Perceived Lunacy

Her Kind

It’s a lake of emotionless faces in the common rooms here. At least in wing B they had some character with the drool dribbling down their faces. Here no one has light inside their eyes, their dead, every single one of them.
            No matter how long I have been on this side of the fence I can never get used to the enormity of which they waste food. The cafeteria is nothing but endless stretches of tables piled high with food. There is bread made from every grain imaginable, pastas dripping with sauces, fruits and vegetables to match every color of the rainbow. Why do the emotionless get what can bring happiness to those in the wilds, but then I guess that’s just how the world works. You choose the easy path then you have to play by someone else’s rules.
            “Once you have your food then go over to the nurse’s desk and get your medication.” Beatrice maneuvers her way around the tables with ease, plucking exactly the piece of watermelon off of the plate that she wants not even giving it a second thought. She has been assigned to show me the daily routine although it doesn’t seem much of a routine compared to wing B. Over here you are meant to do as you please. Roam freely around the common room, watch the news drown its usual lies, read the news papers, Beatrice prefers to sketch. I know it’s all lies though. This is no freedom. There are still locks on the doors and a fence towering outside. However I do as told and make my way over to the nurse’s desk. She hands me a small paper cup with my same tree blue pills in it. I dump them in my mouth and she gives a small smile, she does not ask me to open my mouth and lift my tongue the way Arnold did, I simple take my small tray of food and walk away.
            The sweet taste of the outer capsule of the pill starts to fill my mouth as it disintegrates under my tongue. I quickly take a large spoon full of mashed potatoes and maneuver with my tongue smashing the pills into the potatoes and drop the pill filled potatoes back to my plate.
            I finish my meal quickly and return to my cell. Thankfully Beatrice had decided to stay in the common room to hear the evening news. I get together the things I will need for tomorrow. In the top drawer of my bedside table I store three granola bars I had kept in my sleeves when leaving the cafeteria, two bars of soap and a couple tubes of tooth pasted I had stolen from the bathroom closet, and the white sweet shirt they had left in the drawer here for me. Once I was in the wilds any of these things could mean the difference between life and death.
Lastly I shoved my hand to the back of the drawer and drew out the little folded photograph. I unfold it carefully, my heart stopping ever time my fingers feel the small vibration of a tear of the paper. The same scene stared back at me as always even though the white fold marks have widened a bit. I have kept it on my since the day I found it. We were migrating to Arizona to meet up with some of the higher ups in the revolution. Because of the conditions out there, there are barely any fenced areas. Out in the middle of the desert we found a small house that had survived the blitz, but the family that lived there did not. The house was barely standing from the bullet wholes riddling its frail wood and the burnt remains of a shed lied in the back. We found what was left of the family with the ashes. It didn’t seem right, but we did what we had to do. We searched the house and what was left of the shed for anything we can use. We found some sort of bomb shelter at the base of the shed probably build in anticipation of the blitz. All of the food and supplies were cleared out, someone had gotten there first. On the dusty ground of the shelter I found the photograph of what I can only assume is the family whose remains lied a few feet away… It showed the house with a picnic table sitting in front. Standing with a big proud smile on his face is a middle aged man he’s hair was balding, but he still looked perfect. He had his arm slung around a woman’s shoulders. Her dark brown hair waves around her face. The picture has her caught while she is talking to a little boy sitting at the picnic table playing with his food. Beside him is a girl about as old as I was when I went into the resistance. She has the woman’s same dark hair tucked back in a pony tail. A huge smile of laughter is spread across her face as she plays with a small child with wild blonde curls sitting on the table in front of her. Something about this photo makes it impossible for me to go with out it. The carefree happiness that I see in this family is something I can only dream about. This is who humans are. These laughing, loving creatures. I keep it to remind me of that.
I feel a lump rising up in my throat as I look at this photograph which had once been the picture of a happy life. The water marks seeping at its edges and the fold marks make it nothing, but a memory, one that was not even mine to have. A loud sob rips through the quite room and I realize I need to quite myself. I let the sobs leek out quietly until I am empty and then I return the photograph to its hiding place. It has gotten dark outside the window and something jumps inside my spirits. On night, one night and I am my self again. I wipe the tears from my cheeks and let myself smile, really smile, for the first time since my spirit died.
“I knew it.” A disgusted voice sounds from behind me. Beatrice stares at me with horror on her face. “I knew you were defective.” My stomach flipped with fear once I realized what I had done. I slipped up, I screwed myself over. I got careless and my emotions get the better of me. I have no grounds to deny it. Cureds don’t get like this. Any second now Beatrice is going to turn and run. She is going to tell the nurses, the orderlies, and the guards and then I will be gunned down or worse… stuck here for the rest of my life. I start planning my move. I could attack Beatrice before she has the chance to ruin me. I could grab her by the throat and hold on until she stops kicking. I could even make it look like an accident somehow or suicide. That would even be a little slap in the face for the Doctors, one of there cureds wasn’t cured after all. It would be easy.
“I saw you take that stuff from the bathroom earlier… and the cafeteria. You’re going to run… aren’t you?” Beatrice says in a dead tone. I don’t respond I’m busy weigh my opinions. I could make a break for the bathroom, break the mirror and stab a piece of glass through her heart. She could have done that to herself. I wait for Beatrice to make her move, but she never does. She just stares at me with her small dark eyes.
“What are you doing?” I ask hesitantly. Why hasn’t she gone to get the guards?
“You’ll be gone tomorrow either way. You’ll get shot down or something. It’s none of my business… Just stay away from me until then.” Beatrice says coldly narrowing her always narrowed eyes even more. I’m am so stunned that even when Beatrice simple lays down and begins trying to go to sleep I can’t even relax. Why would she do this? I’m the very thing that her kind hates the most. Why doesn’t she do what her kind does and try to destroy me?