The War Game (16 page)

             
It was hard playing “Machine” because you had to think about nothing. I usually won when I was really tired but that might or might not count as cheating.

             
I’m almost positive Dana was playing “Machine” when the soldiers came for her.

             
But I’m also sure that Dana had another name for the game. It would be called “Oblivion.” You let yourself into a place in your mind where only you know the numbers to the combination and then everything that was outside fades into oblivion and goes away.

             
I took some cushions and a scratchy blanket and spent the next night in the bathtub. I didn’t bother to tell anyone in my room why. I’m sure they thought I was strange but being forced to share a room with a strange thirteen-year-old girl was a lot better than sharing it with an old woman who would roll over you while you were sleeping and couldn’t be bothered to move. At least, that’s what I heard during an argument at breakfast the following morning.

~~~

             
Get up when the alarm rang. Do your assigned chores to help out your family. Don’t even try to dismantle the cameras. Stay in line.

             
They called us all down to the ballroom and we were assigned into official family units. Every family was very nuclear in its fashion. There was (biologically speaking) a male, a female, and at least one person under the age of eighteen. Sometimes grandparents. Each family would all be living in their own “modest” house. Pink and blue houses made out of ticky tacky, I’m sure.

             
Miriam was assigned to my family as well as another woman about the same age as her. They didn’t get along from the start. They knew well enough that they did not like each other and they got out of each other’s way. We stayed in our respective rooms. Miriam in the living room, myself in the bedroom, and Carol in the master bedroom.

             
Carol had short hair, a short temper, and short words. A simple exchange about whether or not the fridge was on the fritz could make me feel like I had done something wrong. I made sure to avoid her whenever possible.

             
Poor Miriam. You’d think if the people who run this place wanted to aim for the highest possible success rate of lasting marriages, they would have matched up personalities better. They probably just picked out names from a baseball cap.

             
I didn’t think they even took account for birthdays because this one couple down the block from us had an age difference of almost twenty years. They looked like mother and son. I guess the only traits they took into consideration when matching up people were that one was female and the other was male.

             
There are televisions in the house, but I didn’t care to watch them. They played the same one commercial over and over. It was only about a minute in length and it drove me nuts. It was a “welcome” to the community type of message with smiling kids running around outside. I knew Miriam turned it on just because it annoyed Carol. But I didn’t think it worked because she sleeps all day.

             
I watched the commercial cycle through a few more times before turning it off for my own sanity. “Welcome to your new life. We think you’re going to like it here.” Then they cut to a dad and a mom kissing and then the dad went back to grilling meat and a kid jumped in a pool in the background.

             
Our house didn’t have a pool, which made me mad. The family next door had one. They also had a little boy who played and yelled in it all day long. I guess I’ll have to swim in the bathtub.

             
There was a phone but it wasn't really a phone. It had one button and that button put you into contact with someone from the outside. Some faceless, nameless intern I guessed. It was supposed to be used only for emergencies. And I didn’t care to chit chat.

             
I felt like I was living in a playhouse, awaiting an alien invasion.

             
When we moved into the houses, our family portraits were on the wall. Our heads imposed over the heads of a real family. The photos were hanging, framed on the walls, on tables, and a few on the refrigerator. They put my head on a really tall girl, it was creepy. On another picture, my head was on a seven-year-old’s body. That one was by my bed; I turned it over. I hated having eyes staring at me, much weirder when it was your eyes but not really your eyes staring at you.

             
I had a bed, warmth, food, a “family,” and some books to read.

             
There was a guidebook. On how to live.

             
This stupid book was written with imbeciles in mind. How to fold sheets on a bed, how to set a table. It also had instructions for using a toilet, complete with fantastic illustrations.

             
There was this long, big section about the mailman and whatever else. But I didn’t really read it. I didn’t think I would be receiving much mail here.

             
But I was wrong.

             
The mailman delivered mail on Sundays. “Mom” and “Dad” told me that mail used to be delivered every day of the week except Sundays. They also told me that weather stations used to predict the weather, not make the weather.

             
They delivered once a week to save money. The government seemed frugal here. Garbage trucks came but once a month. The grass in city parks got mowed once it got as tall as me. The government took over a lot of private companies. Everywhere you go, you see the big ugly logo. A fat elephant chewing on an olive branch. The mascot used to be a bald eagle but was “laid to rest” a few years ago when all of them died off.

             
Everyone got a letter but my envelope was by far the thickest.

             
There was a long list of things that “met expectations” or “needs improvement.”

             
Miriam and Carol were both cited to spend more time with each other. And to sleep in the same bed. Miriam was also assigned to attend marriage therapy. She seemed happy about that, anything that would allow her to leave the house. They would have to speak at least 10,000 words to each other each week.

             
There were certain times of the day when we could open the door. The door had a box built within it that recorded each time we opened it. We could open it once in the morning to collect the mail on Sunday mornings. We could open it in the afternoon for a walk. We could open it if we held special privilege.

             
I read my letter to myself first. Apparently, everything that I did from where to put away towels, what order to hang laundry, the best way to save space in dresser drawers, how to walk across a yard, how to peel a damn orange was done incorrectly. I was also cited several times for referring to Miriam as “she” or “her.”

             
I would be given one week to make corrections or else I would be evaluated.

             
If I didn’t meet the standards of the evaluation, then there would be an observation. Someone coming in and picking at everything I did, I imagined.

             
So I started to make a conscious effort not to walk on the grass and use the sidewalk instead. Have all the hangers facing the same way in the closet. It was a really big closet. I thought at least a dozen people could sit down in there, comfortably. Memorized the tetris-like mystery of how to save space in a dresser drawer. I played that game once on a phone. I hadn’t seen anyone use a phone since, unless you counted the soldiers as people. My secret was to throw a lot of things away. Call it cheating, but I saved a ton of space in there. And I no longer peeled an orange with my teeth. I had no nails, teeth made the job much easier. Although it did snag on my bad tooth and I stopped biting into the peel after my first of many oranges, anyway.

             
But the mailman came again the next Sunday and my envelope was just as thick as the first one.

             
This time, it said I didn’t wash clothes soon enough. My loads were too light or too heavy. I ran instead of walked. I shouldn’t have thrown away junk (like I really need a plastic flower knickknack with clips to hold fake creepy photographs on it). I didn’t participate in the grocery shopping. Why would I? I’d eat almost anything edible as long as it isn’t mystery slop served directly on the surface on my table. I needed to take a file to my nails, not my teeth again. I ate too many oranges.

             
Carol and Miriam both got letters again as well. Miriam used too much toilet paper, it said. I laughed. Carol slept in too late. That’s the truth.

             
There were tall security gates surrounding this neighborhood. They made this creepy, echoing robot-monster noise. There were warnings signs posted nearly every ten feet. It simply read, “Danger! Stay Away!”  I’m tempted to find out what would happen if I scaled one.

             
I’d say there were about 100 houses within the neighborhood’s perimeters. I’d have gone exploring but that wasn’t on the schedule.

             
There were time allotments for daily walks, but there were maps and only so many routes you were allowed to take. And the moving sidewalks only covered about half of the neighborhood.

             
I had books here. They sucked.

             
Most of the ones in my room were for sight readers, those little kids who only know words like “the,” “cat,” and “top.”

             
The cat ran up. Up the hill. The cat ran down. Down the hill.

             
That was the first book I read.

             
Mom and Dad. Mom loves Dad. Dad loves Mom. Mom and Dad love you.

             
A little bit better. But mostly because I made the mom look like Miriam pre–Camp X and I took an eraser and and whited out the mom’s face. I drew her to look more like Carol. The book mom had long blonde wavy hair and a pearl necklace and that wasn’t working for me. So I drew a black mohawk to make her look more like Carol. And I didn’t need my namesake hanging on a fake mom’s neck like that, like I was endorsing her.

             
People call this place Camp X. Experimental society. Basically, a fake community that operates kind of like a halfway house. We are basically an in-between society. Rehab for those who could be saved. Saved from what exactly, is the argument. And by “saved,” I’m sure they meant to say “molded.”

             
I think I might have found out more about the cards. The goal of the society was to be reintroduced into society with green cards. I guessed green cards allowed people to live in the States but I thought those were only for people not born here. Miriam said that to get a black card was bad but she doesn’t know why exactly. I’m thinking there were other colored cards that did different stuff but I haven’t found out much more than that.

             
The books in the living room were much longer. Nothing I ever heard of before. I tried reading one but it was boring. I’d read a paragraph and then reread it without realizing it quickly. But that happened several times and I discovered that the same stuff was actually just repeated over and over again. All the books I picked up were like that. Like the writer got lazy and copied and pasted the same couple of pages to fill out a book.

             
Then I decided to write a letter. To John. I’d seen Miriam write letters to people that she never intended to send. I caught a few words in one, “damn your eyes.” But it was hard to find any paper here. Probably another form of communication that was limited (or outright banned) in the community, even though it was ancient. Miriam used the backs of our letters that we got from the mailman. I gave her mine but I think it’s too late to ask for it back.

             
I tried my luck with the garbage cans. We have several overflowing with package wrappers in the kitchen. Everything came in a wrapper. Even a damn banana had a wrapper. Apples come shrinkwrapped. I didn’t dig too deeply, because that’s where the nasty stuff was. I knew because that’s where I hid nasty stuff. I had stuffed some bloody underwear in there two days ago. I fished out an envelope and opened it up, inside out.

             
I tried to write but the words wouldn’t come out.

             
I hope you’re okay.

             
Erase that.

             
Are you thinking of me?

             
Probably not.

             
Do you remember me?

             
That sounded more appropriate. But self-pitying on my part. I erased that but drew over it because my words left an impression on the paper.

             
Do you still like me?