Fact Behind the Fraud

 

“Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of that do the things no one can imagine.”

 

• Alan Turing

 

Day 1: Log 1: 10:46 a.m.

 

I am not alone. Within the walls that confine me to this very room are mirrors, endless mirrors. Beyond these mirrors are men, repulsive men, with their long, white coats quietly sagging to the floor. Their sardonic grins, their black, beady eyes are enough to send a man into paralysis. I am lucky, these mirrors protect me. or at least I believed they did. Lately they seem less shimmery, less mirror-like and more inanimate. I guess they were always that way, but I cannot judge, for I am, I assume, quite similar to these mirrors. With my skin, pale and my hair matted with sweat. I am not the sight I was when I arrived. I can barely remember who I was before this, I seemed to know the mirrors before they knew me. They plan to replace one of the mirrors, the one with the miniscule crack in its frame. It does not bother me, why should it? If the glass is intact then the frame is not necessarily a defect.

Humans are like mirrors. Every frame is different, some more cracked than others, some more crooked and some more perfectly aligned. My frame, cracked along the edges, dented in the glass window and hung askew on a white, marble wall. I can see the men and their frames, completely perfect, no dent or crack visible within the whole masterpiece. The cracked mirror is the farthest from where I sit on my cot. It’s on Wall 2, opposite my facilities. I spend most of my time with Wall 1, lounged on my cot as relaxed as I can be before the first check-in.

The check-ins come every other day and strangely, I never seem to tire of them. On the night prior to the check-in, a square, checkered board arrives in my room and a plant. This plant is mostly green, but I remember a hot day in July caused it to arrive yellow and longing for someone to quench its thirst. I politely obliged. It doesn’t really interact with me and clearly does not fancy conversation. I don’t particularly enjoy the plant’s company, but yet it arrives every check-in.

The board has pieces, each of different height. They are in a racial divide, with colors separated by two checkered rows. Like us humans they stray from accidently acknowledging the other and move accordingly. The shortest pieces, ‘the dwarves’, are noble and kind, defending the others by forming a defense. The protectors are the stallions and mares, each aiding the race in their own unusual, yet still unique, way. Tall trees line the outside of the kingdom, viewing the battle from afar. The most powerful pieces, are of course, the fool and the wiseman, commonly outsmarting the enemy with agility and stupidity.

There are pieces I have yet to name. With their pointed-tips and long slender shape they have no obvious usefulness and their movement is completely absurd. However odd they may be, they are still respected, taking the path less traveled by.

 

Day 2: Log 1: 7:43 a.m.

 

The board arrives, as usual, during the night and I awake to feel the plant gently brushing my cheek. Today, I decide, is the ideal time to become more associated with the plant, more so than with the old, checkered board. I set it on the floor and admire it from a distance. It’s a lively, green color today and its long leaves drape over the mahogany pot containing it. I decide to call her Calpurnia, something rare and one-of-a-kind. I stroke Calpurnia’s leaves and I conclude, that maybe a plant is not that bad of a girlfriend. The board has returned as well, all the pieces scattered. I position them upon the board in their preferred placement, preparing for the duel. Something I can never expect is the possibility of an opponent.

On ordinary check-ins, I am alone (not including the mirrors) and play alone. Not today apparently, as a despicable-looking man stomps in. His hair a dusty brown and his eyes an olive green, he seemed much too crabby to engage in a civilized discussion. He glanced at me with an undiscerning eye. I hesitated to approach him as I realized my appearance was quite troubling, especially to an outsider.

He loudly shouts his name, as if he believes I am deaf to his heavy Southern accent. I humbly sit in the rocking chair. He doesn’t even attempt to sit on the black stool across from me.

I listen to him lecture about the courtesy of an opponent and how the comfier chair is always offered to an opponent as a sign of respect. I raise an eyebrow before silently leaving my comfy chair and approaching the foreign stool. The man was easily dislikeable I concluded and I imagined the chair cursing him in a most sinful manner. This made me smile.

I initiate the match with a traditional “opening of the trees”, a simple movement of the dwarf. He returns with a leap of his stallion. I glide my ‘slender-piece’ to a protective position and my plan effortlessly unfolds. First, his horses are captured by my sly dwarves. Second, his ‘slender-pieces’ are kidnapped by my broad trees and removed from the board. I watch his tanned face change from calm, to confused, to bursting with rage in only a matter of minutes.

Pinning him a most devastating position, he was forced to sacrifice his wisman for the fool and I instantly destroy the piece with a quick step from my tree and watch his demise gleefully.

He rises and exits the room and I watch him until the last of the faint light from the doorway escapes.

 

Day 2: Log 2: 12:56 p.m.

 

Sometimes your mind wanders. Sometimes it’s voluntary, but mostly it’s not. A memory, a painful one, materializes. Citris was my only joy in this lifetime, her blonde hair, stained with orange and her eyes, those beautiful, blue eyes. Citris and I knew only each other and spent the autumn afternoons trying to catch the tadpoles in the Mississippi River; I never could get a good grasp on the skill. Citris knew me better than I knew myself, and because of it, we never parted for long. Morning on that bright Sunday called for a long day of tadpole catching, and so I rushed out the door, promising my mother I would be home by nightfall. I glanced at her house across the street, the one with the yellow-shuttered windows and a crisp, red door. Citris was sprinting. Her orange-blonde hair streaming behind her. I watched, elated.

 

Day 3: Log 1: 10:01 a.m.

 

He returns. I barely forgot the last get-together and the unpleasant experience was certainly not one I wished to repeat. His first move is foolish and I finish him off in my signature “three-move” strike. This time he accepts his defeat more gentleman-like, with at least a grimace before exiting.

Calpurnia is ill, her normally healthy ferns, drooping and the soil surrounding her, exceptionally dry. I rushed to the sink and stroked her with water, but she shuddered away. Defeated, I laid her on the floor and sat against Wall 2. I stared at the cracked mirror, it turned away. Obviously, they were not in the mood for conversation and truly, neither was I.

Cuisine here remains the same, even after months of being within the Room. The tray, however comes clean, with nothing to sate my appetite. It was that moment that I despised the white-coated men the most. I could imagine them laughing, laughing until their sides cramped and their throats ran dry. Oh how I could imagine them laugh. I crawled onto the cot and watched Calpurnia sigh and retreat into her bubble. I grieved for her and wished for a way to help.

 

Day 4: Log 1: 5:46 a.m.

 

I witnessed it. An exaggerated opening of the Door. Never in my years have I seen such a marvelous wonder as when it opened. All the light of the cosmos invaded, clearer and clearer. Someone came in, not a man, but a woman. A human, like myself. She arrived with a clipboard in the left hand and a briefcase in the other. She reached for Calpurnia and I flinched, hesitant to act. She gently stroked her leaves and I relaxed. The briefcase opened and within it was a bottle, filled with liquid, unknown to me. She sprayed Calpurnia until soaked. Then she packed the case and opened the Door once again. I watched until the last particle of light vanished from view. She wasn’t mean or sickening in any way whatsoever. Though we had just met I felt a growing bond between us. We both care for Calpurnia, though maybe I more than her. She isn’t oblivious to me or the mirrors. She recognized them before she left, with a nod to the walls. She respects me and the mirrors and Calpurnia. Therefore I respect her.

I awoke the following day with my heart racing and my vision blurry. Calpurnia. Surprisingly, she was no longer ill. Her leaves were green and her wonderful scented soil was delightfully moist. I caressed her leaves and stroked her mahogany pot with care. I decided, right then and there, to escape and go where no one (not even the devious mirrors) could go. Into the light.

 

Day 5: Log 1: 3:30 p.m.

 

My brain wanders to Citris and my feeble attempt to resist is to no avail. So in resignation, I let my brain engage into that memory that occurred so long ago, and wrap my arms around myself to not perish from the earth by fear.

Citris, with her stained, streaming hair, flew across the concrete pavement and over her worries. By one misstep, she was gone. If only I had silenced, if only I could have restrained myself from exclaiming, “Look out!”. She would have lived, had she kept moving. No, she glanced and that was enough. The vehicle came to an abrupt stop afterwards. I could see through the slightly tinted windows, the expression of horror in the man’s face. Also I saw his life, in a flash. He was a young man, in his thirties, living with his mother in a rickety, old house on the east side of town. Now here he was, on his way to the grocery, a confusion in directions and the death of a small girl with orange hair.

I peered around the corner of the car. Citris. I refused to watch her lie there and die and so, I ran inside. Later, and even today, how I wish I had looked. Wishing that I had, bundled within me somewhere, enough courage. They took her in a gleaming, white ambulance. It sickened me to watch it steadily pick up speed and to listen to the blaring siren. Then, I looked away. Again.

 

Day 12: Last Log: 2:00 a.m.

 

It’s time. Without any sleep in the past week, I have conceived a plan to escape. Into the light. A brilliant one, I might add. Calpurnia has made the courageous decision to join me on my extravagant adventure, although quite wary of the men in white. I know that soon the board will arrive, I must use my only weapon. The one I have spent so long perfecting. Stealth.

 

Day 12: Very Last Log: 5:00 a.m.

 

They come. Two. I have never felt more exhilarated. My heart pumping and my brain nervously anticipating their every move. I crouch underneath my cot with Calpurnia tucked underneath my arm and lay, invisible within the darkness. Calmly and completely unaware of my presence, they set the checkered board on the table and scatter the pieces over it.

 

I grab their feet from underneath the cot and pull. A large crash insinuates that they have fallen and are unconscious, at least for now. I race to the white door, sealed and polished. Calpurnia is still under my arm and my brain is chaotically bouncing off the sides of my skull. I look back, something I wish I had done when Citris passed. “Farewell,” I say. The mirrors are silent, just like they have been for the period of my solidarity. Although, I swear I saw the crack in one’s frame enlarge. Then, I leave.

Hallways and never ending corridors as far as the naked eye can see. Stealth is still the only weapon I am currently armed with and despite living alone I know my weaponss are weak against whatever weapons they keep in this facility. However, I am smiling and I am proud. I know I am close to achieving freedom. Calpurnia is also quite glad about how things are going so far; she told me so. I creep down the hallway on the right and spot a man. A man in a white, lab coat. Not grotesque or currently acting despicable. Still, I know I must stay hidden. An open vent next to my cell is the only means of escape and so I dive. Head first.

Soon I learn that this is probably the least sanitary location I could have landed in. A garbage disposal. I clamber out of the dumpster and spot an exit sign outlined in fluorescent red lights hanging above a gray door. Pushing the door open was phenomenal. All my troubles evaporated into thin air.

 

I know one thing I will never forget, Citris. There was something I could do, something worthwhile. Forgive myself and this I do. “Goodbye Citris,” I whispered. The words floated out of my mouth and away. Flying higher and higher to the puffy, white clouds. Into the atmosphere and beyond.

 

• End