Chapter 13
LUCY
{One month ago}
Day four million and one at Brightfield, I thought as I added the tally mark to my diary.
What I wrote inside its pages was different than the public blog.
Online, I tried to keep things positive, even when I felt like dying.
In this small tome? I wrote the darkest thoughts.
The ones that would have Doc Emerson calling for a psychiatric consult.
“At Brightfield, the future is bright!”
“At Brightfield, we keep hope alive!”
“At Brightfield, positive thinking wins the day!”
The slogans had changed over my years here, but the sentiment always remained steady: Brightfield was a place that preferred thinking about the happiest things, as if that could make its terminal patients fly.
Hell, maybe it could. We were all a bit like Peter Pan—little chance of growing old, trapped in a never land between living and dead.
I wonder if the lost boys thought about time. In a place where no one aged, would minutes matter?
I’d long ago given up actually counting the days. The tallying was a source of irony now. Counting down days generally means you’re looking forward to something. In my case, that originally meant a life outside of my fishbowl existence. I knew better now: I was never getting out of here.
Dropping the diary onto my lap, I stared out the small window at the therapy garden I’d never strolled through.
I wondered what the flowers smelled like today, or on any day.
I traced my finger across the warm glass, wondering how good it would feel to open the window—if it could open, which it couldn’t—and feel sunlight kiss my skin.
God, I was so jealous of the patients who freely strolled in the gardens.
My entire life, there’d always been something keeping me from the world. A barrier for my protection. I often wondered if I wasn’t a living, breathing example of superposition in quantum mechanics. Like Schrodinger's cat, the state of my existence was a matter of perception.
I was in this sterile environment, set apart from the entirety of humankind.
In here with me, was my ability to exist. Unless someone abandoned safety protocols and let in outside variables, I was safe as houses.
But therein lies the problem—I couldn’t survive without this room.
If my ability to stay alive hinged on safety protocols and closed doors, and I would die if those things disappeared, then. .. was I already dead or still alive?
The outer air lock whooshed open. I glanced over at the large white clock mounted above the small writing desk.
Lunch time. Hissing announced the sterilizing gasses, making sure my visitor’s PPE carried nothing that could harm me.
The nurse carrying the tray had kind, brown eyes surrounded by thick lashes.
I liked her cheeks; the way they were plump and slightly pinked.
The window of the helmet she wore fogged slightly as she breathed.
She was newer to Brightfield. Like other fresh hires, she’d introduced herself—standing outside the double airlock and speaking through the intercom—but I wasn’t good with faces.
So many doctors and nurses over the years; they all just became a blur of features.
It didn’t help that employee turnover was heavy at Brightfield.
The person who’d been treating me the longest, and who made a consistent effort to be friendly, was Doctor Emerson. I’d grown accustomed to the way he walked, his speech patterns, his mannerisms. If he ever left Brightfield, I’d be heartbroken. Then again… maybe I’d be the one to leave here.
Ha, fat chance.
“How are you today, Lucy?” The nurse spoke politely, a smile at the edges of her words.
I tried to focus so I might recall her name.
“Same as yesterday, and the day before, and probably tomorrow,” I quipped my go-to response.
“You never know what tomorrow will bring. I heard you’ve signed up for the Eros treatment. There’s a rumor it’s miraculous.” She winked, the helmet window fogging more heavily as she breathed through pale lips.
“I don’t believe in miracles.” I shrugged.
“Every day we’re alive is a miracle,” she countered.
Maybe for her it was, because she got to leave work and go home. She could run outside. Swim in the ocean. Play with her dog at a park, assuming she had a dog. All the mundane things she did in her normal life would feel miraculous to me.
I didn’t know how to respond out loud, so I stayed quiet. Eventually she set my food down on the hospital tray and rolled it over to me.
“Want to eat by the window today? It’s nice out.” She said that like I could walk out of this room, out of this building, and out into the world. Like I could enjoy the weather, instead of just stare at it through thick glass windows.
“It doesn’t matter. By the window. At the table. In bed. It’s futile either way.” Eating to stay alive in this room seemed pointless. It would be easy to waste away rather than keep trying.
“Like I said, Lucy, you never know what tomorrow will bring.” She pressed her positivity against me relentless. Her smile broadened, though her gaze seemed less friendly as her lips stretched.
“I always know what tomorrow will bring. This room. This food. And the untouchable everything outside.” I blinked down at the pale food. Always pale. No seasonings. Plain chicken breast. Plain Greek yogurt. Two boiled eggs. An unsliced apple scrubbed well enough to remove any waxy coating.
“Think about the treatment, Lucy. You obviously aren’t ready to give up. Just imagine if it works.” Her gloved hand patted me gently on the shoulder.
I wanted to recoil. All my years isolated made me uncomfortable with casual touch. I could handle a nurse with a needle, but not one offering comfort.
“I’m not going to start praying for a cure now,” I said it softly, turning away from the well-meaning nurse and starring back out the window.
“Then I’ll pray for it for you,” she offered. I’m sure she meant well, but all her words did was making me remember the many times I’d been asked if I wanted to talk to a Man of God in case I didn’t make it through the night.
“Thanks,” I pushed out, sounding pathetic. She didn’t seem to notice how unthankful I was though. She seemed relieved, her gaze warming, possibly imagining that she’d gotten through to me somehow and fought back my melancholia.
“Eat as much as you can, Lucy. You need to be as strong as possible before the first treatment.” She waited for me to reply. When I didn’t, she left. I didn’t watch her go. The whoosh of the air locks, interrupted by the soft hiss of sterilizing fog, was enough to know when she was gone.
I never understood why they sterilized themselves on the way out too. Wasn't like I could spread my shitty immune system problem to other patients.
I’d say I was lonely, but I had an older, boxy television and a computer.
My best friends were sitcom characters, and I could read just about anything I wanted to online—heart wrenching romance, epic fantasy, spine chilling horror, political thrillers.
Since finishing high school online, I’d even audited half-a-dozen SoCal University online classes.
Right now, I was yawning my way through Mechanical Engineering.
Yesterday had been this hour-long lecture on Kinematic Equations.
The professor kept showing this video of a car, explaining how if you know some factors of an object’s motion, then you can predict the unknowns.
Then he’d said it doesn’t work if the car doesn’t stay at a constant rate of velocity and acceleration.
Which made the whole thing seem useless.
Newton’s First Law, while accurate, was also flawed.
An object in motion outside a lab setting always faces ever-present external forces, like friction and air resistance.
Moving objects which fit the Kinematic parameters would be difficult to find outside of labs and computer models.
It bothered me. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe because I didn’t know if I’d ever ride in a car again, ever be in motion, ever leave this new facility. Maybe because concepts that can only apply to hypothetical situations seem useless.
I could drop the class. No one was forcing me to audit it. But when you’re stuck in one room for eleven years, you get bored enough to learn just about anything.
It had been a long time since memory carried me back to those earlier years.
Years when I became aware that I’d never have a normal childhood.
Years when the medical terms began to make sense.
Years when I began to lose interest in things that defined carefree days, like coloring, dolls, and cartoons.
But now scenes came rushing back to me, each of them played in vivid technically, achingly clear as if they’d just happened yesterday.
Only, the way I viewed the moments wasn’t from the perspective of a child.
No, I was the Lucy now watching things happen to the Lucy of the past. It was strange to witness my sickly, suffering childhood as an adult. How had I felt back then?
As limp as my stuffed rabbit.
As tattered as his fur.
So tired that I felt like I wasn’t a real girl anymore.