by Jodie Kobe
Chapter three
V I V I A N
The room is white and small, and I am not surprised.
It appears to be some type of interrogation room with two chairs and a desk in the middle. We won't be needing the other chair. I have my wheelchair.
The woman pushes to me one side of the table and takes a seat on the other side. She crooks a finger in my direction and says, “Hand the tablet over.
I glance down at the cloth attached to the clipboard-like object on my lap. Wishing I could tell her to give it back to me at the end of this session, I reluctantly hand it over to her.
She sets it on the corner of the table and folds her hands together. “I prefer to be called Dr. Janelle. No matter if I'm someone's best friend, sister, mother, or wife. Understand?”
I stare at her for a second, not sure how to answer.
She continues. “I have some questions to ask you. It is recommended that you answer them to the best of your ability. Try to refrain from shrugging, please.”
I nod again.
“Mentioning this again. I have been notified of the condition your jaw is in so these will just be yes or no questions. Just nod or shake your head to respond.”
She strains her head to peek at the tablet at the corner of the table. It seems to have turned on by itself.
“Do you remember your name? I know I said it beforehand, but were you aware of it being your name?”
I nod. Vivian.
“Do you know your last name?”
All I know is that I saw it back when I first got this tablet from Welds, but I can't quite remember it.
My head turns left and right.
Dr. Janelle peeks at the tablet once again. “It's Clancy. Vivian Clancy. Do you know what year you were born in?”
I nod. 2024.
“I will list three numbers. You tell me which one is your year.” She pauses and stares at the tablet. “Year 2040, year 2019, or year 2024? Which one?”
I hold up three fingers, indicating the third.
She nods in approval. “Very good. Now...do you remember your previous life? Your family, pets, classmates?”
I lower my hand and shake my head. There's a mental file in my head. That file should contain the memories of my family and friends and life. But when my brain searches through it, all I see is a blank sheet of paper.
“Do you remember if you had a spouse, a house, a job?”
I shake my head. Was I married?
Dr. Janelle continues, “Do you know how old you are...er...were when you died?”
Twenty-one, I believe. I hold up one finger on my right hand and two fingers on the left. Then, noticing it would appear to be “twelve” for her, I flip the numbers.
She barely considers it before moving on to the next question. Her voice rids of emotion more and more on every question. “That is correct.”
What about my parents? My brother? I remember I had a brother who was five years younger than me. Is he still alive? What is this place and how did I die? These questions should have been asked by me a long time ago, yet here I am just wondering about them now.
Dr. Janelle leans toward me a little. She whispers the question I've just been thinking of. “Do you know how you died?”
I shake my head no.
She leans back in her chair and crosses her arms. “It wasn't caused by a disease or a suicide. You were murdered.”
I take a deep breath through my nose. I was murdered? That would explain why my life had ended at such an early age. Although plagues or self-destruction would explain it well too. And if I was murdered...then who is responsible?
Dr. Janelle clears her throat and pushes the tablet toward me. “Can you read?”
I lift the tablet to my face and nod.
“Can you write?”
This is where I have to shrug. Although she told me not to, I still do.
She pulls a pen out of her front pocket and slides it across the table's surface toward me. “Use this on the tablet.”
I place the tablet back on the table and wrap my fingers around the pen. It feels strange and thick in my hand. I transfer the pen back and forth from my left and right hand, trying to decide which hand I should write with.
I settle on my right hand, and Dr. Janelle immediately points out, “You're right handed.”
Just as I look down at the tablet, I remember I don't know how to use this very well. I slide it back to Dr. Janelle, hoping she understands that I want her to open a drawing document for me, if that even exists. She does.
When the tablet is in front of me again, I gaze down at it for a moment, puzzled at what I should write. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Dr. Janelle watching me intently. “Go ahead,” she urges. “We haven’t got all day.”
I nod and settle on my name. I sound it out in my head and do my best to print it out neatly. It slants severely to the left. After my name, the letters of the alphabet follow just below it. I return the pen and tablet to her hands and wait for her to respond.
When her eyebrows furrow, I instantly know she is having trouble reading my writing.
The room is silent except for Dr. Janelle’s grunts of confusion. “What exactly does the first word say?” she finally asks after I start to lose my patience. “Surely you can do better than that!” She thrusts the tablet and pen back to me and instructs me to redo it.
She asked if I could write and I showed her I could. I'm not here to improve my handwriting.
With my name rewritten, I present it to her again. She nods once and continues with her questions. “What if I told you your sibling is alive? Might you be able to remember their name for me?”
My eyes widen. My brother is alive? How can I reach him? I pull the tablet and pen toward me and scribble those words. Dr. Janelle skims over them and I'm surprised she can actually read it. She says, “Do you know his name?”
I nod. Piers. I write it down for her.
She tilts her head a little as she reads my writing. “Hmm,” she murmurs.
Where can I find him? I write down.
Dr. Janelle shakes her head. “He can’t be contacted. I’m sorry.”
Where does he live? I scribble.
Instead of answering my question, she seizes the tablet from my hands and buries it under the table. Trying to give me a disarming smile, she says, “How about we close with a few DNA samples and finish with this tomorrow, when you’re able to speak?”
I nod, looking forward to having someone else other than Dr. Janelle ask me questions. Hopefully Welds. He doesn’t seem so bad.
When we get back to the room with the patients, Rian is forced out of the chair by Dr. Janelle.
Another doctor takes my temperature, injects me with a needle, and snips an inch of my hair off, storing it in a bag. I don’t know what a bag of old split ends will do for them, but I stay still as he cuts my hair. After a few more minutes of sitting and listening, Rian and I find ourselves in the hallway once again.
“I don’t like her,” I hear Rian mutter as he starts leading the wheelchair down the hallway. “Janelle’s the last person I’d like to spend my whole day with.” He smirks. “How long do you think it’ll take her to realize this thing’s missing?”
He opens his palm to reveal a miniature glass cube. In the very center of it, there seems to be a small carving of a gray wolf head.
I scowl at Rian's immaturity. He hates Dr. Janelle, so what? Why not just forget about it?
But the reaction I get from Rian is a look of bewilderment. He smiles. “Hey, you just moved your face! That’s great! It’s progress.” He pockets the glass cube and crouches by me. “Try humming something for a start. It might help you liven your jaw. Worked for me.”
I force a short breath to escape my nose, but that's about it. Rian laughs when a smile appears on my face.
“Try humming through your nose first. Then open your mouth in the process,” he says, watching me with a big smile on his face.
At first, n
othing comes out of my nostrils except my breath again. But after a few seconds, I manage to make a crackled but musical sound.
I feel like a child learning to speak.
“That's great.” Rian doesn’t press me to try again. Instead, he starts guiding the wheelchair down the hallway. “We should probably continue with the tour,” he adds.
We continue in silence. I glance around the many doors and wonder what might be inside.
Rian turns the wheelchair to the left, and I realize this is the only corner I have seen in this vast hallway. We stop, and I take a look at what's ahead of us.
It differs so much from the white hallway we’ve just come from. First, this one is actually lined with a dark brown carpet. The walls are painted a light brown. White doors line the walls of this corridor. I’m close to a few of them to see words printed in gold letters on their surfaces. Possibly names. I find more comfort in being here with these warm colors than being dragged around in the white environment.
Finally, the silence breaks. “I reckon they want you to know where all the bedrooms are. Everyone has their own room. There are a few people who share but only because they’ve chosen to. Family or siblings, for example.”
Rian starts pushing the wheelchair forward. “If you haven’t figured it out yet,” he starts, “the rooms belong to the people whose name is written on the door. They’ve prepared one for you too. We’re just gonna have to look for it.”
He jerks the wheelchair to an unexpected stop and I nearly slip off. I turn my head in his direction to see what happened. He throws me an apologetic smile and points to the door next to him. There are two names written on the surface.
VERITY AND FAWN.
“An example,” he says. “This room’s shared with two people. I believe they’re siblings even though I’ve never met them before.” When we advance, he tells me we’re nearing his door.
“When you first see your room, don’t be surprised by its emptiness. You'll get a bed, a cabinet...um..a white carpet. Oh, and no windows. We’re located underground so don’t expect windows anywhere.”
I give him a questioning look, hoping he might understand that I want him to explain to me why we’re underground. He just frowns at me and focuses his attention forward, pointing at a door marked RIAN CALLUM as we pass it. I keep a look out for my brother’s name as well as my own as we pass other doors. If he’s still alive, he could live here too.
While we head deeper down the corridor, Rian starts to hum. It gets annoying after a few seconds so I shoot him a glare, but he’s got his attention on the path ahead of him.
I slap his arm with the back of my hand and he snaps his head in my direction. His humming ceases and I turn back to the front again, smiling at the calmness. Rian seems to understand that his humming is irritating to me because he doesn’t start again.
I have no luck finding Piers’ name, but we do come across a door marked VIVIAN CLANCY.
Rian walks up to the door and says, “Here’s how you open it.” He places his palm on my door’s surface and waits, adding, “It scans the handprint. If the DNA matches the requirement the door is looking for, it slides open. It's not opening for me because I don't have your DNA.” He steps away. “Try it.”
Once my palm meets the door, I feel a slight vibration. The door promptly slides open, revealing yet another white room. And just like Rian said, it has one bed, a carpet, cabinet, and no windows.
Rian drives the wheelchair inside and gestures at the surroundings. “Everyone’s bedroom looks exactly like this when they first get it. You are always welcome to modify it anyway you please.”
We explore around the room for a few more minutes. I learn this bathroom is twice as large as the ones I'm used to. There’s a small kitchen in case I choose to eat here instead of the cafeteria, which Rian guides me to next. The walk takes several minutes, and Rian keeps talking about this place. I start to zone out halfway through so I just wave happily at random passerby until we reach a sizable white door.
On the other side, a massive room contains pure white tables long enough to cover the space from one side of the room to the other. This whole room is white as well as the others I’ve been to. It’s like the creators of this place wasted their money on building this but forgot to save up for colored paint.
I look up at Rian. He did warn me about this place being odd at first. How long is it going to take me to adapt to it?
Rian lets go of the wheelchair and takes a seat on one of the empty tables. He demonstrates how we’re required to gather and eat our food. With great posture, he emphasizes as he sits down at one of the tables, straightens his back and puts invisible food in his mouth. There’s a janitor a few yards away mopping the floor, who looks up at us. I can’t help but laugh, which causes Rian to twist around to face me, nearly yelling out enthusiastically, “You can laugh! Come on, you’ve waited long enough. You can speak.”
The janitor resumes his mopping (or whatever he's doing) and doesn’t look at us again. Rian’s eager expression doesn’t leave as I stare at him in silence. It would be interesting to speak now. What would my voice sound like?
“Say something,” Rian whispers, then stressing out every syllable says, “Say I’m happy to see you.”
I take a deep breath and puff my cheeks out. Gradually, these words form: “Em happ-ee ta see you.” I laugh, shifting my eyes away from Rian for a second. Then I recite the words again, clearer and quicker this time. “I’m happy to see you.” My voice sounds higher than I thought it would. It’s strange, hearing my own voice.
Rian throws his hands out, “And you talk!”
I feel a smile tug at the corners of my mouth. I can talk!
“So,” Rian continues. “What do you choose your next words to be?”
I shrug. I really don’t know.
Rian stands up and starts leading the wheelchair out of the cafeteria. “How about some questions? What would you like to ask that I might be able to answer?”
I make a short list in my head. Where is my brother? Why are we underground? I’m not as quick forming these words as the previous. “Where...is my brother?”
Rian sounds puzzled. “Brother? Your brother’s here?”
“I—uh—don’t really know,” I manage. “Dr. Janelle said—”
Rian laughs and pats my shoulder. “Janelle. You don't have to add a doctor or anything. She doesn't deserve to be called that anyway.”
I nod—not bothering to ask why—and continue, “Janelle said my brother’s alive. I asked her where he lives, and but she wouldn’t—”
“Yep,” Rian says. “That’s Janelle for you. She doesn’t tell you anything. Welds was the one who told me my family died.”
I wait a second before saying anything, trying to study Rian's expression. But he doesn't look like he hates talking about it, so I ask quietly, “How did you take the news?”
Rian shrugs. “I don’t remember them very well so it doesn’t bother me too much.”
“Oh,” I whisper.
The rest of the trip is silent again and Rian takes me back to my room. Before he leaves me alone, he asks if I can still feel anything in my legs. Unfortunately, I can't.
He gives me a two digit number, telling me it's the phone number for his room. I don't know mine so he says he will look into it.
I sit in the same wheelchair by my bed, reading out of a small tablet Rian had given me (I'm not reading my document, but a book).
Once in a while, there's a knock on my door. I answer, as expected, only to find a doctor or scientist coming to check up on me. They give me pills, clothes, or just inject me with a needle. The liquid inside is different all the time and I find myself wondering what it is. I don’t ask.
Thankfully, there’s a digital clock on the wall telling me the time. I sit through a few hours without anyone bothering me, waiting for exhaustion. But I stay awake staring as the clock passes 12 PM, 1 AM, 2 AM and so on...
Maybe I’m not exhausted yet because I�
��ve been resting all my life.
