Obscurity

Chapter 43: Feelings

Alma

Spencer and Sierra play cards for what seems like forever. Card after card, game after game, until Sierra finally gets the hang of it. She's really excited to be learning how to play. Even if it is a child's game. She's a lot like a child in that sense.

Spencer looks up and behind me and I can tell he sees someone making their way from nurses station toward the day room. I hope it isn't Chris. I don't turn around and look for myself because I'm too worried it might be him coming for me.

A familiar voice rings out behind me and I turn in response. Stacy is standing at the front of the day room with an arm full of papers.

"Hey everyone! If you could, please follow me to the Group room!" She instructs cheerfully. Everyone gets up in a staggering succession and heads for the Group room. As we stand, I look over to Sierra.

"Middle of the herd." She whispers, and we shuffle to make sure we aren't the last ones out of the day room. We fall in step behind Lara and her posse. Jim and Abigail bring up the rear of the migration.

We all file into the Group room and take our seats. No one is sitting in the same spots as last time. We're randomly scattered throughout the circle. Sierra is sitting directly beside me, and Spencer is sitting on the opposite side of me. I'm shocked Sierra didn't get up and move to the seat next to him. I'd figured she'd be all about sitting right next to him in Group.

The relief that washes over me when Stacy closes the door behind Abigail is indescribable. I'm really glad that Chris is not sitting in on the session today. I figure if Stacy closed the door it means we're all here and about to get started. I let out a huge sigh of relief. Sierra looks over at me and squeezes me knee. I bet she's thinking the same thing.

Stacy takes her usual spot in the circle and sits down. "Okay, everyone. Today we're going to do something a little different. We're going to work on a little project in Group. Take one of the printouts from the stack and pass it around the circle." She says as she pulls a printout off the top of the stack and hands the papers to her right. Everyone takes one and passes the stack onto their neighbor until we've all taken a printout.

The paper has a picture of a long-neck bottle that takes up the entire page. The bottle is empty. It's essentially the outline of a bottle. Stacy takes the stack of papers, which is only a couple of printouts and places them under her chair.

"As you all see, it's a bottle depicted on the page. What I want each of you to do today is fill in the bottle with your emotions." She says. Mostly everyone looks at her, save for Sierra. She seems completely disinterested.

"What do you mean?" Lara asks. She looks thoroughly confused.

"What I mean is, you color in, write in, do whatever you want, to encompass your feelings inside that bottle." Stacy explains.

"Does it have to be what we're feeling right now?" Daniel asks.

"It could be. It could also be various different feelings you feel throughout a week. I may even fill my own bottle with the feelings to varying degrees that I have all the time." Stacy says, her ever-present smile beaming.

A brief spurt of murmurs erupts from the Group, and I sit there watching Stacy for more directives. It seems half the Group doesn't want to do the activity, and the other half can't wait to get their hands on crayons or colored pencils.

"Okay, so you all can get up and find a spot to sit back at one of the tables in the back of the room. You can even use any of the desks available. I'm going to give everyone supplies." Stacy says as she stands up and pulls her keys from her upper arm where they usually rest affixed with a spiral band that keeps it put. She mosies over to the large gray cabinet at the side of the room and unlocks it. She retrieves a giant container of coloring supplies and muscles it over to one of the back tables. She retraces her steps and closes and locks the cabinet.

On her way back to the table where she left the crate, she stops in front of Sierra and me still sitting in our seats in the circle.

"Something wrong, ladies?" Concern shaping her eyebrows into a heavy "V."

"No. I was just getting up to go find a spot to sit at the back." I say. I look over to Sierra. She sits with her arms crossed, loosely holding the printout in one of her hands.

"I'm not doing this." She announces to Stacy.

"Why not? It's a fun exercise." Stacy coaxes.

"No. It isn't!" Sierra's voice raises. I'm not sure if she's just irritable or mocking Stacy's usually upbeat excited tone.

I get up and move toward the back of the room to one of the tables, and I sit beside Nick. Stacy is still back where I was sitting prior, trying to talk Sierra into participating.

Someone has passed out coloring implements to the tables and there's a pile of randomly assorted markers and colored pencils on the one I'm sitting at. I debate for a moment or two on where to even start with my bottle. I look over, and Nick is making light colored flowing lines across his bottle at different levels. Each level is of varying depths. He takes the green marker and looks over at me.

"Jealousy?" I guess aloud.

He nods and continues his project. He colors the smallest portion of the bottle green. Watching him navigate the bottle project doesn't inspire me, though. It actually makes me not want to do it. Why put our feelings on a paper? So everyone can see. What's the whole point? It isn't like whatever I'm feeling even matters. No one cares that I'm here for no reason. No one cares at all.

Nick elbows me lightly to get my attention. I look at his face, but it's fixed on his paper so I look down at it too. I have to work hard not to laugh out loud. He's marked the words, "I hate this fucking place" across the third highest level in his bottle and is coloring it red.

"I don't think that's what Stacy was going for when she wanted your feelings on paper." I half whisper half laugh.

He shrugs. "Well. It's the truth."

We both sit there grinning and admiring his profane work.

Sierra finally shuffles over to our table and grabs a chair next to me. She slaps her half crumpled bottle paper onto the table. She looks like she is not enjoying the idea of putting her feelings onto paper. I don't blame her. I'm in the same boat.

Stacy walks along the tables admiring everyone's work. She stops at my paper and looks up at me. "No feelings?" She asks.

"I don't know. I'm thinking about it." I say as she moves along the table to check out more of our bottle papers.

I glance over at Sierra. She's just reached into the pile of coloring implements and has taken out a large black marker. I laugh inwardly. She uncaps the marker and looks Stacy right in the face with a blank expression as she slowly and methodically fills the bottle on her paper in with nothing but big, thick black lines.