Number 58 Part 1
I thought I’d take you through what happened with number 58, the cleanup crew sometimes allows me time to write down my experience in these tasks, but only to reddit, using a proxy ip address so I can’t be traced.
I’m not sure I need help, I’m not sure anyone could help. This is my life now, and part of me believes writing it down might absolve me in whatever end I come to.
Head tilted, I examined it’s hands carefully admiring my work. it’s long slim fingers a pale ivory, delicately dotted by rose spillage. It wasn’t a suprise to me anymore, in fact I’d grown hungry to see every pattern it could make. Sometimes I could see shapes in the hot liquid, the trickle would meander into shapes of faces, bears, trees, I wondered if it depended on the person.
Cold. Fondness was never closeby in this chamber. Each ice crystal formed on me daily, until the evening when I was allowed to move and could feel each of them dance to the floor or crack over my movements. This realm had become almost mine, it was an extension of me by this point. It seemed, with its own conciousness. It watched me, eyes asking for the hot breath of clothing it had previously dribbled.
‘Thats perfect’ came a voice from behind.
I looked at the screen, irritated by the interruption.
‘Back to work’ the voice blared from the phone.
I barely remembered a time before this freezer, before my tasks. Tasks I took on dutifully, they brought a sense of reality to this home. Like I was still with the world, a tether to whatever life was before this. This house has no clocks, no television, no phone, not living merely being in time.
But I couldn’t just get back to work. I had to inhale its words, to know them to feel them. I slicked one of my nails over the tape on its mouth, creating a gap and reaching in. I pulled out it’s gag, pressing my ear to it’s lips so I could feel its breath.
‘Please’ it released from it’s lips, wetting my ear slightly.
I let out a hmm sound and rested my hand upon my chin eyes locking with it.
‘Please, I’m sorry’
Sorry is defined as feeling regret or penitence, and indeed it must feel so, or it wouldn’t be human. It must be nice, to be able to feel. The cold here had numbed me so long ago that I wasn’t sure what I felt or didn’t. The chill reached peak under my labcoat then. So I removed it, deciding on enduring.
‘I just want to go home’
It whimpered then. A meek sound, a sound that scrunched up my insides, an irritant. It thinks I have a choice. I used to, until I became me.
‘Hurry up, stop playing with it, the voice from the mobile phone hissed.
I met it, or number 58 on an app, the only app I’d been approved on my phone I was only allowed on it for 15 minutes a night to find my target. If I failed I’d feel again. It’s locked to any other apps, and has no service until the phone call during the task. That and the Reddit app one of the cleanup crew had helped me download.
58 spoke much like the rest I’d invited here, of ownership completely and totally. Ownership over life and death, and how badly it wanted me to provide that for him. To belong to him, like I belong to The Owner.
I walked in a curl around it, examining each please, each beg for release only getting more shrill until it lost it’s voice, cheeks puffed from vinegared tears.
Slowly I silently walked to my task cart.
I mushed up the berries, gloves adorned accordingly, clinically. The room filled with the astringent scent, twisting through my nostrils and choking my sinuses.. I’d never tried this method before but it was on the task for today to do it like this. Everything I do is laid out for me. Sometimes I deviate slightly, but not enough for The Owner to be mad. I hadn’t tested his patience, I was sure he had none.
Lowering my face to the bowl, I licked the berried up, and held them in my mouth. I worked quick, leaving the metal table and kissing 58, forcing the berries into its mouth and going back for seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths, until it could fit no more in it’s mouth.
‘If you spit a single drop of berry out you don’t get to leave this place’ I told him
It’s eyes pleaded with me.
‘Swallow’ I commanded.
It choked down the berries, I watched it’s adams apple slide down, icy tears drenching its cheeks now flowing into the juice of the berries around it’s lips and diluting the color, more art.
‘I did it, I can go?’ it said, hopefully
‘You can’ i confirmed.
The task was perfectly executed, I had no more use for it so after waiting the allotted time I stood, undoing its chains. The look of relief on its face was clear.
It walked dazed towards the door to the room, struggling to balance, until it crumbled with its hand on the handle. Which then slowly slid down the door as he lay on the floor.
The next few hours it lay there, convulsing. This was a poison I hadn’t tried until now and it was beautiful, the body almost danced, almost more alive than ever before. The phone next to it providing metallic laughs. Spasms came and went over the hours. Until eventually it was done, I held it’s hand as it died. Part of me always envied each of them, when they got to leave this place.
I conveyed the ending of the scene and the phoneline died. Sitting back in my corner of the freezer, lit by bright white lights, I took one last look at 58 and sat in the corner, replacing my blindfold as the cleanup crew entered.
Time to power down.