Internment(18)

I close my eyes for a second and take a halting breath.

I peer into the rooms. The bedroom on the left has a double bed, and the one on the right has bunks. “I think this one is yours.” I point to the room on the left. “Unless you two want the bunks?” My parents look up at me with forced smiles. They’ve barely said a word since sitting down. I imagine they want to say something, I don’t know, parental, but they must feel like I do, like their bodies are full of holes.

I enter the room on the right.

The low metal bunks are pushed up against the wall. The mattresses and pillows have plastic on them. On the opposite wall is a square window that looks onto the mountains in the distance. Below the window are a blue plastic chair and a small desk that drops down from the wall like an airplane tray table. Next to the desk is a tiny round metal sink; in the corner is a closet full of shelves with a clear plastic curtain serving as a door. I swivel around and take a deep breath. The room is about the size of my old bathroom.

I have no idea what to do next. I know I need to busy myself, because if I continue standing here, I’ll slowly fade away until I cease to exist. I wonder if that’s how they did it, the Japanese Americans who were sent to camps in World War II. Maybe they survived by going through the motions. Day by day. Waking. Counting the hours. Eating dust. Sleeping. That’s my immediate plan for now: Get through it. Survive the madness. Keep my eyes open.

I unzip my bag. I neatly refold all my clothes and place them on the shelves. I save some shelf space for toiletries, since the sink barely has room for a small cup and my toothbrush. I also find a spot for my paperbacks Great American Poetry and Macbeth. Neither is exactly in my top five desert-island books, but I guess I wasn’t discerning when shoving stuff into my duffel. Next, I tear open the bedding package and make up the bottom bunk, saving the other set of sheets. I’m not sure how we do laundry, which might kill me because I love the feel of fresh sheets, but the touch of this internment-chic bedding doesn’t exactly scream high thread count. An oval Mylar mirror hangs above the sink, and when I wash my hands, I notice my grimy face. It’s the dust. I rinse my eyes with cold water and scrub my face until the white washcloth is gray-brown. I wash it with hand soap, then hang it to dry on the towel rack screwed into the wall.

I walk back into the main room. “Where’s the toilet and shower?”

My mom leaves the couch and takes maybe ten short steps into the kitchen and opens two small doors that I thought were cabinets. One is a shower; the other, a toilet.

“I see they spared no expense to incarcerate us,” I say.

My mom hugs me. Tight. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. We had no idea it would come to this.”

I let my mother hold me. When she steps back, her eyes shine with tears. I want to say something to calm her, make her feel a little less horrible, but a tiny black fish-eye camera attached to the ceiling distracts me.

“They’re watching us in here, too? Are we allowed to use the bathroom privately, or are they surveilling our bodily functions as well?” I burn at the violation. I have to get out. The walls of this trailer feel like they’re closing in on me. I can’t breathe. “I’m going to go look around. Maybe I’ll find the laundry room.”

“I’m not sure you should be roaming the grounds. I don’t know if it’s safe.”

“Mom, please. There are tons of people outside. Besides, there are so many armed Exclusion Guards around, it’s not like I can get mugged.”

“The men with guns are the ones I’m worried about,” my mom replies. She turns to look at my dad, who gives me a small smile that looks like it takes some effort. “Fine, but be back in an hour. We don’t want to be late to the orientation.”

I grab a key card and tuck it into my back pocket. “Don’t worry.” Possibly the most ridiculous two words I could ever say to my parents.

I step outside, blinking against the blazing sun.

I walk past row after row of identical Mercury Homes. Little kids play outside, kicking up dust while their parents mill around, faces drawn and blank, fear in their eyes. Not sure what to do or how to be. I can see some of them trying to make the little ones feel comfortable by sporting uneasy smiles whenever a child looks at them. I think about my dad’s smile before I left. It’s impossible for me to understand what it must feel like to be a parent—to know that one of your sacred duties is to protect your child, and then to feel that you’re failing and completely helpless to change that.

“Layla?” I hear my name from behind me.

I turn, raising my hand above my eyes. “Ayesha?” The girl I met at the train station. She runs her hand through her bobbed hair and smiles at me.

“Couldn’t stand it inside anymore, either?”

“It’s like a—”

“Tomb,” she says. She pauses a beat, glancing at a guard as he passes by us. “We’re in the same block, three trailer homes down from you.”

I gesture down the row of Mercury Homes, and she joins me in a slow walk. There are armed guards posted every two blocks. Their fingers aren’t on the triggers of their guns, but it feels that way.

“How do you know where our trailer is?” I ask.

“There’s a directory in the media unit of the trailer,” Ayesha says, then widens her eyes in mock horror. “You mean you haven’t gone through the regulations file yet?”