Oppressed, Cont'd in Dreams

Mary walked down the eerie hallway with some trepidation, but that was not usual. This hallway, she felt, watched with far deeper scrutiny than the other places.
Mary knew knew very little about, technological monitoring devices. Yet she knew they were there; capable of reading simultaneously her heart rate, breath rate, body temperature, iris dilation, and thought patterning. They could probably detect other things she had no idea about, things that when read by the computer motherboard, would reveal infinitely small, secret things about her.
The hallway itself was unremarkable. Plain white walls that met a white tiled ceiling and a white tiled floor described its entire length. It was perfectly square, with no doors or any other landmark. Beginning at the entrance to the building with a small waiting alcove, no signs and no welcome to greet her, Mary had entered uncertainly, as she always did. It was a yearly ritual. One which always left her perplexed and for some unknown reason, quite terrified.
So she walked very steadily, keeping her breathing even and her heart regular. That was, until she was nearly startled out of her wits by a stranger.
He walked up quickly from behind, and so quietly she didn’t hear him coming. So intent was she on making her own existence seem as nonexistent as possible, she didn’t sense him until he said something aloud.
“Extolled.” He said it quite clearly and with intent, making it impossible to misunderstand. But she turned, her heart leaping into her throat and nearly expecting her death.
“What-!” her face was a mask of terror, almost comical in its intensity.
But, it was only another citizen. He was a rogueish figure of a young man, not much older than her and could be said to be the same age. He wore the regular clothes and normal haircut, but there was something about his air that didn’t quite jive with the respectable crowd.
A great anger came over her almost instantly, but she let it pass knowing that an outburst would do her no good before her examination. Mary only calmly waited for him to explain himself. This was her time for her annual checkup, and she was pretty sure only person was ever allowed in here at once. There was only one person ever scheduled every half hour, so that there was never a wait and never any confusion. That was why she was waiting for his explanation; he must have intentionally broken the rules for some reason. Right?
He only grinned at her expecting frown, and seemed to wait for something himself.
Then Mary noticed it. The almost imperceptible wir of the gadgets behind the walls, ceiling and floor had ceased. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew that that meant they were no longer being watched. Her eyes widened in amazement, then shock, and fear.
“what did you do?” her small soft voice dared ask, afraid to talk about the ever-watching, even when they weren’t watching.
The young man grinned knowingly, full of self-satisfaction. “I turned it off.” He said quite simply.
“How? And why?” a tremor entered her small voice. Mary was beginning to be very frightened. If they knew that their system was fooled, they would become immediately suspicious of her, and suspicion was all it took these days.
As an answer the young man approached her with such confidence that she hardly moved away. He easily held her in his arms, and kissed her.
Mary’s heart was in her throat when he pulled away. She was utterly confused and baffled. “Who are you?” she asked.
He shook his head. “The question you should be asking is, who are you.” He said gently.
“I’m nobody.” She immediately responded.
He grinned. “Yes, but not just that.” He stepped away. “You have a talent. If you want to find Truth, and Happiness, go to the gate after.”
With that he turned and walked back down to the entrance to the hallway. He glanced back at her, standing there with an exquisitely confused look. “I’d suggest you put your mask back on… before the hallway sees the real you.” He winked and continued merrily on his way.
Mary watched him go, nonplused. She did recognize his suggestion as necessary, and quickly heeded the advice. She blanked her mind and resumed the breathing exercise that regulated her heart, and half lidded her eyes. This was partially to keep the readers from seeing the iris, and partially to induce a semi-trance state, which she knew was what the watchers liked to see. As she continued on her way, she heard the young man from the other end of the hallway say, quite clearly and with intent,
“Erosion.”
What an odd- she began to think, but her façade took the thought and lost it. She would think nothing that was not immediately posed to her environment. The watchers looked for reaction to stimuli, and original thought. The latter was considered suspicious.

The checkup could have gone better. She was aware of that throughout the entire process; before it even began even. This could be going way better. Even that thought was enough to lift ever so slightly her mind-blank, and let a glimmer of herself show through to her physical body, which could be read like a book by the sensitive equipment in the Doctor’s lounge.
That is what it was called; the Doctor’s, but there was no doctor in attendance. In fact there was no human there whatsoever. It was completely automated, just as the hallway that she had walked through to get here was. The whole experience was, by design, unnerving and probably designed to bring stress levels up so that the ‘patient’ was easier to read.
Mary knew this, and knew it well. On some level, she had known it forever but recently it had been brought to the surface of her mind. That was not a good thing. Because though she never talked about it, no one ever did, it was only a matter of time before they knew that she knew. Since she had found out, as it were, that she knew, a slow insidious level of anxiety had been rising within her. Like a slow poison, it would eventually wear here away, and lay her bare for all to see the naked thing beneath that was the real Mary.
By contrast, the rest of Mary’s life was comforting, repetitive, and sure. She never worried about anything. Necessities were provided so regularly they were almost never thought of. There was no need to. Thought was minimized and productiveness maximized in this large community. Doctor visits were scheduled once a year for every citizen- every half hour of every day of the year, someone had an appointment. No one ever missed it. At least, no one that remained.
But this, this knowledge was the undoing of all comforts that she had so enjoyed. Everything she ate was a product engineered and manufactured specifically for her, and no one else. She knew this after observing the unique tattoo on her jawline, and noticing others’. There was a small, almost invisible eye on the counter at the cafeteria. That must be why, she reasoned, if she couldn’t quite reach, she had to lean over that eye to get the tray. Otherwise, how would it read her tattoo?
Some of these things kept butting their way into her mind as she sat in the Doctor’s office. She always shoved them back but every time it was harder, and more thoughts always pressed at the gate of her mind, shoving one another and trying to break it down.
Mary was sure that she would fail. She was sure that the Doctor (whatever it was) would notice her futile attempts to remain composed and become suspicious, and therefore do a thought-scan. Then everything would be over. No more Mary.
But the twenty minutes went by without incident. Mary walked out of the office just as she had walked in; calm and composed, relaxed but not dreary; almost as if in a trance of thoughtless stupor, which would come closest to the truth of her existence here.

It was only when she had walked a great distance from the Doctor’s building that Mary risked letting her guard down. It came slowly, step by step as she walked. Her shoulders came up and back, her eyes brightened and looked about her with interest, her arms began to swing less like a pendulum and more like the uneven gayness seen in a child.
She was, by many standards, still a child. That was her tenth Doctor’s visit on her own. The Kinders were expected to go alone after their fifth year. She was no longer a Kinder, she supposed. But what about that boy? She wondered. He had seemed so sure of himself. She’d never met anyone like that before. Everyone was always just pleasantly vacant.

A few blocks later Mary had walked herself to the Gate. It was one of many that dotted the city walls, but she had somehow known which gate the boy had alluded to. She approached it head-on, as that was the only route one could take. The city was designed to force people into long, narrow hall-like paths; much like the herding of cattle.
Her walking slowed as she approached the perfectly square shape that marred the otherwise consistently smooth wall. It seemed impossibly tall. There were some buildings near the center of the city that were taller than the Wall, but out here at the edge, everything was much shorter. The wall towered above everything, sweeping to either side like a huge frozen wave. Mary stared up at it in wonder. What is it made of? She suddenly thought, and wondered why she’d never thought of that before. She’d never really questioned what anything was made out of.
Strange.
“Hey!” an exuberant voice called from one side of the gargantuan gate. It was the boy. Mary’s pace quickened and her excitement mounted despite herself. She decided that she would begrudge his opening line as soon as she could.
“Glad you came.” The boy said a little more seriously; he was completely sincere. His smile of gratitude melted her in away she’d never experienced before. She wondered immediately why he was glad, though.
“Yes- I came. For what purpose?” Mary asked shortly as soon as she was close enough.
The boy raised his eyebrows. “Wow, you’re sharp for living in here,” he chuckled, then his face sobered, looking at her intently.
“What- what do you mean, for living in here?” Mary asked, perplexed. “Everyone lives in here.” Her eyes glanced around at the Wall, the Gate, for verification of the impossibility of anyone living anywhere else.
The boy’s eyebrows shot up again as he said “Oh?” and then laughed heartily at her dumbfounded perplexity. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you-“ he paused, because he was laughing at her, then moved on quickly. “Well, I don’t live in here, anyway, and I think most people wouldn’t, if they knew they didn’t have to…”
Mary’s eyes narrowed. She glanced around suddenly, as if expecting an ambush of some sort.
“No, really!” the boy insisted, he scratched the back of his head. “I come in here just to scout new recruits.”
“…and you found me? In the Doctor’s?” Mary said sarcastically.
“Yeah! Well, no, I didn’t find you there,” he went on hurriedly. He looked at her growingly suspicious and guarded expression, sighed heavily. “Look- if you knew what it was like out there, you’d never want to come in here again.”
“But you did, apparently.” Mary pointed out.
“damn, you’re smart. Mick was totally right..” the boy mumbled, gazing at her like something akin to curious wonder. “I mean, yeah, I came back in obviously, but it’s because I have a mission.”
“To find me?”
“Yes!” he exclaimed.
“Well, you did it. Now what?” Mary glanced around again, shuffled her feet lightly on the dusty road. She had a thought, and looked at the boy’s jawline.
“Yeah, well now I’m supposed to get you to come outside. If you want to I mean. “
Mary looked him in the eye. “Okay. How do we get out?”
He stared at her for a moment, surprised. “You suddenly believe me?” Mary shrugged.
“I guess we’ll see.”
“Oh… okay.” He seemed slightly deflated. “Oh hey. My name’s Jake.” He said, then turned and walked toward the Gate.
Mary frowned. That wasn’t an Approved Name by the standards of society. She’d never met anyone without an Approved Name. “Do you.. have another name?” she asked, following him toward the Gate.
Jake seemed to grin to himself. “I used to be called Jacob.” He told her.
Oh. Jake… short for Jacob. She hadn’t thought of that. No one used shortened names.
He came to the base of the Gate, where it met the Wall on one side. The city had been engineered and developed very precisely, but over time things tended to shift. Now, the Gate and the Wall didn’t exactly line up parallel. There was a small gap at the bottom. This gap was far too small even for a cat. Maybe a rate could squeeze through..
While Mary was

Last updated June 09, 2019