2 Eyes Closed 1 Eye Open, Ch2

A Boy Waits

The boy's name is Valeri. He stands at the front of a group of children not by choice but from necessity. He is the youngest among him. Most have just reached the awkward age of puberty, twelve and thirteen years old, limbs changing more dramatically than before. One girl is closer to his size but at eight or nine she is still older than Valeria seven. He stands at the front so he can see the doctor in front better. He doesn't want to see the doctor better, he wants to push his way through the small crowd, back out the door he came in through.

He wants ice cream and movies. Today was supposed to be for ice cream and movies. Instead it is for speeches from doctors.

The boy, Valeri, doesn't understand the speech. Welcome to the Institute where they study humans with extraordinary abilities. He has no extraordinary abilities, he just has funny dreams about sleeping. Sometimes scary dreams about sleeping but there is nothing strange about that. Everyone has weird dreams. Dreams by their definition are odd and peculiar. He wants his mom. He wants his dad. He doesn't want to listen.

A sleepover in a white room. Beeping monitors and electrodes on his head. A man in a chair telling secrets to a sleeping boy. It was just a funny dream but now he's stuck here. His mom and dad have driven away and left him with these doctors and their strange words and ideas. He had said no to the sleepover until the promise of ice cream and movies. The promise was broken. He will never trust anyone again, especially not the doctor in white, talking about things he doesn’t understand.

Instead of listening he looks about the room, trying to understand the place he has been left in. Just like the last, this room is white, or it might have been at one point but everything is just a shade or two off from one another. Unlike mismatched blacks it’s not distracting. It actually makes it feel less sterile than the other room. It feels nothing like home, even if the woman says that they should treat it as such. He doesn’t want this to be his home, he has a home with his mom and his dad. They left him here with a hug and tears and a promise to be back soon. He doesn’t believe them.

The doctor concludes her speech and Valeri realizes he doesn’t know a thing she said beyond ‘welcome’ and ‘unusual abilities’. Worry settles into his small frame, making him even smaller as he curls into himself. What if there’s a test? What if he missed something important in that lecture. He peers up at the faces of those around him but they give nothing away. Everyone looks to be either nervous, confused, or somewhere inbetween. Even those that had looked so confident as they’d all been ushered into this room looked as though they weren’t certain about anything anymore.

The boy should have listened.

“Welcome to the Institute where we research humans with extraordinary abilities like you.”

A murmur runs through the crowd. This was the same introduction the doctor had used except this time it comes from the mouth of a child. They look eleven, maybe twelve, height from the chair they were standing on, rather than years. Their sweater was green, bright green and it draws Valeri’s eye. Unlike the doctor who blended into the room’s decor, this kid stands out, keeps the boy’s attention. This time he can listen to the speech, it’s a relief, he won’t go without the information like he expected to.

“Of course if you don’t give them enough skill and growth then you’ll discover what a lobotomy feels like and if you give them too much you’ll ’graduate’.” This wasn’t the same speech then, not even close. Valeri’s stomach falls, a pit at the bottom of it, swallowing the ground out from beneath him. “Not sure which is worse. You’re all basically prisoners now, to be subjected to harsh experiments that are seemingly chosen at random.”

“Gab you mouthpiece. Get down or we’ll have to file a report. You’ll lose your TV privileges which means no more of those made for TV sci-fi pieces of crap you’re using to scare the newbies with.”

An orderly pipes up, interrupts the kid on the chair from saying anything more. Still, it’s done it’s job, now everyone looks worried, even those that had seemed so confident beforehand. There’s a tension in the air that’s almost palpable, it leaves the hairs on everyone’s neck standing when someone announces it’s time for intake. There’s a shuffling of feet as they all take a step backwards. It’s one movement as if they all share the same brain, the same gut instinct telling them to get away from the strangers as if that might do something. The entrance was far behind them, a whole level away, no one was getting out. Not yet.

The next movement is less uniform, though they all still move at once. This one is to try and make the kid next to them into a living shield, to try to put someone else between themselves and the newcomer who had announced the next stage of this process. It doesn’t matter that it is Valeri who’s left at the front of the group, that it is him the new woman’s eyes fall on first. It’s not his name she calls. There’s a list on her clipboard that lists the first child she wants to see, leaving the rest wondering  just what exactly is in store for them.

White chairs slowly fill with the waiting bodies of children who watch as their peers are pulled away into another room, not returning when the technician does. It’s just her and her clipboard and another name, another of their numbers pulled away for who knew what. Valeri is scared, nervous, stomach twisting itself into impressive knots. In the white of the room his eyes are drawn to the green sweater of the boy who stood on a chair an hour ago and made an announcement about the fate they had to look forward to. The boy has no idea what a lobotomy is but he knows it’s not good. He can’t pull his eyes away from the boy in the green, even as the room empties one person at a time.

It’s just the two of them in the end. The boy in the green who’s bracelet marks him as a member of the Institute already and the boy wit the funny dreams whose parents left while holding back tears. Valeri wonders if he should say something, speak up, ask a question, anything to break this silence but someone beats him to it. Click, click, click. The woman with the clipboard returns, her shoes clicking against tile.

“Valeri? Your turn, let’s go.”

She smiles. He frowns. One last look at the boy in green then Valeri gets to his feet to follow her, destination entirely unknown.

---

Chapter 3