Born (20 page)

"The garbage is where the women are
put. After."

She makes a face.

I stand and walk to the door, "One
at a time, we walk out into the garden. Don't make it obvious."

I leave the room.

A small piece of me stays in the white
room. I want to go back as soon as my feet take their steps down the hall.
Every movement feels pronounced and slow. My arms swing at my sides. I tuck the
paper and card in my pocket and walk out into the bright living room and
kitchen. Girls are everywhere, talking and laughing. They're eating, as always.
They're wiping sweat from their brow after leaving the exercise room where we
run and walk on a track that moves. They're leaning against the marble counters
and taking huge drinks of water with lemon slices in them. I'm going to miss
the cold lemon water.

I don't look at them. I watch them but I
don’t look. I push the glass door open and sigh as my feet touch the shaved
bark and dirt on the ground. It feels like the forest if you close your eyes
and let the smell of the wood and trees fill you. I slip to the far side of the
garden and smell a flower. Anyone who has noticed me leaving for the garden has
turned back when they see me being, well, me. Smelling flowers and touching
trees. I've spent a considerable amount of time in this garden. I stand by the
door on the far side of the garden that leads to the other side of the dorms.

Anna walks in next. She walks clumsily.

She meets my eyes and goes and sits on a
bench. I can see the drugs in her system. Everything she does is clumsy.

Sarah comes last. She goes into the
kitchen and takes some cheese from the board where the cook is cutting. Cook
smiles and rubs her head. Everyone has adopted Sarah. She is the only child on
our side.

She grins and eats the white cheese.

She moseys around for a moment and then
slips down the hall again. She walks out into the garden and shows me her piece
of cheese. I smile at her. I can see eyes on me.

Louise walks into the living room. She
sees me and smiles. I smile back. She doesn’t give me a signal or anything. She
turns away from the window and walks into the kitchen. She pulls out something
from a cupboard. I can't see what it is but the girls inside of the kitchen and
living room go to her. They seem excited.

I walk to the door and open it.

"Now."

I speed walk to the metal door at the end
of the hall. Anna and Sarah are right behind me. It's just like we've talked
about. No talking just doing. Follow the leader.

I slide the card and the door opens.

We walk fast. I glance at the paper and
see we need the fifth door on the right. I count them as we walk silently. At
the fifth metal door I slide the card. The door opens. Once we are inside I
look around.

We are in a room with clothes. Scrubs are
what Louise has called them. I pull the pale blue scrubs on over my white
clothes. Anna and Sarah will never pass for a nurse but I might.

From this small room with hallways
leading from it we take a left out the door opposite we came in. I feel sick
walking through here. I don’t see anyone or hear anyone.

The lights seem brighter somehow, like
they are blinding me.

I hear a man speaking, "I'm telling
you it's twins. There is no way she is that far along."

"Impossible." A woman's voice
speaks to him.

The map says the next door on the right.
I feel my hands shake as I slide the card. The man and lady are one room over.
The door opens into another hallway. This place is a maze. No one would ever
get out. Not without help.

We walk straight and I open a door to the
left eight doors down. I hear feet on the floor and people shuffling about, but
I see no one. I wonder if it's break time or something.

My face is covered in sweat and my heart
is pounding. My chest hurts.

The door opens to a small room with black
garbage bags and metal counters. There are beds with wheels and a huge square
door. It is the biggest door I've ever seen. The room is freezing cold and
smells like something I have never smelled before. It hurts my nose like the
air is sharp.

I glance at the map and feel more
frightened than I have yet. I look at the words. They fuzz out I look at them
so hard.

"Get into the bags."

Sarah looks at me. I point to the black
bags, "Hurry. Climb in a bag."

I pull a soft plastic bag from the
shelves and open it. The sides stick together so I shake it the way I've seen
my granny do. Air separates the sides. Sarah and Anna do the same thing.

I roll the sides and step into the bag.
Every sound we make is echoing off the cold metal walls. Sarah has the bag up
to her face. I tie the ends of it into a bow at the top of her head. I look at
the note again and swallow hard. I open the huge door on the far wall. It makes
a suctioning noise when I pull the huge silver lever. The light and heat of the
midday sun beat in on us instantly. I feel like an ant under a microscope. The
natural air and feel of the day is overwhelming.

"We have to jump in."

Sarah hops to the platform over the
dumpster. A massive green bin is at the end of the platform. It is a ten-foot
jump down into a bin filled with black plastic bags.

I feel sick looking at it. Sarah looks at
me through the hole in the top of her bag. Her blue eyes are watery.

"Just jump Sarah. Try not to think
or smell or anything. Just be there and know it's the way out okay?"

She nods and closes her eyes. She lets
herself tip over the end of the dirty metal platform. I see her eyes pinch as
she falls slowly into the heap. A small hand comes out of the bag with thumbs
up. Anna hops in her bag to end of the platform.

"This is insane." She whispers
harshly.

I nod. I have nothing to add. It is
insane. We are going to be in the dumpster with a bunch of dead girls until the
garbage truck comes for us. I want to cry just thinking about it.

I lean forward, "Sarah roll to the
right so we don’t land on you."

The dumpster is huge and I can't pick out
her bag from the others. Not until I see it rolling over the body bags and
moving to the side.

Anna hops down into the pit, letting her
legs fold under her. She rolls beside Sarah.

Closing the massive door, I see a weird
nozzle on a hose in the shrinking gap between the metal door and the doorframe.
It's identical to the one my grampy had for washing his car.

I turn and look around at the huge
parking lot. We are behind the building. The garbage bin I'm about to jump in
is one of five. The bin below me is about half full. I wonder if the others are
as full. There must be thirty dead girls in my bin.

I step off the ledge before I start
processing things and scare myself, more than I already am.

My feet land amongst the soft and stiff
bodies. I let my legs fold. I wiggle down into the bag and before I tie it off
I look around at us. No tears in the bags, no clothes showing. Everything is
just a sea of black bags. I pull the ends up and tie them.

"Em. I think I'm going to be
sick." Anna makes a gagging noise.

"No just close your eyes." I
listen for her to get sick. Then as if instinctual I recall what my father used
to do when I was having a panic attack.

I lick my lips and whisper softly,
"I want you to try to imagine something. I went to this place. I met Will
there. It's where we are going right after this. It's like a sanctuary in the
forest. When I saw it I was stunned. A forest full of people. Normal people who
live together and protect each other. They have a tent city but amongst the
trees. The trees are huge. Like giants. Everyone was nice and they gave me food
and medical help and a tent to sleep in with warm blankets and a soft bed. I
went with one nice lady down a path. We walked for a few minutes through the
trees and then suddenly it opened and there was a huge swimming hole. It's
completely walled in with rock cliffs and no one but the tent city people go
there. It's protected. They swim in the cold water and they play. They play in
the water."

Anna doesn’t speak again. I hope she is
imagining the tall trees. I hope she is ignoring the smell of old death. I can
feel it trying to get in the bag I'm in. Like fingers made of smoke, it claws
at my bag and tries to take over the air inside of my small space.

Inside of the darkness with the heat of
the sun bearing down on the black plastic bags we wait.

I think I'm falling asleep when I first hear
the sound. It's a truck. It makes a grinding noise. A sharp scream of metal
fills the parking lot we are in.

"Emma." Sarah whispers. I can
hear the panic in her whisper over the plastic crinkle of her moving bag. I
look through the small hole that I've been breathing through, to see Sarah's
blue eyes watching my bag through the hole in hers.

I open the hole a little and smile,
"Stay calm. This is our ride out."

Her eyes are full of worry. She nods. I
can see the terror as the sound moves again and then moves closer.

The sound is what I imagine it would be
like being in a factory before the fall.

My grampy worked a toilet paper factory
when I was really little. He took me on a tour when I was six. I only saw a
small part of the factory but the sound of it is burned into my memory.

I feel the metal bin start to vibrate. I
know the truck is closer. My breaths are so short and rapid that I feel dizzy.
I can't seem to pull a longer breath than the little ones I'm getting.

I am vibrating along with the metal dumpster.

A loud bang knocks against the front of
the bin. It pushes me back. I feel my foot tear through the bag. I struggle to
push it down so that it isn’t sticking out and looking like a nurse is in the
bin. I forgot to take the scrubs off.

The vibration is so intense that I feel
myself sinking into the pit of churning body bags.
"Emma."

I hear Sarah crying out.

"Stay calm." I try not to
shout, but I have to over the noise of the machine lifting us into the air. I
feel the bin tilt to the front. I hear screams. I know at least some of them
are ripping from my throat.

My bag is tossed and turned, until it
slides forward and is tossed into an abyss. My stomach lurches forward as I
freefall for a second.

I land against metal and bodies. Some are
stiff but most are soft. I am lost in them. I don’t know which way is up or
down. I can't feel gravity. I can feel the vibration again and the screech of
the metal is everywhere.

In between the sounds of the metal and
gears I hear sobs. I don’t think they are mine.

There is a final loud bang and then a
jerk forward. I open the hole of my bag a little more. I can't see the light. I
am under the bodies.

I feel like I'm struggling for air. I
don’t think it's that there is no air. I think it's a panic attack. My palms are
covered in sweat. I need Leo. I need to run my fingers in his fur. I imagine I
am touching him. I slide a hand out of the bag and feel with my fingers. My
arms are trapped. The sobs get stronger.

"Emma."

"I can't see you, just a second.
We'll be out of the gates in a minute. Just don’t freak out okay."

Anna speaks softly, "Sarah we need
to stay still until we get far enough away from here. Just try breathing
through your mouth. See the hole is right there."

I wish I had a hole leading somewhere.

I remember what my dad told me about
avalanches. I spit and feel it go up in the air and land back on my forehead. I
wipe it off with the arm I've freed. I am on my back and have spit on my
forehead.

I start to wiggle and push through the
bag above me. I tear the bag and push a body off of my other arm. My chest is
tightening. The air is harder to get.

I reach my hand up until it feels the air
of the moving truck.

I feel myself panicking. I want to claw
myself free.

I pull my arm in and look at the light in
the gaps of the bags above me. I see other things in the tears I have created
in the bags, but I try not to see anything but the light.

I feel the truck lurch forward and come
to a stop.

I hear men talking. I hear them laughing.

I am lying in a sea of death and they're
laughing.

The truck moves and I feel the bodies on
top of me start to shift again. I count to ten and make myself wait an extra
couple seconds.

One Mississippi

Two Mississi… Fuck it

"
Get
them off of me. Get them off
."

I feel the shifting and the moving.

"It's okay Emma. It's okay I can see
you." My face is cleared suddenly and I can see the smiling face of Anna.
She is about three bodies above me.

I reach my hands up and start clawing at
the bags.