The Centre

Ella opens her eyes to the sound of the trolley wheels on the tiled floor of the corridor. It is 7AM. She is not sure if the trolley itself has woken her, or the wintry light seeping through the thin, green curtains, or simply the fact that she wakes every morning at this time and has done for as long as she can remember.

She yawns and stretches, the rough woollen blanket slipping off of her legs with the movement and pooling on the floor beside her narrow bed. But she does not get up yet. Her room is right at the end of the corridor, so the knock signalling for her to rouse herself will not come for precisely nine minutes.

(Everything runs to time in the Centre, every minute scheduled perfectly.)

She lays on the hard mattress for those nine minutes, counting the artex pimples on the ceiling (she gets to 559, she only ever gets to 559) until the knock comes right on cue, just as the minute hand on the utilitarian wall clock flickers into position. She goes to the door and takes the tray, which holds, as always, a bowl of porridge (slightly cold now after its long journey to reach her), a glass of tepid orange juice and a single blue pill.

She swallows the pill first, under the watchful eye of the matron who has delivered her breakfast. It slides down easily, leaving no aftertaste, no discomfort, no discernible impact on her health or mood. But she knows the pills work because she continues to remember absolutely nothing of her life before she entered the Centre.

In case she were to have any doubt that this is a good thing, her first activity of the day (after gulping down her breakfast and dressing in the same simple pale blue gown she wears every day) is to file down the corridor to Lecture Room One to watch the morning briefing. This is a recorded video, five minutes in length, in which their founder Madam Fleet reminds them why they are here and why they take the small blue pills to keep their memories of life outside the Centre’s high walls at bay.

The world is an evil place, she reminds them, more evil than they dare contemplate, and the fact that they cannot even imagine the horrors outside these walls is another gift from the Centre.

They are told just enough to remember how lucky they are, but not too much. Too much would bring their trauma flooding back to them.

Only the most deserving girls gain access to the Centre, they are reminded. They are the chosen ones, the new Elite, unburdened by memory or emotion.

Emotion in itself is something of an alien concept to the girls, thanks to the Centre and its pills, but they are told it is a terrible thing. When Ella first woke in the Centre, Madam Fleet herself was there with a large needle, which she jabbed into Ella’s thumb until she cried out.

“That is pain, girl,” she said, her tone matter of fact but not cruel. “Our pills keep you from feeling more of it.”

In the morning briefings, they are reminded of that pain, of the other physical pains they sometimes feel. Emotion is pain in your mind as well as your body, they are told. Ella knows, as does every girl, that she is blessed never to experience it.

After the briefing, the girls go to work. Some work in the gardens, some in the kitchens, some are trained in combat to defend the Centre’s perimeter (these girls are the only ones in the Centre permitted to wear trousers, but even if they were not they would be recognisable from their grim expressions).

Ella works in the factory, checking plastic parts for flaws as they are delivered onto a conveyor belt. She is not entirely certain what the parts are for, assembly takes place in the room next door, but it is easy work and she is pleased to be able to contribute to the functioning of the Centre.

A tall, thin girl with long, dark hair pulled back into a thin braid works opposite her, has done for years, but they have never spoken before. Talking is not encouraged on the production line as it might make the workers sloppy.

But today the girl looks different, something sparking in her eyes that Ella has never seen before, not from anyone in the Centre. As the machinery rattles and clanks, she leans forward over the conveyor belt and whispers so quietly that Ella can barely make out the words.

“Stop taking your pills.”

Ella thinks she must have misheard, but the girl repeats her instructions.

“Tomorrow morning, when the trolley comes round, hold the pill under your tongue when you swallow. Then spit it into the sink, first chance you get. They won’t notice a thing.”

“But why?” Ella asks. They take the pills for their own good, to protect them from the memories, from the dangerous emotions. Why would she want to subject herself to them?

“You’ll see,” the girl whispers, then her eyes flicker to a point behind Ella and she gives a final frantic warning (“Don’t let them know you’ve done it!”) before going back to her work sorting parts as one of the matrons moves towards them.

“Is there a problem, ladies?” She asks, in a tone which implies there is about to be one if there isn’t already.

“I wasn’t sure if one of these pieces was the right size,” the girl says quickly, her eyes fixed demurely downwards. “I didn’t want to make a mistake and sacrifice the integrity of our work.”

The matron looks them both up and down with a disapproving sniff. “Do I need to send you for retraining?” She asks, and the girl shakes her head.

“No thank you,” she says, though Ella doesn’t think it was really a question. “I think I’ve got the hang of it now.”

Next morning in her room, Ella stares at the blue pill with a new uncertainty before putting it in her mouth and swallowing. It takes three days of deliberation before she decides to try what the girl in the factory had suggested.

“You can just try it,” she thinks to herself. “If it’s bad, you can always start taking them again.”

Spitting the pill into the sink feels wrong but also somehow good, and as she falls into line in the factory she gives a small brave nod to the girl opposite, whose eyes flash with something Ella doesn’t yet have a name for.

It takes another few days for Ella to notice any impact from not taking the pills, but slowly she starts to feel things that aren’t the blurred nothing which had dominated her days before. She feels anger and excitement and joy and terror (though at first she cannot name them as such), and she finds that even the bad feelings are preferable to the complete absence of them.

After a week, her memories return too, and she realises that the Centre has lied about these as well as the emotions. Her life before was nothing like she had imagined. They have not rescued her, as they said, but kidnapped her.

The next day is Sunday, their only day off work.

Sundays begin with several hours of church, though with her newfound memories Ella realises that this is nothing like church is supposed to be, the deity at its centre not some benevolent creator but the Centre itself and its magnificent founder.

Ella had never liked church much even before, but she had enjoyed Sunday afternoons, which always contain a huge meal and some form of organised fun. This week though, she cannot wait for Sunday to be over. She wants to go to work so that she can see the girl again, so that she can tell her that she understands. So that maybe, just maybe, they can work out a plan to escape the Centre.

But on Monday morning there is a new girl opposite her at the conveyor. This one is short and round, with curly blonde hair and the vacant gaze of the medicated.

Ella scans the room frantically, but cannot see any trace of that long, dark braid. She sorts a few plastic pieces, considering, then searches the room again, this time to check the position of the matrons. Satisfied that no one is in earshot, she leans forward towards the new girl and hisses an instruction into her ear.

“Stop taking your pills.”