Chapter Text
You run and you run and you run and you wish you knew something other than the running. Day in, day out. It’s the same. You fear that the ground will fall out beneath you if you ever stop running.
Was it always like this? You can’t remember. Was there ever a time where the running was freedom and joy, not your endless uphill burden?
Maybe right when you left home. Maybe when you knew people. Maybe before you felt like you were constantly slipping behind into the sand.
It doesn’t matter. You think that one day you will flake away and become a forgotten dune but it doesn’t matter.
You take a sip of water and keep running.
You know you’re wrong. You know you’re messed up. They play tapes of life before BL/ind and you’re the only kid to cry. A classmate scrapes her knee and you spend too long worrying about her. Your dad leaves for work and you shouldn’t miss him, but you do. You shouldn’t want to hug your mother, but you do. You cry, late at night, but you know you shouldn’t do that too, so it only makes it worse. You hate yourself, but you shouldn’t be able to feel that strongly. You feel far, far too much. You are a Wrong Person, broken, disgusting, and messed-up.
A masked man visits your house. “You shouldn’t be feeling so much, and certainly shouldn’t be showing it. It’s unnatural. Take this pill every night, and this one every morning. Remember: Don’t think, just smile.”
You live your days in a haze, because you’re afraid of being alive. Nothing is real to you. You get your required social time in every day, but nobody ever cares about you and you never care about anybody. Day in, day out. Everything is meaningless, with no greater goal. You try not to think. You try very hard not to think, but sometimes you’ll wonder why and think there is no reason before seeing the “Don’t think! Just smile!” poster and shriveling a little more. You shouldn’t be like this.
Day in, day out. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Everywhere you look, you are told you are unnatural. You get a crush on one of the few classmates you know. It’s the worst experience of your life. Every time your thoughts single him out, every time you feel in your heart, every time you think about it, guilt and despair rises in your throat. You’re better now, though. You hide it. You hide everything. Hide it all behind a smile.
The masked man comes by again. “You shouldn’t be caring about your brother so much. We’ve seen how affectionate you are with him. Back off, now.” Your little brother is too young for the pills. You started early, of course, after the first visit. Emotion suppression over developmental freedom, of course. Your little brother doesn’t need to. He hides well, if he even feels too much at all. Everything is in a child’s amount, an appropriate amount.
Nothing days, nothing days. You give your little brother a hug and they take you away. You never get to see him again. Everything in a haze, a shade of grey, despite all the colorful advertisements. Everything is worth nothing. You force half-thoughts into empty smiles.
Until one day when you take a knife and try to feel again. Try to get away. Try to end the pain. They come to your house and take away all the sharp things. They take you off the thought suppression pills so you can self-analyze for the doctors. They put you on new pills. You take those, but start hiding your old ones. Sometimes there is color in life.
They moved you to Zone One, to get away from your brother, so you take the train everyday into the city to go to school. After the changes, you start to listen. You start to look. One day, you realize.
You realize this place isn’t everything and there’s more to the world and I need to get out and the desert. You spend a day riding the train back and forth, back and forth. You reach the station, walk out, and walk back on as if you forgot a briefcase. The guards switch and don’t notice. Back and forth, back and forth. You stare out the windows. You don’t want to get off because Off seems more like their territory than the train.
Riding the train becomes like swinging on a pendulum. In your mind, you swing back and forth too. Don’t think. Just smile. Stop this now. Stop thinking. And going backwards: Why? Why, why, why? What about this is wrong? Why can’t I? You think all day long and the idea that maybe, maybe, you aren’t completely disgusting for doing so grows in the back of your mind.
You arrive at the Zone One town on the last train at 9:30 exactly. You get off. You start walking home, but something catches your eye. You turn, and there’s a ugly green and purple car being chased away from town by a sterile white van. Killjoys. You look at the train schedule. It’s been covered by spray paint, which extends over to the rest of the wall. “LOOK FOR THE RED LINE ON THE TRACKS. HEAD EAST. YOU CAN’T SEE IT BUT YOU WILL REACH IT. KEEP RUNNING.”
You go home and break a drawer. You look at the file they gave you and estimate how much longer they were going to keep you on pills. You count it out and put it in your carbon bank.
The next morning, you take the first train out and never arrive at the station. You haven’t got a why yet, but you think you know where you can find one.