Alexithymia

I can’t run anymore.

Bland,

white,

plain.

Wake, eat, sleep.

Life in six words.

Six syllables. Thirty-Two letters.

I wake, make my bed, work, eat, work, and sleep. All the while, I’m hiding, heaving, dying. Running? Sure, running in circles.

But they don’t need to know that.

What do you do?

I wake, make my bed, work, eat, work, and sleep.

My life since 3021.

AX1-19, the virus that rid 95% of Earth from feeling.

The last light of human nature,

           Cracked,

                       Splintered,

                                   GONE!

Control…

Control…

I am nothing…

Feel nothing.

I wonder why? Even though I shouldn’t.

In fact, I shouldn’t even be having these thoughts.

I have just rounded off the corner of a stark white building. One amongst many, lined up in parallel rows, so similar to one another, that the city appears to be a mirage. I can feel the meagre breakfast of powdered milk with oats make its way up my throat, as my heart explodes in my chest.

That was too close.

The building's sharp edges seem to glare at me, like eyes about to betray. At this point, I wouldn’t even be surprised if it were to. I tuck further into the shadows, out of sight, out of cameras, out of their eyes.

Now I can think at peace.

3021 was the year of the AX1-19. The virus. The epidemic that murdered my father, mother, brother, and sister. They didn’t die from the illness. No, worse, they were immune, sniffed out by the governments’ rats. Imprisoned, tortured, brainwashed they were and returned to society as living phantoms, their minds broken, their last traces of humanity swept away like crumbs off a steel table. Their blatant eyes sucked deep into their sockets with dark pools of black hanging below - the only reminder of humanity, the reminder of pain. I can see what they once were, in that pain, and yet, their grey, ironed suits remind me of what they have become,

Puppets.

Held by strings sewn into their minds, quite literally, with needle and thread.

“CURFEW IS APPROACHING, PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR DORMITORIES, PATROLS WILL BEGIN IN TWENTY MINUTES!”

Twenty minutes.

That’s all I have.

The hairs at the base of my neck prickle with fear as an icy chill runs through me from head to toe.

They’re coming.

They’re coming to check.

I need to go back and finish It.

It.

It is the reason they caught me in the first place. It is the reason why I have been living, hiding, and running in this whole piece of shit of a city. Well, I call it running, but really, I’m a rat in a laboratory maze, with shards of glass blocking the exits that promise a world of freedom. So yes, I am running, through the maze. Running towards the cheese, driven by the false hope of being able to remove it, without springing the trap.

Remove it.

Send it.

I emerge from the back of the building into the light. Managing to settle my heart rate, I remind myself:

Back straight.

Neck straight.

Lips in a flat line.

Look ahead.

I walk past the prisoner chambers. Chambers of glass. Both a warning and a test.

A warning, for the beatings not only become the sounds of the cityscape but the view as well.

A test of stoicism for those whose lips dare to tilt, in a display of emotion.

As I walk past the glass panes, footsteps unconsciously quickening, my reflection glowers back at me. Straight black hair, piercing blue eyes, pale skin, straight nose, flat lips, all neglected and threadbare, worn out by months of assimilating with the dead citizens of this town, who walk past in synchronized steps, in flawlessly parallel lanes. Once families, children, women, and men, filled with laughter, nostalgia, hope, fear, anger, forgiveness, and resilience, now drained empty. Hollow shells. Paralyzed forces. Heat bubbles up inside me and my hand begins to twitch. I can’t stop and I curse myself. The twitch, however, has already caught the attention of the patrol officer. Unlike the ghosts, he has been given the vaccine, like the rest of the government’s officials. He feels, alright. Just the rage that follows the boredom of standing stock still monitoring piles of bodies.

He begins to stride towards me,

Five steps…

I start to walk faster.

Four steps…

GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF,

Three steps…

My composure sets. The veins in my hand bulge with the effort.

Two steps….

Now fix your thoughts.

His eyes meet mine. I resist the temptation of looking down. A sign of fear.

White,

bland,

plain.

No, no, no.

Bland,

white,

plain.

Bland,

white,

plain.

He stands not a foot away from me,

I want to move so badly, but I am at his disgraceful mercy, and I must finish something first. To end it all, everything, all of it. He caresses my face with his blood-stained hands. They don’t bother to clean them. Who’s there to complain. Who’s blood I feel, hot, thick, and sticky on my cheek, I don’t know. What I do know is how it came to be on his hands. The thought of it makes my stomach flip, my lips twitch and he abhorrently tilts his head.

His lips slit into a smile from ear to ear,

I want to slap him,

STRANGLE HIM

STAB HIM,

RIP HIM INSIDE OUT.

Instead, I run.

Blood…surging…slowing…surging.

My feet carry me incessantly towards my dormitory as the guard begins to shout orders. The blood pounds too loud in my ears for me to be able to make out what he is saying.

I make it to my allocated dorms.

Eight by eight square metres of concrete and they now feel colder than before.

A metal-framed bed weakly supports its own weight in the corner.

A toilet seat in the other, and delivery of powdered milk and stale bread at the entrance.

At least they feed us.

Not that its much use anyway.

“10 MINUTES UNTIL CURFEW PATROL, PLEASE MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE DORMITORIES.”

Ten minutes.

The guard most probably passed the message down to the patrol officers who wait behind the cameras, like caged hounds, for four minutes before they came to find me. The government is nothing but efficient. They think it’ll be easier to catch me in this cement cube. Maybe. But those four minutes are something I can work with.

Three minutes now.

I move quickly, unzipping the mattress on the metal frame. Inside the mattress lies more than cotton. Bile begins to rise in my throat when I can’t find it. It settles once I do. Two vials of clear liquid. The cure.

My name is Artemesia Orncaster.

A last reminder to myself.

I am twenty-three old.

Before 3021, I was a vaccinologist.

I belong to the Right Arm, A secret organization of immunes, like me, like my family…was.

I am their asset and I have found to cure, for AX1-19.

Shadows crawl into the cell, as evening creeps in.

I pick up the device which I will use to inform the Right Arm of the formula.

The cure to the Right Arm, in exchange for my life.

It is a price I’m willing to pay.

“FIVE MINUTES UNTIL ENCLOSURE, PLEASE RESPECT THE CURFEW OR YOU WILL BE DETAINED FOR ILLEGAL TRESPASSING”

I scoff, ‘detained.’ As if being ‘detained’ could be worse than what’s happened to these people.

The heavy tread of an officer walks into the hallway, his keys jangling in jovial mockery of ‘I’m coming to get you.’ I have nowhere to run in here. The mechanical door slides open revealing the same patrol officer from outside, the same cold gaze. The strange thing is, he’s come alone. He strides forward, but instead of stopping in front of me, he grapples my arm, dragging me out into the hallway. A long hallway with only one exit. My mind freezes and as if returning to an automated security response it chants,

White,

Bland,

Plain,

Shit. Wrong way around. At this point, I couldn’t care less.

White,

Bland,

Plain,

White,

Bland,

Plain,

My mind settles. He drags me onto my feet. Once again, he caresses my face with his hands, his lips splitting into that pitiful smile. The pit in my stomach fills itself with bile as he leans forward as if to kiss me. My temper peaks. I begin to tremble. That only seems to encourage him. Something inside of me snaps and recoils like a belt lashing onto the skin. So many things happen at once, I can’t comprehend. All I remember is that I was on top of him, pushing, kicking his ribs, throwing fists until his face drowned in the red that I saw. I began to run back to my room, his screams merging with the alarm that had begun to echo off the walls.

“WARNING, WARNING SECURITY BREACH PLEASE HEAD TOWARDS DORMITORIES FOR ENSURED SAFETY UNTIL THE BREACH HAS BEEN HANDLED!”

A fire nestles in my lungs. I must do it now! The cure…The cure…The price…The price, my mind chants, cheering on the pounding of my heart. I mutter it over to myself until I reach my dormitory. Security sirens howl at the corner of my street, the array of blue and red lights throbbing through the dormitory window onto the floor. Colors of blood and water, blood and water. That’s what they’ll do to me. I unzip the mattress once more, scrambling for the vials with my trembling hands. I can feel the glass at my fingertips. I pull out the device. Two minutes. Turning the vials around, I quickly glance at their label. I turn the formula into a coded phrase typing it into the telegram.

One minute.

Footsteps can be heard climbing the stairwell.

My hands are trembling.

This is what I’ve been trained to do. That doesn’t stop the fear from gnawing, inside out. My finger hovers over the button, ‘SEND.’

My dormitory door crashes.

Hands grab at me from behind twisting my arms at unnatural angles. A burning hot white pain shoots through my shoulder, along with a distant crack. I hear a scream. Was that me? As they drag me away, one thought remains, it’s done…It’s done.

I don’t have to run anymore.

Something slams into the back of my head.

Everything goes dark.

***

1st January 3022,

I am in front of a window.

Glass,

Glass is what I see…

And buildings.

Bland,

White,

Plain.

My name is Anna now.

Bland,

White,

Plain.

No last name.

Bland,

White,

Plain.

My loyalty is to the government and no other.

Bland,

White,

Plain.

I feel nothing,

I seek nothing,

I know nothing.