, art you can look at, and card games too. You have an unlimited water dispenser there, in the corner. And a kiosk to get nutrition biscuits from; you are limited to three a day, though.”

  Duffy looked around quickly, and when she saw the orderlies had left and nobody was around, she gave a quick, warm squeeze to Davis’s hand. Then she departed the room as well.

  Davis didn’t do anything for a while. She just sort of lay on the bed and let her mind wander. She realized she would have several days just to think, so maybe she shouldn’t waste all her thoughts right now.

  As she started to drift off to sleep, she wondered if Brookshire turned himself in for quarantine. Since the guard that brought her in took credit for it, Brookshire would be off the hook for getting quarantined. As if the fates intervened, at that point, Duffy walked in. “Davis, I wanted to let you know, Brookshire turned himself in for quarantine right after we checked you in. They placed him in a room down the hall, but I requested they move him to the room next to you. I said it’d be easier to tend to you both if you’re next to each other.” Here, Duffy smiled and looked very pleased with herself. She then added, “You won’t be able to talk. The glass is too thick. But you can see each other, and you’ve both got drawing pads, pencils, and pens. You can write notes to each other, to hold up to the glass, at least.”

  ~

  Davis fell asleep to a happy dreamland. When she awoke, she saw Brookshire was already in the room next to her. He had fallen asleep; his entertainment console had dropped to his side. She tried to lean over to see if she could see what he was reading or watching, but with the screen at such an angle, she couldn’t tell.

  Davis looked at the lines of his face for a while. She mentally traced her finger around his jawline, somehow strong and soft at the same time. His long eyelashes looked so gently closed over his eyes. He started to stir, and she turned away to go back to her bed. She didn’t want to get caught looking at him like a schoolgirl. She got a slight smile on her face when the thought popped into her head that perhaps he had watched her sleeping, too, when he came in earlier.

  After Davis got back to her bed, she picked up her entertainment console and was going to look up something to read or watch. But suddenly, her little smile turned sad and dark. She realized it didn’t matter how she felt about Brookshire or what he may think of her. She was going to be expected to marry President Everett. And if she weren’t successful in her task, she would be married to President Everett. Her stepdad. The mere idea spun her head and churned her stomach. Equally disconcerting was the fact that if she were successful, she would be a murderess. For not the first time, she wondered if she could ever justify murder and if she could go through with it. Brookshire couldn’t be with her if she were Everett’s wife, and she didn’t think he would want to be with her if she were a killer. And she had no desire to murder someone; it was as unsavory to her now as it had been the first time that she heard the plan. A no-win situation, she thought glumly.

  As she lay there, Davis was figuring she should try to get some sleep. She didn’t even know what time it was, but she didn’t feel tired. It felt late, though. A sleepy feeling hung in the air; Davis thought it was just out of her reach, but she could sense it. It was dark and quiet in the hallways. She could barely see a nurses’ station down the hall, but it was the only illumination in the section except for the hazy blue light that hung from the middle of each ceiling and at every doorway. It gave off an eerie feeling. Barely illuminated, everything swathed in a gauzy veil of blue light. Davis had a desk lamp, but she didn’t want to draw the nurse’s attention by turning it on, so she lay quietly in the blue-tinged room and tried to quiet her mind.

  At some point, Davis drifted off. It was sort of a hazy, vague sleep, a rest reminiscent of that blue light that shone above her.

  ~

  The first week that passed was largely uneventful. Davis tried to find amusing things on her entertainment console, which grew tiresome after a while even though she loved reading books and watching old movies. All the nurses and orderlies were kind enough but standoffish. The exception was Hernandez; he was funny and always had a joke and a few kind words for Davis. That was the fun part of Davis’s day. The bright part of her day was when Duffy popped in, at least once or twice a day, to say hi, see how she was doing, or chat for a few minutes. Duffy could never stay long as she had other patients to attend to and
, as she put it, “an endless mountain of paperwork that outweighed any patient roster.” Then there were two days when she wasn’t there because of her days off. The doctor on call when Duffy wasn’t there, Abell, wasn’t kind or courteous. She barely spoke to Davis at all and was curt when she did ask questions. Abell looked at Davis as if she expected her to spontaneously explode into a cloud of germs and viruses at any moment. Abell’s harsh, angular features were not complemented by her dark eyes that looked full of malice or her hair in a bob style, which also had angular cuts due to how straight and thick her dark brown hair was.

  Those were the fun and happy parts of Davis’s day, minus Abell. But, the joyous part of her day, the thing that made even the fun and happy parts seem less than they were, was when she got to interact with Brookshire a little bit. He had a way of bringing in something she had never seen or experienced before. Every day, he would grab his writing pad and a pen and write out little notes saying hi and asking how she was, and they would have a conversation that way. Sometimes he would draw her a smiling face or flower. One day, he grabbed his paper pad and a marker and indicated she should do the same thing. Then he wrote, “Guess what I’m drawing?” First, he drew a typical stick figure girl in an outline of a dress and a stick boy next to her. Next, he drew the hand on the stick girl, out toward the boy. He put in a few music notes and some streamers in the corners and background of the picture. Last, he drew the arm of the stick boy and encircled the ends of the girl and boy’s arms at the bottom. He had made them hold hands.

  Of course, Davis knew right away Brookshire was drawing the dance where they held hands. But she let him finish before picking up her pad and writing, “The Courtship Event where we held hands?” Davis could not hide the smile that beamed across her face. Brookshire mocked a celebration dance to show she got it. He then held up his entertainment console showing the name of the song on his. Brookshire pointed to the song title and then to Davis to indicate she should put the same song on. Once she got it, he put down the console and then put his arms in a mimed dance position. Davis got the idea and mimed her dance position, and then they gently swayed and moved to the music, not really dancing but feeling almost like they were. Davis would generally feel a bit silly doing something like this, but Brookshire made it feel fun and like it was exactly what they should be doing.

  And so, the days passed slowly for Davis. There were bright moments that flashed into an otherwise dreary world, but they mostly drew out long and tired, hampered further by her inability to sleep well. She imagined they were slow for Brookshire, Duffy, and Hernandez too. Everyone was just trying to pass the days until they could get to the next part. The big step. The only real step that mattered.

  October 1, 2056 – Proposal

  Davis woke up to the sound of an orderly rapping on the window. After she acknowledged him, he pointed at a speaker in her room. She realized it must be 7 a.m. because the sound of church bells ringing and people chanting was being piped into her room. She had almost forgotten; it had been a long time since she had been in the vicinity of the Prayer Call. Regardless of denomination, churches rang their bells, mostly electronic but sounding as if they were coming from bell towers. Even churches without a bell tower had an electronic bell on the roof of their buildings. It was a call to the people to pray for the health and welfare of the President. The priests that belonged to the Everettisim Church filed down the streets, their hypnotic chanting echoing to the people. The people in the Pods would have gotten a wake-up bell at 6 a.m. A loud bell that nobody could sleep through. Davis imagined that they must not play the alarm in the infirmary because the ill patients might be startled awake. But the bells and chanting coming from the speaker were loud enough to wake her up, so she really didn’t know why they skipped the call to arms. Davis thought about the priests that wore blood-red cloaks that had a hood for their heads and covered them head to toe. It was probably to bestow a sense of reverence in the people. But now, Davis thought it was odd and felt creepy, haunting. It felt bizarrely spellbinding. Davis started wondering if the chants held any subconscious thoughts; she had heard something once—she thought it was a vicious rumor at the time—reported by attendees of the reprogramming center. They had claimed the government played subconscious pro-Everett messages in the media center, the cafeterias, and even in the showers. Now it didn’t seem like it could be a rumor but very plausible.

  Davis drifted off to sleep, thinking about the Everettisim Priests after they had passed by, and a still Sunday morning quiet hung in the air once again. She didn’t even know if females were allowed to be Priests. She didn’t think so, but she wasn’t sure. It wasn’t illegal not to follow Everettisim, and to be honest; it hadn’t really caught on. It was a bizarre religion by conventional standards. All at once, it claimed that President Everett was the only one who truly had God’s ear. Simultaneously, other faiths were acceptable to follow because it was not to be a religion in the conventional sense of the word but more of a way of life. Everettisim celebrated Christmas and President Everett’s birthday on June 17th, which was immediately followed by a three-day summer solstice celebration, regardless of whether the solstice actually fell on any of those three days. Halloween, a celebration Davis had read about in many books, was long ago eliminated in favor of a large fall festival ending in a two-day Dia de Los Muertos festival. There were so many festivals; it seemed Bacchus was the God who had President Everett’s ear.

  Even with alcohol and festive foods outlawed, Davis now knew those things were readily available to a select few. So, in all truth, a real party and feast were probably planned after the public festival for those deemed important enough. She wondered if she would see one of these festivals while she would be in the Palace. She had seen the regular ones; anyone could come into the town center and get a festival biscuit—a traditional nutrition biscuit but flavored with cardamom, cinnamon, and clove—given the nickname “Triple C Biscuit.” And the water flowed freely. There were decorations, homages to President Everett; he stopped short of calling them shrines. There was live music and always a group of children who put on a play, usually about how the President saved them all from certain doom. Another group of children would come out after and demonstrate the yoga they had learned from their daily school rituals or recite a poem, short story, or another worded token of affection for Everett. One of the most significant tenets of Everettisim was that polygamy was not only allowed but encouraged. Almost everybody practiced it, even the non-believers, because there was the sticky task of repopulating the United State. And, the simple fact was there were far more women than men. For a chance for those women to have a husband and babies, President Everett had informed them all that God advised him to start a polygamous country. Most men jumped on board with that proclamation, even if they had no interest at all in Everettisim. Davis now imagined that President Everett just pulled whatever bits from different religions, cultures, and philosophies he thought sounded the best. It occurred to her that not that long ago, she never would have imagined that in a million years.

  ~

  One day—and she could hardly tell one day from another—Davis got a new set of hospital clothing and a beautiful creamy rose-colored silk robe with lace edging. Duffy came in and told her that day, she would be introduced to President Everett. The robe was a gift from him, and he wished for her to wear it. Apparently, he felt as if the color would complement her honeyed-brown eyes and hair. Duffy whispered a reminder for her not to be surprised if Everett gave her an official marriage proposal. It would be an odd introduction in more than one way anyhow, taking place with thick glass isolation walls between them and only a communication tablet to talk. What a lovely courtship thought, Davis.

  There was a conflict in Davis’s mind. She had no desire to dress up like some odd hospital doll for President Everett so that he could give his proposal. However, she knew she had to play the game for a while longer, convince President Everett that she was all i
n, and her “kidnapping” had not changed her or her thoughts toward him or the government. And the robe was soft and lovely. It wouldn’t be too bad to wear while she played this unsavory game, she thought.

  There was a bigger surprise for Davis when Namaguchi walked into the hospital. Davis suddenly felt very self-conscious in that silly robe. He went to his side of the window, picked up the communication tablet, and motioned for her to do the same. Namaguchi typed out a hello and introduced himself, adding, “We are the people, and the people are we” at the end. Davis almost smiled and waved to him as she was still getting used to the unusual circumstances. She quickly remembered she shouldn’t know who Namaguchi was, outside of the fact she had a general sense he was a government official. She typed back the standard greeting and introduced herself. Then Namaguchi typed out that the President was sorry he couldn’t attend in person; his health and well-being was of utmost concern. Then Davis read the next message: “Despite President Everett not being here, he would like to extend a proposal to you to be his wife.”

  ~

  After Namaguchi left with Davis’s consent for marriage, she lay down on the bed and sighed a deep and heavy sigh. It sounded as if she was letting out the troubles of the whole world with that sigh. Brookshire was trying to make silly faces on the other side of the glass, but she just wasn’t in the mood. She went to the glass, tears in her eyes, and put her hand gently on her side of the glass. Brookshire stopped acting silly and put his hand upon his side of the glass, opposite of hers. For a moment, it was enough to have his hand opposite hers. Davis thought she saw a look in Brookshire’s eye, a glint that she’d never seen before, but it vanished so quickly, she wasn’t even sure it had been there at all.