It was also incredibly difficult to gauge the passage of time. There were clocks on every wall, but they only displayed the number of minutes, not hours. The schedule only revealed what was coming up in the next five minutes. And the timetable of upcoming events only showed one item at a time, so there was always a persistent sense of anticipation over what would happen next. I compensated by memorizing the time table of an activity, and jotting them down when I was certain no one was watching. Using this method, I was able to figure out the schedule here so far:
- Get woken up: 1 minute.
- Get shuttled with others: 5 minutes.
- Get mass showered & cleaned: 10 minutes.
- March around: 2 minutes.
- Eat: 15 minutes.
- March to next room: 3 minutes.
- Emptying our bowels: 5 minutes.
- Vague speech about our stay: 50 minutes.
- Medical Checkup: 35 minutes.
- Random movie already in progress: 46 minutes.
- Introduction to technological devices: 15 minutes.
- Trying out technological devices: 5 minutes
- Fires put out (result of former item on schedule): 25 minutes.
- Treatment for smoke inhalation and burns: 10 minutes.
- Recuperation time: 10 minutes.
- Nap time: 50 minutes?
- Injections for anyone still awake: 5 minutes.
- Group meetings: 30 minutes, but feels more like 300.
- Free time: 45 minutes.
- Meeting with Social Worker (Very Rare!): 15 minutes.
This wasn’t always reliable, since the schedule would sporadically change according to unplanned interruptions, of which there were plenty. None of these were followed chronologically. We could be woken up, only to be told to go back to our beds with the lights still on. Activities could be interrupted at any time without warning. In these cases, our slots would be filled with extra meals or movies, before resuming as usual. This meant that we could have as many as five naps, five lunches or five movies in a row. With some minor variance, our routine was limited to shuffling us around, keeping us fed and making sure that our basic needs (staying alive) was taken care of. For all their rigidity, their schedule was surprisingly fluid.
I was supposed to talk about my questions to my Social Worker, but I had no idea I even had one, let alone who it was. And as if that wasn't bad enough, it turned out I might not even HAVE one, because of an oversight made before I was frozen.
"If you need help, join the line. We're very backed up, and we've got a long waiting list. If you wanted one, you should've registered years ago.”
“But I didn't Even Know I was supposed to get one!”
“That's not our problem.”
A lot of things around the place turned out not to be their problem. I tried talking to the other people around me, but was looked at with suspicion and scorn.
In between long stretches of time, I whiled the minutes away filling in random number puzzles.
I wrote down everything that I could recall. It wasn’t much. My life was pretty uneventful, and trying to remember the dullest aspects of my day was hard enough even during the best of times. Now, those long-past days looked pretty darned appealing compared to nowadays. I kept my notes hidden in a secluded area of the room. It would’ve been easy to keep away from prying eyes that didn’t bother looking too hard.
Sure enough, I found my room ransacked scant hours later. You’d think that a claustrophobic living quarter as mine couldn’t be more messed up as it was, but they somehow managed. My bed was now affixed to the walls, the sink on the ceiling, and my clothes strewn across the floor. But more unnerving was how they treated my private notes.
It was lying neatly folded in the center of the room. And the only authorial impediments were suggestive marks for improving my grammar and spelling mistakes.
“They’re toying with us.”
I was startled and surprised to see the sudden reappearance of the man who’d cozied up to me earlier. I’d been unable to find him, because I had no idea where I was supposed to look.
“I couldn’t find you, because I had no idea where I was supposed to look.” (Hmm. Should probably edit this sentence later)
“You weren’t meant to. It was a test - I wanted to see whether you’d hand in my scribble over to the authorities, and you passed.”
“Well, it’s not as if they’re in any mad rush to help me out, even if I ask politely. I tried asking the guards if they could lower my facilities in my room back the way they used to be. All they said was,
‘We’re not obligated to go against the natural order in this place. If this happened to you, then you probably did something to deserve it.’
“But what could that possibly be??? I don’t even know what I did wrong!”
“That’s not our concern”, they said.
“Yeah, that sounds like ‘em, alright. If it’s any consolation, yours isn’t the only room that’s been flipped upside-down. C’mere.”
He brought me to another housing section that looked identical from all the others. That was, until he tapped-opened the door to a single empty room. Only, this room kept turning around and around.
“There’s an entire block that has the interior spinning non-stop, making the residents inside extremely dizzy. Strangely, the gravity works normally there, so they have to be careful stepping in too quickly, otherwise they’d wind up falling on the ceiling.”
As an experiment, he brought out a rubber ball. He casually tossed it inside through the middle door, where it hovered in mid-air, before crazily bouncing around the interior of the constantly rotating room, unable to decide where it should rest.
“This is one of my guilty pleasures. Funny - it’s always the simplest things that wind up comforting you.”
“What’s with these rooms?”, I asked. “I thought they were just walls, but they’re...”
“Yup. They’re actually buildings, and these wide corridors are sidewalks separating them. Some of them lead to larger buildings deeper inside. Remember when you were asked what your primary language was? There are other cultures housing the buildings adjunct to us.”
On a particularly bad bounce, the ball got stuck underneath the bed, and was trapped in an inescapable loop of rapid ricocheting between two opposing forces.
“...you can’t....this. ....wrong....”
“It’s like an onion in the form of a Russian Doll. Or a Nesting Doll carved from an onion. Just when you think you’ve peeled back the last layer, there’s another layer underneath. Only, it’s bigger and more intimidating than we thought. Which couldn’t possibly fit underneath such a dinky tiny thing, and my metaphor’s fallen flat.”
“What do you think it’s all - ”
“Don’t keep looking at me for an answer. I know less than you think. All I can do is point out certain curiosities, but I can’t tell you what to think. If you want to get any answers, you’d better look for yourself.”
As if on cue, the ball that’d been bouncing under the bed suddenly popped out, and fell in the guy’s outstretched palm.
At the next Group meeting, I was determined to get some answers.
“I’m sorry,” the woman in charge said, “but I’m not authorized to give that information.”
“Well, can you point out to me someone who can?!” I asked, almost screaming.
“It’s all explained in the manual.”
“Wonderful! Where is it?”
“Unfortunately, we’re all out, and are currently waiting for more.”
“Naturally,” I resignedly slumped my arms. “When’s the next batch coming in?”
“Three to six months. There was a misspelling, so all copies had to be destroyed to cover up the mistake.”
“Of course. Why should anything be easy around here?”
“Well... I’m not authorized to do this, but we have an audio recording if you’re interested.”
“Hell, yes!”, I proclaimed, failing to hide my restraint.
“I should warn you, it’s been heavily overused, and is quite intelligible in parts.”
“I don’t care! Just so long as I get some answers!”
I flicked on the device, awaiting what new swatches of information would grace my ears.
“Hello, welcome to [garbled] where you can [weird scratchy noises not of this world] and [long stretches of nonsensical sounds that barely resembled human speech] - enjoy your stay.”
There was maybe five words I understood in that recording, none of them useful. I wasn’t expecting much, but even by the standards of unrevealing material, I was still disappointed.
“That didn’t tell me anything! Don’t you have a less corrupted copy?”
“That’s the best one we have. It’s extremely popular among members who try to decipher its more challenging passages.”
I left to find the guy again.
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