Happy

Happy

Happy. That's what they kept telling me. I had to be happy. Happiness. Or else.

I looked around the room. Happy wasn't a word I'd use to describe it. There was a dark stain on the far wall with a distinct odour. It was likely blood. But I never actually wanted to find out. The crimson stain masked the location of a heavy steel door. It wasn't of the stainless variety, I knew that much.

It had been three weeks, I think. I had been completely isolated so keeping track of time was difficult; it was a very rough guess. In those supposed three weeks I was fed periodically, the meal was always delivered while I was asleep, which led me to deduce that I was under surveillance the whole time, though I couldn't find a camera anywhere in my enclosure. A small plastic tray. The plastic was the hard kind that you couldn't break if you had 100kgs of biceps to put it to the test. It was filled with what I guessed they called food. I never wish to find out what exactly it was, but it kept me alive, I guess. So for three weeks I slept and ate. There was very little else to do in such a situation.

I had just awoken when they came for me. Or perhaps they woke me, I forget. Regardless, the steel door opened and revealed two figures, dressed in blue-grey uniforms and wearing faces that seemed all too familiar. The faces from my dreams, from the world around me. From every aspect of existence, those burning smiles that etched their way into the very psyche of humanity. Happy.
The figures advanced into the room and picked me up by the arms. I hadn't the energy in myself to stand so I was dragged out, my feet scraping against the smooth metal. The trip to my ultimate destination I cannot recall, save for the sounds. As l travelled I could hear shouting, swearing and yelling. This was just past from my enclosure. As I moved further on the sounds were hollering and hooting. They were audibly human, but at the same time utterly inhuman. I shudder to think what had caused the occupants of those rooms to make such sounds. And past the screams and the hoots, as we approached the destination was a grim silence. The enclosures were certainly occupied; I could feel them watching me. But they made no sound. They simply watched. It was most unnerving, more so than the animalistic noises of the wing prior.

The door at the end of the hall swung open and I was taken inside. My vision was a blur as I was placed onto a chair of some sort. Soon after I lost consciousness. What I awoke to would have made me scream, had I the control over my body in which to do so. A multitude steel rods, about six inches thick each protruded from my back, following the line of my spinal column. They had been attached to my spine directly, by force. I could feel them, the sharp point at the end of each, jutting into the bundles of nerve fibres that traversed from head to tail. It was impossibly painful; but I could no scream, yell, cry nor pass out. It was intolerable, yet I was forced to tolerate it. I could not fathom the purpose of my torture. But for what seemed an eternity I sat unrestrained in the chair, these monstrous metal protrusions jutting out of myself, unable to resist my predicament.

After some immeasurable expanse of time the topmost rod retracted. Quickly and painfully it tore itself from me. I wanted to die, but I could not. Slowly, one by one the other rods disappeared in the same excruciating manner. As the last one ripped away I jerked forward from the chair and collapsed onto the floor, gasping for breath as I wept silently. A pool of blood formed around me, the holes in my back were gaping wounds, untended, ghastly rents in my form. Morbid curiosity compelled me to explore these holes, but sheer pain kept me from moving my hands. This was probably a good thing. Something grabbed me; I was surprised to feel cold metal under my arms. A claw-like mechanism had descended from a panel in the roof and now held me upright. I continued to sob from the pain, hardly able to see past the stream of salty tears stinging my eyes. I felt something shoot into one of the wounds. This time I screamed, a wail of utter agony as some kind of metallic object was forced into each openings with mechanical efficiency. I kept screaming, it was the only reaction I could manage to the horror I was experiencing, my only thought was ‘why?’ Finally, after so much suffering, my mind could take no more and consciousness left me.

My eyes opened some time later to the sight of a man clad in a neat black dress uniform. Jack boots, pants, field jacket and brimmed cap. He was the very picture of a cog in the machine of military government. “I’m guessing you’re wondering why? Why you are being held here? Why you are being subjected to this treatment?” He spoke confidently with a distinctly mocking tone. “You want to understand the situation. You want to be told what is going on.” He waited for a moment, presumably for a response. I could barely manage a squeak. He took that as my reply. “Well I am afraid I will afford you no such luxury. I do not make a habit of providing enemies of the state confidential information, nor do I like to gloat my victories over the defeated. It is a sign of unneeded arrogance. Why flaunt this power that is so obviously and inexorably mine? Simply know this; your time has come.” With that he strode out of the room, a light trail of bloodied boot prints revealing he had stepped in the blood that had spilled. I felt utterly despaired. Wasn’t the appearance of the captor meant to lead to exposition? I was meant to at least find out what I did wrong, wasn’t I? I felt hopeless, I was going to rot away in this cell, forced to undergo horrific treatments for some unknown purpose and I’d never know why. I felt as something entered one of the metal devices on my back, but I did not scream. Nor did I feel pain. All I felt was contentment. I felt joy, ecstasy. Happiness; I was happy. They had me, controlled me; owned me. This made me incredibly happy.