The Teacher

         Hello! I'm Mori (Morientia) the writer. I'm a pretty amateur  writer but my head is full of stories!:)Please please give me feedback, I'd love a critique and pointers. This is only a pilot, I have a few more chapters written but I'd like to know if someone would read them or not. Thanks!:)

Kitty sat on the yellow plastic couch and stared at the broken TV. The TV was painted lime green with powdery paint that rubbed off and got on everyone’s skin and under everyone’s nails. It hadn’t worked for as long as Kitty had sat on the couch and she had been sitting there for a long time. She couldn’t remember. Two, three months…two, three years.

There was a half-dressed plastic baby on the floor. Kitty remembered playing the Baby game when she was little. The teacher would give it to her and say ‘Play. Baby. Kitty,” stretching out the silly putty words. Kitty rocked the baby and sang words to the baby. Sometimes she hit the baby or threw it when it didn’t blink. It wasn’t a real baby but the teacher’s face would melt and their eyes would make crescents.

There were other games in the yellow-couch room. There was the sun game where you counted the smeary ceiling suns and the redwall game where you could kick and punch the soft red wall. Games like these were for playing but games like window, table, and teeth were work games and could be hard. There were new games every day and Kitty could remember every single one she had ever played. Sometimes the teachers would walk by her and say ‘Play baby, Kitty,” and she would get up and pick up the plastic baby and rock it. Sometimes they made her rock it for hours and the only way she knew how to make them go away was to hurt the baby. Once she stuck her finger into the baby’s eye and pulled it out.

The first game she had ever played was in the circle room. Kitty hadn’t been in the circle room for a long time and she hadn’t played any circle games since then. In the circle room the teacher gave her a pair of ear covers and played words through them. “Bed, bed, bed. Teacher, teacher, teacher. Kitty, Kitty, Kitty. Baby, baby, baby. Play, play, play.” The circle games were all word games and most of them consisted of the ear covers or small white cards that traveled around the walls. Kitty would sit in the chair and the teacher would put a seatbelt over her shoulders. The lights would turn off and glowing white cards marched across the middle of the wall and Kitty would watch them until the lights were on again and the letters remained floating over her vision. She dreamed letters and not pictures. She sang tuneless repetitions of meaningless words.

Kitty could not read or write but she could spell any word and add any numbers. The teachers gave her a small white cube that had a little set of ear-covers that she was required to wear at all times. At first the covers would fall out if she moved too fast but soon the teachers taped the cords to her neck and ears and she could listen to the words and number songs all day and night. It was hard to sleep with voices taped to her ears and Kitty’s eyes grew red and puffy and closed a lot. She adjusted to the cube and when it finally fell silent the sounds around her became loud and terrifying. Even in her bed the sheets screamed in her ears and her pillow crunched beneath her head. They gave her a new cube, a pink one. When she had the pink cube she got a new bed and moved to a new room with new room games. Like the circle room had had circle games, the triangle room had triangle games and the striped room had striped games. The teacher still asked her to play her old games but Kitty liked learning new ones.

Kitty sat on the yellow plastic couch and stared at the TV. The TV stared back. Today, the tall teacher said, is for TV games. The tall teacher flicked a button on the TV and his fingers turned green with paint. The TV became a frame with a picture in it and Kitty stared.

HELLO the TV smiled. HELLO HOW ARE YOU. Repeat, the TV told Kitty.

“Hello how are you.”

GOODBYE the TV smiled GOODBYE HAVE A SAFE TRIP HOME. Repeat, the TV told Kitty.

“Goodbye have a safe trip home.”

PLEASE the TV beamed PLEASE MAY I. Repeat.

“Please may I.”

THANKS the TV grinned THANK YOU THAT WAS KIND

“Thank you that was kind.”

PAUSE AND SWITCH the TV demanded. HELLO.

“Hello how are you.”

GOODBYE

“Goodbye have a safe trip home.”

The TV game continued for six hours until Kitty’s head hurt and she stopped looking at the screen. The teacher came up behind her and smiled. “Hello.”

“Hello how are you.”

A man who was not a teacher stood next to the teacher and nodded. “I’m impressed,” said his mouth. “How exactly does this work?”

“Phones, Kitty.”

Kitty put her ear covers back into her ears and the teacher taped them in place with a tape roll he kept clipped to his belt. She watched their mouths move as her cube turned on.

“The first word is a key word. We taught her that. It works like a keyhole. Each command is one word short and her brain connects it with different reactions. If you say Baby she will find the baby. If you combine key words with enough pause in between she will try to do them all at once, or connect them to a longer action sequence. The longest command she knows is ‘Play, baby, and Kitty.’ She puts them together and plays with that doll over there.”

“So her brain is just a dictionary of commands? Doesn’t she know what the words mean?”

“Maybe a few. It’s not a concern.”

“Does she feel?”

“She isn’t affectionate.”

ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY TWO PLUS ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND TEN IS TWO THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY TWO.  ASTRONOMY A S T R O N O M Y. ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY THREE PLUS ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN IS TWO THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHT THREE.

Kitty’s cube began playing and drowned out the men’s voices. She stared at their lips moving and touched her own still lips. She listened to the cube recite and remembered everything she heard.