The Nature

As I sit here, I wonder about the real meaning of monster. I know it’s not a new question. I know it’s nothing original. I know there is little chance I can bring anything new to the table. I never claimed to be a great thinker. But still, I ask myself questions.

        It seems important.

        It passes the time. 

        It is a way to distract myself.

        Pick one. You may be right.

I want a pen. And paper. I want to write. Letters. A journal. Anything. I know my rights. 

        I thought I knew my rights. Then again, so many things I thought I knew have changed. 

If I am an innocent man, then why am I here? 

        It does not take a genius to see the stupidity in this question. But this is not a suitable answer. Perhaps I don’t know the answers. Perhaps my answers are not what I think they are. 

        Nobody tells me what they want. I could guess. What good is a guess? I know what I am, what I have and haven’t done. Why should I give them anything?

“Tell us about the night we took you,” the woman says to me. 

        She has not told me her name. The man next to her is Jefferson. I know that. He didn’t introduce the woman and I didn’t ask. I have given up trying to make a connection. 

        “I don’t remember,” I tell her.

        “That’s very convenient for you,” she says, and she types something into the tablet she holds.

        “Not really,” I say.

        She pauses and looks up at me. “Explain,” she tells me.

        I take a long breath. I no longer believe anything I say will make a difference. “It’s hard to explain,” I tell her.

        “Try,” she says. 

        She won’t let it drop. They never do. They want me to talk, each successive person. Sometimes I think they want facts. Sometimes I think they are trying to catch me in a lie. Sometimes I think it is just procedure. I am just a procedure. Nothing more. To be processed. And then… And then…

        “I finished work,” I tell her. “I went home. I locked the door. I cooked dinner and then I ate it. Pesto pasta. Nothing special.”

“Did you make it fresh?” the woman asked.

“Did I…” I started.

“The pesto,” she said. “Did you make it fresh?”

“It was from a jar,” I told her. 

She nodded and made a note on her tablet. That was a new question. 

        “Is that important?” I asked her.

        She held up a finger for me to be quiet. It seemed she had a lot to enter. “Ok,” she said eventually, smiling at me in a way that chilled me. It seemed almost like she smiled without moving her face at all. Like she was insinuating a smile. “Continue.”

        “There’s not much to say,” I told her. “I ate my pesto pasta, washed the dishes, watched some TV, and then I went to bed early.”

“What would you class as going to bed early?” she asked.

“I don’t know exactly what time it was.”

“Could you take a guess?” 

“I would say maybe nine forty-five. A little before ten anyway.”

“Do you often go to bed that early?” she asked.

“We’ve had a lot of work on lately,” I told her. “I’ve been tired.”

“Please try to answer the specific question.”

“Sorry.”

“So, do you often go to bed that early?”

“No,” I told her. “I don’t. I usually go to bed between eleven and midnight on weeknights, but I was tired that night.”

“Because you’d been working hard?”

“Yes.”

“And you say you went to bed early.”

“Yes.”

“Did you get up at all?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

I was sure. When this began, I knew my answers. Do I doubt them now? And if so, is it my doubt, or is it theirs?

“I was in bed asleep,” I told her. “And then I woke up here.”

“Is that so?” she asked, typing again into the pad.

“I told your colleague all of this,” I said.

She gave me a smile, but didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything either. I didn’t mention handcuffs or restraints. I never did. They never mentioned them, so neither did I. Whatever this game was, I would go along. It seemed sometimes like a dance, only they got to go home at the end. Send in a new partner. Stamp my card. Move along.

“Can you tell me what will happen?” I asked.

She typed a little more and then she put the pad down. She leaned across the table and looked at me. I wanted to look away, but I forced myself not to.

“What do you think is going to happen?” she asked eventually. 

That’s what they always said. I could imagine so many things. So many. “I don’t know,” I told her. “I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t,” she said, standing up.

She left without another word. The other times they at least said goodbye. The first one even wished me well. “Good luck,” he said. “Listen and do what’s needed. I hope to see you again before long.”

But I hadn’t seen him since. Each subsequent, what?, interrogator? Had been increasingly brusque. I wasn’t sure if this was a coincidence, or perhaps part of the system. 

I have been here now almost a month, I believe. I’ve counted twenty-eight days, but I may be slightly off. It doesn’t bode well. I dream of green fields and hills, though I’ve lived in the city since I started to work. I dream of running, hard and fast and free. I suppose it’s only natural under the circumstances. At night I dream these things and I wake up sweating. But during the day, when my eyes are open, I dream of food. I dream of steak and of chicken. Of cutting into the meat and seeing the juices run. Of the feel of tearing into a good, filling meal. What they serve me here is no substitute. 

The next day, the same routine. This time, it’s a man, tall and strong with short grey hair and a moustache. If anybody ever looked career military, it’s this man. 

        “Can you tell me what’s going to happen?” I asked at the end.

        He smiled at me and chuckled. “Are you worried?” he asked.

        This was new.

        “Of course I’m worried,” I said. “Should I be?”

        “Is there anything you’d like to tell me?” he asked.

        “Like what?”

        “Is that how you’re going to play it?”

        “What do you want from me?” I asked.

        He spread his hands on the table. I expected them to be empty and I didn’t notice at first that his right hand had a bullet in it. My breath caught and I looked to Jefferson for any sign of what was happening. He, though, as always during the questioning, the discussion as I was told it was, was looking fixedly at a patch of wall somewhere above my right shoulder. 

        “There are so many questions in the world,” said the man with the moustache. “How many answers do you think there really are, when all is said and done?”

        He was rolling the bullet in his palm with his thumb. I watched and I didn’t answer.

        “Everything has a path,” he said. “And every path is ultimately the same. It is ultimately just a matter of whether we travel that path in light or in darkness. Does that make sense?”

        He closed his fist around the bullet, but the other hand stayed open on the table. I was feeling dizzy. Somewhere in the back of my mind, his fist was becoming a cannon. “I don’t understand any of this,” I told him.

        “Of course you don’t,” he said. “How could you?”

        And he got up and walked to the door. 

        I watched him go and started to relax. Then he stopped in the doorway and I froze again. “Do you happen to know the date?” he asked, not looking back at me.

        “I don’t,” I told him. “Not for sure. But I can guess.”

        He nodded his head. “I see,” he said and walked out. 

        “Are you ok?” Jefferson asked once the two of us were alone. 

It was the first time he’d done that. I smiled and nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“Right,” he said, standing up slowly, rolling his shoulders and stretching just like every other day. “Let’s get you back to quarters, shall we?”

Quarters. I lie on my bunk and think about that. Is that what they call this? What difference does the name make? I have a few books, but I leave them on the floor. Lying on my back, tracing shapes in the marks on the ceiling. Closing my eyes. Opening them. It’s true, what I said to the back of the moustache’s head; I don’t know the date, but I can guess. It doesn’t matter anyway. I am my own calendar. 

        Time rolls on. The day is passing. 

It is never about reality. 

        I understand this now. As they parade me before the cameras. To my spot on the dais. I am fastened. Made safe. So many cameras. I feel like I’m surrounded by giant spiders, their eyes all trained upon me. What do they say? The eyes of the world? They look so lifeless. Predatory.

        The roof is vast, domed, and made of glass. Spotlights are shone on me from each corner of the room.

As the sun falls inexorably below the horizon and my doom begins to rise, I see the error in my thoughts. My skin begins to prickle. Soon it will itch and then burn. My hairs stand on end, such as they are. A buzz of anticipation around the room. 

It was never about my actions. It was never about understanding. It was never about the philosophical. That was my mistake. In this and so much else. Everything is about the spectacle. Well then. Here we go...