Young Writers Society

“Jane.”

A voice. Someone was trying to speak to me.

“Jane.”

My eyes slowly pulled themselves from my lap and focused on a cold, calculating visage. The man’s glasses rested on the edge of his nose in an attempt at a sagacious appearance. He sat leaned forward over the small, metal table separating us, his eyes narrowed. The light from above struck the man’s balding head, casting an irksome, purposeful shadow onto my body. I glanced to my sides, the gray walls nearly touching my arms. The room was clearly designed for interrogation, yet it was passed off as a place of “openness.”

The man rubbed his hands every few seconds before folding them back onto the table, a seemingly endless cycle of annoyance.

“Jane.”

He wasn’t going to stop saying that name until I spoke.

“What.” The word slid quietly from the edge of my mouth.

“Why won’t you answer me?” He spoke crisply, each word the pounding of small, irritating hammer.

“I haven’t heard my name.” My answer caused his hands to begin the cycle again.

“Right here,” the man pointed his clean, untainted finger at a piece of paper on the table. “It says your name is Jane Smith.”

I almost laughed, but no smile crossed my face; a name is nothing.

“Everyone’s name is Jane Smith. Anna Smith. John Smith. Michael Smith. Parents ran out of originality generations ago. It doesn’t matter. It’s not my name.”

My children would be waking soon. I considered killing the man to make sure that they all woke up to my face. They hated the other caretakers in their ward. Those women didn’t know how to hold a knife, let alone a baby.

“Very well,” the man said dryly. He adjusted his glasses, glanced down at the paper in front of him, and sighed. “Ocean?”

He didn’t say it like my mother did. The right way.

“What.” I said the word with a bit more interest, reacting to my true name.

“Ah.” The man feigned a smile. “Now that we’re on speaking terms, we can get started.”

“I won’t stay,” I wondered if his smile would hold if I stabbed him in the neck. What could I use? “I have to leave.”

“And where do you have to go, Jane?” the man quickly held up a hand of practiced apology. “I mean, Ocean.”

The table seemed flimsy enough for me to crack in half. I could use that. It would be more of a bloody death, but I was used to cleaning up a mess. He wouldn’t be able to stop me, of course. He was British.

“You know exactly where I have to go.” My eyes did not quiver as I spoke the words.

A small veined pulsed above his eyebrow, nudging his skin with more vigor as the silence stretched on between us.

“And where exactly is that, Ocean?” A small line of sweat began to form above his lip.

“It’s a secret.” My stoic expression continued.

The vein throbbed manically. The sweat slid over his mouth and dripped rhythmically onto his papers.

“You can tell me, Ocean,” the man said. “You can tell your therapist anything.”

I leaned over the table, the cold of the metal causing me to shiver. My cheeks brushed against his and my lips gently touched his ear.

“I have to babysit children,” I whispered.

The man slammed his fist onto the table with a shout, his vein all but ruptured and his sweat leeching out of his body and staining the pits of his white shirt. I sunk back into my chair, crossing my legs slowly.

“What are the American’s doing in their sector!” He stormed towards me, reaching my chair in seconds. If he touched me, I could always say he was trying to kill me and kill him. “What are they planning for the new Earth?”

I could smell the heat off his body, but I didn’t flinch. I knew he wanted me to react, but I couldn’t give him the satisfaction. He drew his body to its greatest height, not an impressive feat, and stared down from above me.

“We are raising children and planning a peaceful colonization,” I said as I stood, facing him. “Same as the British, I hope.”

The man’s harsh, heavy breathing was the only sound to be heard. His breath slapped against my face each time he exhaled, but I did not move. I simply stared into his bespectacled eyes and waited for him to make the next move.

“The only reason you are allowed near those children is because I say that you are mentally fit to care for them,” his voice lowered to a raspy whisper. “With one report to the Captain, I could have you banned from the American Nursery.”

A small smile crossed my lips.

“It’s a good thing I’m mentally fit, then.”

I didn’t allow him to speak another word. I crossed from his sight, grasped the handle to the door, and stepped into view of the whole world.