"Big bad men came and took me to a far away place. And they put me in clear things. And they fed me meat. lotsa meat. One of the others was stupid. He bit one of the bad men and the bad man hit him, and he got no meat. But I was good and so I got meat.' Emma smiled at that. "Then they put me in another place with Jane. They made us fight. Jane was lame and weak, so I beat her. And then good men came." Emma spoke quickly, her voice animated by the excitement of what had happened. "The bad men were scary, and mean."
"Is that so?" said Lisa. Lisa looked the same -- the same green outfit and white shoes. But Emma looked different. They put her in a T-Shirt with something written on it.
"Uh-huh." Emma kept talking. "The mean bad man called that other one a little peesuhshit. And then the good men brought me here."
"Did they hurt you while you were there?"
"No. But I hurt Jane." Emma smiled again. "And then the good men took us away."
Lisa wrote something on a piece of paper. It was a 'report'. Lisa had to do that because she worked here. None of the bad men had filled out any reports when they took her away. They came in with guns and those with guns didn't need to do reports.
"There will be no more play time. Not for a while anyway."
"Good. Play time is bad."
"Yes. Play time is bad. Let's watch some TV." Lisa agreed with her. That meant no arguing. Maybe that meant more meat too. That would be yummy.
"TV is good."
"Yes. TV is good."
This time Lisa put on a show where a man sat behind a tall wooden thing and talked about a fiery pit, where people called 'sinners' went to when they died. Was she one of these 'sinners?' She didn't think so. It didn't make much sense to her. After all there were no fiery pits anywhere. After that show there was another one where a woman sat and talked about things that happened in far away places, and then there would be men standing and talking at the far away places. Emma was fascinated. Maybe she could go to far away places some day. She hoped so. The far away places looked so interesting to her.
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The next day George McGee showed up and gave her a cookie.
"How is she?" He asked Lisa.
"She seems okay, all things considered." Lisa picked her up and held her. She munched on the cookie, which had a bland, sweet taste to it. It wasn't chocolate chip or vanilla wafer, but she liked it anyway.
"What kinda cookie?"
"It's called oatmeal." Lisa said.
"Oatmeal. Yummee." She ate the rest of the cookie and then looked around. "Meat."
"You had meat already."
"No. Red meat. Not cooked."
"You can't have raw meat, Emma. It's against the rules."
"I'm good. I get raw meat."
"No, Emma."
At first Emma was going to ask again, but McGee handed her another oatmeal cookie. As she ate the cookie, McGee and Lisa took Emma to her new cell and turned on the TV. Emma watched as a cartoon supposed-to-be-human person left his house and started to talk to one of his friends. She listened to the words and tried to remember as many as she could.
Some day she would kill Jane because Jane was bad. But until then she would wait.
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END
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YOU ARE READING
The Infant
Ciencia FicciónNew life is an amazing and terrifying adventure, especially for one particular child newly born into this post apocalyptic world.
