The Boy’s Thoughts

His senses began to return. He could firstly smell the dust from the gravel and then felt his face pressed against the small stones of the roadside. His vision cleared and he sat up and surveyed himself. Blood leaked from a small gash on his elbow. It looked black in the bleak light of late afternoon. At eight years old he was all too accustomed to the sight of it. Often when he fell he would sustain some injury or other, and these days he was falling much more regularly. Sometimes he could go a full day without an incident, other days he would collapse unexpectedly to the ground, shaking like some external force had control of his limbs, his face grimacing, eyes tightly shut.

He wiped at the blood and smeared it on his grimy pants, mixing it with dried blood from some previous day. He noted the wound was not severe. It would close up in the next few days and join the other scrapes and scars he had already accumulated.

A woman tending dairy cattle in a nearby barn had seen him fall and waddled over. She was hefty, with enormous legs that scraped together as she walked meaning she had to twist her pelvis from side to side to allow each leg to pass the other. Her clothes were unwashed and stained from her days spent with the dairy cattle. Her kind eyes peered out at him from her spongy face and he knew she meant well. She always did.

“Fallen over have you?” She said lifting him by one arm to his feet. “Good lord you must be a clumsy fella, look at ya! Bruised all over!!” She had said almost exactly the same words to him several days ago when she had witnessed a previous episode, but she clearly had no recollection of the occurrence. She helped him over to the barn and sat him on the only stool. Furniture in the village was meagre and functional at best. It was not that the villagers did not have opportunity or time for styling or decorating, but it seemed they had no motivation or desire to make anything in their lives visually pleasing.

To him the village looked sad, monochromatic, and joyless. Even at his young age he wondered at the contrast between the village and the magnificent forest nearby. The forest was a cacophony of noise and colour. He would often find himself there when his duties were light for the day and he could escape. The other villagers rarely left the boundary of the town. If they were to enter the forest it was to search for yams and other wild vegetables, or to collect kindling. They took no pleasure in their excursions. They did not wonder at the beauty. They did not wonder at anything, he thought.

The woman took a piece of cloth from a basin nearby and moistened it from a tap. There was no shortage of water in the village but people still bathed occasionally at best. She wiped over the wound in a perfunctory manner.

“You better get going. Dinner will be on soon. Heard it was beef and vegetable stew tonight. My favourite!” It was beef and vegetable stew every night but he did not bother to tell her. There was no point. She would not remember or care. The massive kitchen that kept the village fed emitted the same cooking smells night after night. He thought about the fact it was lucky that it was her favourite. Or was it unlucky? Her overburdened knees may have thought the latter. He smiled, imagining how she would look if she had not had a liking for the one meal that she ate daily.

His mood brightened. He often felt better after one of his episodes. It was as if some tension had been released from his mind and he could think more freely. His perceptual abilities seemed to sharpen and he would commit scenes to his memory to recall later, when trying to sleep. He concocted stories and retold them to himself as a comfort, or for entertainment during the night. In another world he would have made a talented writer but of course he could not know this. He had never seen a book. He did not know of their existence.

Everyone else in the village fell asleep at nine and woke at seven. He knew he was the only person awake if the clock showed any later than a minute past nine. He often lay awake alone with his thoughts wishing he was blissfully asleep like the others.

Once over the age of three, everyone contributed to the running of the village. His current job was to move around the village delivering verbal messages. Everyone was known by their role which was designated at Morning Assembly by the Council representatives. A role was all that was required to define each community member so names were superfluous. There were occasional upsets and arguments between residents but for the most part the villagers lived in harmony. There were no grudges, and no jealousies.

The Great Dormitory in the centre of town housed the entire population. The beds were lined along the walls and there was no pattern to where each person slept. Sometimes residents would share a bed, enjoying the company of each other’s body. It didn’t seem to matter to them who the partner was, although the boy noted some couples shared a bed regularly. There was some inexplicable attraction that drew them together, but a day later they would not recall the intimacy at all.

He liked to claim the bed closest to the door with the greatest degree of privacy. After the Debriefing Session he would quickly make his way through the village to the dorm while the other villagers would be slowly milling around confused about what to do next. This was a nightly consequence of the Debriefing sessions. A member from the Council would take control and herd them bovine like to the dorm, so that they would be in bed by nine. Those that happened to not make the dorm by sleep time would find themselves the following morning sleeping randomly on the street or in some other place in the village.

For some time now the boy had recognised that he was different. He was not like the other children, who would perform their daytime duties then at knock off time take to chasing each other in the street, screaming and laughing. Such games held no interest for him unless he was imagining himself, or one of the other children, as some fantastic being, with unlikely and terrifying powers. If he was able to do that he could sometimes enjoy the game. He would tell the other children of his imaginings and they would seem interested, and attempt to play along. It was disappointing to him that they wouldn't recall the game on the following day and would return to the tedium of chasing and catching. He became bored of the cycle and rarely played these days.

His earliest memory was of an event that took place in the main square of the village. He was probably about two years old and was being cared for by one of the designated childcare workers. An enormous wind had blown up and caused chaos amongst the different work places that surrounded the square. Items were tossed around by the wind’s force. A large sheet of iron that was used to keep the dairy cows in the barn during milking came unhinged. It sailed across the square like an overgrown leaf spearing suddenly downwards, cleanly taking off the head of the man who ran the timber mill. His head had rolled along the ground like a tomato that had dropped from a table. It had been terrifying. The boy was briskly ushered away by the child carer. He remembered the wind whipping her large cardigan into his face as she pulled him into a safe building away from the gruesome seen. She had been visibly shaken and told him she would never forget the look on that man’s face. But of course she had forgotten by the following morning.

It was the first moment where he knew he was different, as that man’s face had haunted him for many months.

At such a young age the knowledge he was different had frightened him, but as he had grown older he had become accustomed to it. Some days, even at eight years old he envied the others and their trouble free existence. They had no fears, or hurts to burden their days. They moved through time without anxiety. There was no injury from the past or fear for the future.

Occasionally he would indulge himself by imagining that the others were merely part of his own thoughts, and that he was their creator. He imagined they merely existed for his entertainment. Had he known the term he would have described himself as a god. He had begun to regularly indulge in this game. It gave him a sense of power and meant he could abdicate from all responsibility for his behaviour. A few weeks earlier he had found himself punching one of the other children to steal her apple. He had enjoyed his guiltless aggression.

However, lately he had begun to feel lonely by this imagining, and on this very day he had decided to pack it into a little symbolic box and store it in the back of his mind to be brought out at a later time if needed. He had stored many boxes this way.

Dinner was served without incident. The fat lady sat next to him and ate several bowls with enthusiasm. She asked him about his arm and he assured her he was fine.

At precisely seven O clock the alarm was sounded for everyone to attend Debriefing in the Assembly Hall. The Hall was the only area of the village that seemed to be purposefully furnished. There was a wooden chair with a small side desk for each resident. The desks contained a steel box with several buttons and two electrical leads. The leads had exposed metal at the ends and were covered in a tiny rubbery cup that when dampened was able to be suctioned onto the skin and secured to the temples of each of the villagers. Everyone of working age participated in Debriefing. It was actually considered to be pleasurable and relaxing time and the resident of the village would sit contentedly in the seats while the Council members moved around the room inspecting the boxes, and lead attachments, to ensure everyone had hooked up correctly. Many closed their eyes during the process. Some of the villagers would speak involuntarily or hum as the boxes executed their extractions for the Council. Every evening at Debriefing the boy would attach his leads as requested, but never did his eyes close, never did he speak or hum, and never did he emerge from debriefing in the confused state that his fellow villagers did.

Lately he had turned his attention to the Council representatives. They lived somewhere else, somewhere better, he imagined. He noticed they had animated conversations. They had familiarity and connections he had never observed before between humans. They laughed together when discussing certain villagers. He envied their clean uniforms that clung tightly to their bodies, defining shape and detail and appealing to his eye.

On this particular evening he noticed one of the girls had a shiny yellow piece of chain around her throat and on it was a small glowing yellow circle. Not quite a circle, he thought, more like an apple with a pointed bottom. She played with the chain, rolling it through her fingertips as she chatted to one of the young men. It looked pleasing around her throat. He wanted to touch it. He wanted to caress her silky throat as well. He had only ever experienced beauty in the forest.

He listened.

They spoke words he had not previously heard. They were speaking of collections and artworks but he did not understand the meaning of the words. The villagers had never produced or had need for anything that was not functional. He had never encountered the concept of art. The Council couple were excited by the ‘productivity’ of the village. The girl twisted the chain as she listened intently to the boy. He spoke of “creative harvests” and “extractions”. He claimed this was the most ‘productive’ village in the Country. He appeared proud. They each agreed they were looking forward to seeing the results next week. The boy noted their tidy hair, clean hands and fingernails. Their appearance appealed to him. He was awestruck by their interaction and recognized some of himself in them. He longed to change his circumstances and connect to another human in the way he was observing and he became increasingly envious.

It was then the boy began to plan.