ASUNDER (I) : tmr newt

31: I'm Ready

31 Michelle Day 9

I hate working. Well, that's not true. I like feeling wood planks in my hands. Unbending and strong, I can use it to build me anything I want. A shelter, a home, a bat to beat the other Builders with.

It's not my job that is awful. Building itself is fantastic; even in the early morning sun I enjoy it. My main issue relies with everyone staring at me. Their wandering eyes have stopped wandering, and started simply resting on me for hours on end. I thought it was bad before I got arrested and thrown in the Slammer, but this is worse. So very much worse.

We are almost done the additional room they are putting on here. I still don't know why I am building it. Never thought to ask, and I don't particularly care. If I stopped to think about it, I might wonder why. Why I am so complacent in doing things without being told why. Constructing keeps me sane. It takes my mind off of every terrible thing that is happening around me. So long as I can make the structure stand, it doesn't matter to me if my whole world falls down.

I guess that is the purpose to building it. The Glade doesn't give me time to worry about an end result. After all, I have been tossed into the Slammer more times than anyone else here, as far as I can tell. Currently, I need something to keep my eyes moving, and the gears in my brain turning. I don't want to think. I want my thoughts to slip away from my head, and for all my actions to go on autopilot. Rub mud on the walls, over and over again. Continue until your fingers are numb and your hands are caked in brown.

Who needs therapy when you can easily decide not to think?

It's hard with everyone staring at me. I can't storm off today. So far, I've been lucky that Gally hasn't let me go. Didn't Alby give him the opportunity to decide he didn't want me anymore?

This is what I am talking about. Thinking. All it does is ruin my mood. I thought I was in a good mood too.

"Hey, be careful," it's that boy again. David. Why is he always everywhere I go?

We work together but that's beside the point.

"With?" I don't even glance at him over my shoulder. Using the back of my hand, I wipe my itching nose.

He grabs me by the wrist, and I spin to stare at him. "That. The mud we use for dry walling is pretty toxic. It comes up in buckets you know; it's not real mud. Ingest it and you are going to be spending a lot of time in front of a place people unload their klunk."

That's a pretty image. He isn't very good at talking, but he means that I am going to be blowing chunks for hours upon hours. Honestly, it's better than being here with the Builders.

I think.

It takes me a second to remember to rip my wrist from his grasp. Who does he think he is, grabbing a hold of me like that?

I try my best to ignore the voice that whistles in the back of my mind. He is trying to help you.

"I don't need your help." I do, but I would never admit it to him. Not to his face that turns pink as I speak. Nor his eyes that wander away from me and to the ground. I feel my feet soften into the ground as he looks away from me.

It's as if my bones forgot that they were supposed to stop me from turning into a puddle on the ground.

"Right," he at the dust that threatens his own nose. "Sorry, I forgot you've got the whole "I don't need anyone" thing going on."

"It's not a thing." I turn back to the wall, avoiding scratching my nose with my muddy hands.

"Sure it is," David leans down, taking some mud on the end of whatever it is he is holding, and begins to spread the brown muck along the wall. "I had half a mind that you would admit to stealing the screwdriver just to spite me. Since, that's your thing."