Glass Houses

Yellow

A yellow hue covers everything, from cars to outdoor furniture. I watch as dark storm clouds approach, I can smell the atmosphere preparing for rain despite being inside the house. Soon the yellow pollen will no longer be airborne and will be streaming down the streets in tiny rivers toward the storm drains. I gather together all of my supplies, in preparation to go visit my sister in the hospital.

I gather everything I need from my checklist. I have an indoor mask, and an outdoor oxygen supply system with an air tight mask. With it is my own personal oxygen filtration system and a small machine that creates hospital grade o2 from the air around me. I gather my own personal rubber suit, that I wear over my cloths to prevent contamination while outdoors. It even has a hood that cinches down close to my face to prevent hair contamination. The attached boots just slip over whatever shoes I decide to wear, it is sad how they attempted to make it look "pretty" using pastel colors and a pattern over the rubber to make it look like real clothing.

I feel like a one-person hazmat crew walking out into a waist land of beautiful flowers, and insect activity. My rubber bag is strapped over my shoulder with a change of clothes, soaps, and moist towelettes, in case of accidental contamination. If you ever want to look like a freak when braving the outdoors on a high pollen day, all you need do is come to my house. I can totally set you up with my spare suit.

I stand in the entry clean zone, of my home as I wait for my mom to pull the van around. For anyone coming to visit me or my family in our home, you would be subjected to a high-pressure air shower, created by my father. Basically, it uses air to dislodge pollen particles from your clothing and the floor of the room suctions the particles from the air safely into the micron filters that he created. All shoes must be removed and placed into a little baggie prior to your air shower and remain there until you leave.

You are then subjected to the next room, after placing all of your clothing into another zipper bag, the high temperature shower is followed by dressing in hospital scrubs, and non slip socks. An alarm goes off and I go to my quarters until they leave.

So, it is no surprise that we don't have visitors very often, and salespeople never beckon upon our doorstep. Not that they could possibly supply us with anything to trump the perfect hospital-esque sterile environment, impervious to all outside contaminants, my father has created.

The van approaches the vacuum seal applying the perfect amount of pressure on the seal to activate the sterilization bath, then all air and water are removed with a high-pressure vacuum in the floor. The inside door opens once the vacuum is complete, as the chamber is breached, I hear the hissing sound as air re-enters the camber space. I open the rear doors to the van and let myself in, once inside the door automatically closes and the air filtration system kicks in, cycling out all of the stale air and filtering air from outside into the cabin. Thankfully the air is cold enough that my rubber suit doesn't make me sweat. I sit down in the single leather clad captains' chair in the center and buckle in. The one-way glass windows allow me to look out all around me but prevent others from peering in.

My mother remains in the front compartment of the van, completely separate from me. My whole life has been spent peering out windows into the outside world, unable to touch or hold anything, not even a puppy. You would think that living in a completely filtered home I would actually interact with family, but even when I am inside no one enters the home unless I am in my quarters. My bedroom includes a floor to ceiling window that blacks out when I am supposed to be asleep. The bathroom and kitchenette are in the clean room between my room and the rest of the house.

My only true companion in this world is my sister Emma, our rooms are together sharing one glass wall so that we can interact. I remember when we were little we would build castles together with blocks, I built my side and she built hers, then we would pretend that we could be together. As we got older we were surprised with the installation of a glass block between our rooms with little gloves we could put our hands in to play board games. Everyday there was a new game, replaced when we were sleeping.

I have never been sick my entire life but Emma has been sick a lot, she never tells me what is wrong, but I don't think that she even knows. I remember falling asleep at our shared box our hands locked together in gloves as she battled her illness. I would always wake up the following day in my bed, never remembering how I got there.

I rarely leave the house, the only reason for me to leave is to see a doctor, then we would go back home. My little sister Emma, always comforted me and I her. She has been away for three weeks, and the only reason I am leaving the house, is that she is dying, dad says she won't last the night.