by Laura Preble
I bite the inside of my lip so hard, I taste blood.
No window, so no day or night. They leave the lights on all the time. I guess it’s a way to make me crazy. I think it’s working.
I try to find ways to pass the time. I count the tiles in the floor. I pick up the mattress and look underneath. Stains. Put it back. I pace the floor, counting my footsteps. Fifteen one way, ten the other. I realize I’ve never been bored before. Not like this. Not in the way that you could lose your mind.
And today, the voice started. It came from some speaker I can’t find, but it’s piped into my cell, nonstop. At first I try to pretend it’s the radio, but it keeps repeating the same things over and over and over, then playing this kind of trance-like music. I can’t find anything to stuff in my ears.
“God loves you,” the voice says, “God forgives your sins. Turn away from your sins. Walk into the light. Be cleansed. Be pure. God forgives your sins.” Then the music for a while, and then it starts again. It never stops. It never stops.
Sleep. That seems to be my only tool of escape. So I curl up on the horrible bed, close my eyes, and dream of brick houses and a girl with flowers in her hair. God forgives your sins.
I have to find a way to count minutes, hours, something. I started to count the phrases in the Voice, but they mix it up. It’s never exactly the same, or with exactly the same words in the same order. The music sounds the same, but it isn’t. Time spreading out without any end…I can’t deal with it. So I start this game with myself. I listen for a guard walking outside the door. When I hear footsteps, I put a mark on the floor using a piece of spring I twisted from the bottom of the bed. I hide the marks behind the bed so no one will see. If anyone ever comes in again, I mean.
There’s a camera in the corner, so I guess they can see me scratching on the floor if they want to. Maybe it doesn’t matter to them. I’ve so far counted guards pass my room fifteen times, but I don’t know how many times a day they do it, or what time of the day it is when they go by. No one has come in at all. No food. God forgives your sins. There is water in the sink, so I drink that in the plastic cup, use the toilet, sleep. I try to wash by taking off the orange jumpsuit and dabbing with water all over my body, but it’s not very effective without soap or anything to wash with. Be cleansed, like the Voice says. I wish I could be.
I have stubble on my face. When I was home, people teased me at school about my scrawny mustache. I never let it get very far, so I didn’t know how it would grow out, but now it’s fuzzing up. I spend a lot of time just feeling it, trying to figure out what it would look like. Walk into the light.
They must do something to me to make me sleep. I’ve noticed that about every five guard steps, I wake up with that shooting pain in my arm, and there’s an injection site there, bruised and angry looking. How do they put me out? Something in the air? The water? I have no choice but to breathe and drink, though. I have to get out of here. I wonder if God will forgive me. If I die, nobody will know.
Guard footstep count is now at twenty-two. I’m not able to get off the bed, and I’ve stopped using the toilet. They still come in and give me the medicine, but I never catch them. I sleep a lot. In my dreams, I’m always eating something, and living in a beautiful place with a garden and a high wall that keeps things out. My beard and mustache have grown out. They itch. I don’t wash anymore. Be cleansed. Be pure. God loves you. God forgives your sins. Turn away from your sins. Walk into the light. God forgives your sins God forgives God for-
God forgives your sins. Guard footstep count is at thirty. I’m cold all the time. But today, I hear the footsteps and they stop in front of my door. I want to get up, but I can’t. I wish I was cleansed and pure. I want to turn away, but the door opens, and a tray is slipped into the room. I smell some kind of food, something hot, so I crawl off the bed, take an eternity God is eternity to crawl across the floor like a bug, and finally reach the metal tray. There is a bowl with thin stew, a piece of hard bread. I look at it. God loves me.
It takes my brain a minute to remember eating. I put my face to the bowl, extend my dry tongue, let it touch the surface of the brown liquid. God loves me. Adrenaline races through me like liquid fire, and although I know I’ll be sick, I lap up the soup like a dog, face down, getting it all over my face and in my beard and mustache. Cleansed. Pure. The bread’s too hard…I’ll save it for later. I roll over and curl up on the floor, my stomach roiling and objecting to the foreign material from the bowl. I retch all over the place, but can’t even move from a pool of thin vomit tainted brown. Cleansed. Pure. God loves me.
Within a few minutes, two guards come in, pick me up under the armpits, and wordlessly drag me from the cell. I feel dizzy and sick, and have a pounding headache, but nothing left to throw up. God loves me. They drag me down a corridor, through a maze of hallways, and I close my eyes to try and squelch the dizziness. God loves me.
When we finally stop, I’m barely conscious. They drag me through another thick metal door, into a beautiful office with dark-wood furniture, tapestried walls, carpeted floors. The room spins, colors blur, and the next thing I know, I’m sitting naked in a little chair under a stream of warm water, in a blue-tiled shower. Warm water. Perfect temperature. It washes over me in cascades, and it is the purest joy I’ve ever felt. God loves me. Pure. Cleansed.
Soap. Pure. White, mild soap in a little cake in the recess of the shower wall. I reach for it. Nothing happens. I bring it to my nose first, sniff the clean, pure scent, then start to slowly work it in a circular motion over my legs, my chest, my arms, my face, my hair. I wash every inch I can reach, wash again, let the water stream over me, and I could just stay here forever and die happy. God loves me.
But they turn it off. The sound of water dripping on tile echoes, and I stay on the bath chair, unwilling to admit that the shower is over. Steam curls around my face, so I lie back against the tile, breathe in the mist, relax, forget. Turn away. God forgives. Sin cleansed pure.
A sound, like a door opening…a boy my age comes into the shower stall. Through droplets I see him: blond, thin, muscular, wearing jeans and a t-shirt. “Let me help you,” he murmurs as he hoists me onto his shoulders. I close my eyes and welcome the help, no matter where it comes from.
He takes me into a room, lays me gently on a bed so comfortable I can’t believe it’s real. He takes some kind of ointment from a white jar, rubs it on my hands, my arms, my feet, my legs. I just lie there. It feels so good to have someone touch me, skin on skin, to be clean, to be comfortable. “God loves me,” I murmur to him.
“Yes.” He smiles gently. “I’ll help you dress,” he says, pulling a fresh orange jumpsuit from a drawer. “At least it’ll be clean.”
I lick my lips, wondering if I still know how to speak. “Who are you?” I don’t recognize my own voice.
“Luke.” He smiles, leans over me and pats my cheek. “I’m here to help you.” He eases the jumpsuit over my legs, pulls it up, gently guides my arms into the sleeves, zips it.
“Why?” I rasp.
“Why am I helping you or why am I here?” He takes a black comb from a dresser and draws it through my tangled hair. “Want me to cut this for you?”
“Hmm?”
“Your hair. It’s pretty long. Want me to cut it?”
Do I want a haircut? My mind can’t even accept this idea. I just nod. God loves me. He sits me up on the bed, opens a cupboard, and takes out a pair of silver scissors. “Oh, if you try to grab these, a guard will shoot you. Above the eye. They’re very accurate.” He turns my head slightly and starts to snip at the wet tendrils of hair lying against my neck.
Am I dreaming now? I can’t tell. It doesn’t feel like I am, but still…it’s possible that none of this is real. How can I tell?
Luke chuckles. “It’s real. I know it doesn’t feel like it. You’ve been in quarantine for thirty days. It’s harsh, but it works.” He stops snipping. “You probably want a drink, right?” He jumps up, still carrying the s
cissors, goes to a refrigerator in the corner, and pulls out a huge bottle of water, sweating from the chill. He twists off the top and hands it to me. “Don’t drink too fast.” I try not to, but it’s so sweet, so pure, like the painting of the river on the front of the bottle. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so happy.
Ah.
It’s a trick. Even though I know, I want to ignore it. A manipulation, just a way to get me to do what they want. I could pretend I don’t know. I could do what this handsome stranger says and get my hair cut and take another shower, food…it’s a trick. It’s a trick. I repeat it in my head so I’ll believe it.
“Something to eat?” Luke goes to the refrigerator again, and takes out a box of soda crackers. “I know they brought you that horrible stew, huh? They give that to everybody. Better to start with something really simple.” He unwraps a package of crackers, and I start to salivate. He hands me one, like a communion wafer, and I take a small nibble from the corner. The flavor explodes against my tongue, salt, crunch, dry, mixing with the water in my mouth to form a paste that I don’t want to swallow because it tastes so amazing.
Luke sits on the edge of the bed and watches me nibble at the cracker. He smiles, like it’s amusing, but not in teasing way. Maybe I can get some information...he’s the first person who’s treated me like I’m human since I got here. I just watch the cracker, take another nibble; I’ll finish it first before I say anything.
“Hey.” I look up. His hand is on my hand. “Let me help you. God loves you.”
“Do you know where Carmen is?” I sneak another cracker from the wrapper, just in case this angers him and he takes them away.
He smiles and shakes his head. “Don’t think about her. I know it’s tough. But you’re here to heal, to get past that part of your life. To turn away from your sins.”
“I don’t want to get past that part of my life.” The words come out on their own; I know as soon as I’ve said them that they are forbidden, but true. Luke’s warm smile twitches and he blinks rapidly.
“I’ll be meeting with you once a week to help with your rehabilitation,” he says. “Now that you’ve come out of quarantine, you’re going to be attending classes and eating meals with other guests. I—”
“Guests?” That voice jumps out again, the one that I know should be quiet but isn’t. “You call us guests?”
He arches his eyebrows. “Of course. What would you call it?”
“Prisoners.” I angrily take a bite out of the cracker.
“Ah.” Luke nods, then stands up, stretching. “I can see why you’d think that. But you’re not prisoners. God loves you. You’re here to turn away from sin. Think of it more as a hospital, a place where people go to get better.”
“I don’t need to get better. I need to get out of here.”
“The way to get out of here is to get better.” He smiles, takes out an electric razor and runs it through my hair, shaving it all off.
“Don’t!” I yell, but he puts a hand on my shoulder.
“Remember, right above the eye. Just sit still.” He continues to plow through my hair, and it falls in clumps around me. I pick up a piece, rub it between my fingers.
When he’s finished, he pushes a green button on the wall near the refrigerator. “You’ll be going back to your room now, and we’ll meet again tomorrow for counseling.”
Two guards come through the door, shackle my hands, and lead me firmly away. “Luke,” I call over my shoulder as I walk.
“Yes?”
“Does God love me?”
“Of course.” The door closes and we trudge down the gray cement hallway.
The guards don’t go the same way, I don’t think. It’s hard to tell, but it seems like we’re going a different way. The doors look different in these halls, bigger, and there are windows in the doors. The left guard stops and unlocks one of them, labeled Delta.
They march me into this huge room, with beds stacked on beds, bunks, in two rows with a path down the middle. Same fluorescent lights. It’s totally empty.
They walk me wordlessly to the end of the path and stop two beds before the end. “This is your new bed,” Guard Two says, gesturing to the top mattress. Guard One keys something into a handheld electronic gadget, then nods to the other guy. “We’re taking you to your orientation now. They’ll explain everything.”
We walk again, through another large door. Now we’re in a white hallway, more like a hospital, and I hear voice. I hear voices! Other people! Maybe Carmen will be here. Guard One knocks on a door with a brown plastic placard that reads Orientation 5. He opens the door, unlocks my cuffs, and gestures for me to go in.
Chapter 16
Scarecrows in a circle.
Several guys, most my age, sit on little woven floor mats. All have shaved heads. All wear orange jumpsuits. All look like skeletons. I probably look the same. One man dressed as a doctor sits in a gray office chair, the big kind that swivels around like a carnival ride. He jumps up when I come into the room. The door shuts behind me as the guards leave.
He checks his own electronic device, then beams at me. “Welcome, Sebastian.”
“My name is Chris.”
“It’s Sebastian.” The guys on the floor squirm, don’t look at me. The man tucks the device into the pocket of a white lab coat stitched in blue with the words Dr. Ashburn, O. R.
“It’s Chris.”
“Sebastian, please sit on that mat next to Jeremiah.” Dr. Ashburn gestures toward an empty spot. I take it. Who cares what he calls me?
The doctor sits in the gray swivel chair again, bouncing slightly. “So, who wants to give the welcome speech to Sebastian? Remember, it’s extra points.”
A couple of hands go up. He chooses Jeremiah, who sits next to me. “God loves you. God forgives your sins. Turn away from your sins. Walk into the light. Be cleansed. Be pure. God forgives your sins.” Jeremiah doesn’t look at me as he says this. He stares past my ankle.
“Nicely done, Jeremiah,” Dr. Ashburn says. He jots something onto his handheld device. “There, five points for you. Now, who else wants extra points? Abraham?”
Abraham, a man so dark he seems to be almost blue-black, shakes his head slowly.
“No?” Dr. Ashburn seems surprised. He leans forward. “Abraham, think about it. Are you sure you don’t want to earn some extra points?”
He doesn’t look up. He just keeps shaking his head slowly, slowly. The doctor is clearly annoyed by Abraham. He purses his thin lips, runs a hand through wispy blond hair, and adjusts owl-eye glasses. He jots something angrily on the handheld. “Fine. Paul?”
Paul looks young, younger than I am. He’s tan, Hispanic maybe, with a scar down his left cheek. He stares at me with blank, brown eyes. “God loves you.”
“Say his name,” Dr. Ashburn says, sounding like he’s coaching a child to speak.
“God loves you, Sebastian.”
Ashburn smiles. “And?”
“And you will be cleansed and made pure. Praise God.”
At that, all the men murmur some form of “Praise God.”
“Great, Paul. You will be rewarded.” He happily taps the screen again. He turns to me. “Sebastian—”
I know I shouldn’t say it, but I do. “My name is Chris.”
“Sebastian, you are in Orientation group Delta. We meet daily for counseling and reorientation training. This is where you learn about our facility and how we’re here to help you. We’re here to help each other. You are all part of God’s family, and he wants you to heal. Isn’t that right?”
The men murmur, all except Abraham, who sits silent as a mahogany statue, eyes closed as if he’s a thousand miles away.
Dr. Ashburn is clearly annoyed by Abraham, but he continues. “We were just discussing our need to cleanse ourselves to be worthy of God’s love,” Dr. Ashburn says smoothly as he peers at me over the top of his glasses. “For today, Sebastian, just listen. You’ll understand how it works soon enough. Let’s continue with…” He
looks at the faces of the men in the circle. “Noah.”
Noah, a scared-looking older man with a gray crew-cut, face like a Mako shark, sits across from me in the circle. His mouth twitches. “Yes, Dr. Ashburn?”
“Noah, can you tell Sebastian one of our five rules?”
Noah licks his dry lips and stutters. “No unauthorized conversation.”
Dr. Ashburn smiles and taps his handheld. “Excellent. Paul, another rule?”
Paul looks terrified. “Meals are to be taken in silence. Clean your plate.” He sniffs repeatedly, a nervous tic.
“Two down, three to go.” Dr. Ashburn taps his device again. “Charles?” A Korean man coiled into a ball has his head tucked between his knees, eyes closed. “Charles, are you feeling ill?” An involuntary murmur from the other men. Charles doesn’t respond.
Paul, who sits next to him, nudges him. Charles looks up, dark marble eyes in glaring whites. “I’m feeling fine.”
“Then tell us a third rule.”
Charles puts his head back between his knees.
“I’ll tell it. I’ll tell it!” Paul jumps excitedly on the mat. “Follow directions at all times.”
Dr. Ashburn has typed something on his keypad. “Charles, I’m making a note to your rehab counselor that you are being uncooperative.” The other men moan, a low frightened sound.
“The other two rules are….everyone….” Dr. Ashburn looks from man to man, waiting for them to respond as one, which they do, all except for Charles, who now rocks back and forth in small, rhythmic movements. “Keep to Yourself and Pray Three Times Daily!” they shout like schoolchildren.
The doctor turns to me, and beams. “You see? It’s not that difficult. I’m sure you’ll find that, with time, you’ll be right at home here.” He consults his keypad again, and turns to the others. “The next thing we need to discuss today is cafeteria behavior.”
Silence. Charles even stops swaying.