The Mindless Man's Paradise

Chapter forty-one

  Before that night, I had never seen a car. Only heard of them.

  But I didn’t really get to enjoy it because my body was too busy being in tremendous pain to let me do anything but drown in my agony.

  I recalled Cyrus holding my hand and an awkward silence.

  And then I blacked out.

  When I woke up, I was no longer in the vehicular unit.

  I was alone, in a blank room, shackled to the wall, and a straight jacket wrapped around me. Ironically, I had been completely healed.

  But the first day in that room was an emotional rollercoaster.

  For the first couple hours, I was furious. Screaming, cussing, spitting, and I even thrashed about, completing the picture of a mentally unstable patient. I tugged at my straight jacket and I even succeeded in loosening one of my shackles from the wall.

  Once that phase passed, I began to cry. But this only lasted for half an hour, because I noticed the cameras in each corner, and didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of watching me break.

  So instead, I committed every Infraction that I could. I sang. I cussed. I quoted books. I spoke of my love for Cyrus, and how I had named myself. I may have been talking to myself, but I knew they were listening.

  In some far away room, there was an HQ official sitting behind a screen and listening to my words. There was nothing they could do to me now. I was already on death row.

  I decided that I wanted to make that fact the worst decision of their lives.

  But eventually, after six to eight hours passed, the need to defecate and urinate was imminent. My body cried out to me, and after a while, it was inevitable. I did my best to scoot away from where I was sitting so that I wouldn’t be trapped in my waste like I when I was at Cyrus’s house in his basement.

  Speaking of Cyrus, where was he?

  It was sort of obvious that we would be separated, but was he in a room identical to mine?

  I was getting worried about him until I fell asleep.

  When I awoke, there was food sitting at the foot of the door.

  But the door was across the room, out of my reach. And the food smelled so good. My stomach rumbled, and I realized that this was a form of torture in itself. My blood boiled and all I wanted was HQ’s head on a stick, but I knew that it was too late now.

  Any chance at exposing them- any chance at liberating its citizens- was gone.

  I was going to die.

  The fact hit me like a ton of bricks and it took everything in me not to cry again. Channeling my desperation into anger, I flipped off the camera, remembering the gesture from the handbook I had read at Cyrus’s house.

  Sighing, I slumped against the wall, letting the fight go out of me.