Deep breath Peter, nice and slow, you got—a baton nudges my back. I open my eyes, and take the next step breaking through the phantom.
Mr. Reeves pauses before a door. “Okay, I need you to go into that room and recite everything that happened on Nova Terra to the Psychologist. Being truthful will be the only way I can help you out the most successfully.”
“What happens if I am proven insane?”
“The punishment brought against you will be tremendously reduced. But you also wouldn’t have the opportunity to fight them in court. You’ll spend the rest of your life in a military clinical ward on probation.”
Jesus. They have already taken away so much from me… and to think they can still lock me up for the rest of my life too, and that’s if things go well. But also, I have to prove I am not insane if I really want to reveal my story—the whole reason why I came back here. But then again, they will no doubt defeat me publicly, where I will end up with capital punishment as the consequence. I’d be sane to try and plead insanity, and insane to try and prove sanity. Fuck, what have I gotten myself into? I should have just pulled the trigger. My ugly scarred hand begins its awful twitch, and the darkness creeps into my peripheral—I can’t see! I am falling!
Mr. Reeves shakes my arm and I’m brought back into reality. I place my hand inside my pocket till it calms down, feeling my antique lighter—Mr. Reeves must have gotten it back and placed it inside this morning. I have to try, for him, he would have. Mr. Reeves opens the door, and lets me into the office with a poorly attempted smile.
I take a seat on a comfy papasan chair before the Psychologist and his desk. In the corner sit’s a Civil Commissar of the Party, his white beret with a blue gold trimmed star positioned perfectly in the center, and his eyes perfectly focused on me. Mr. Reeves sits in the back and informs us to act as if he isn’t there. The Commissar waves off the guards who escorted us, and the door is closed. I look out the window, watching the raindrops smack against the glass and slide down in their swirly trails while the Psychologist rearranges himself.
Finally he speaks. “Tell me why you are here Peter,” he says while shuffling a last batch of papers—no doubt all the bios on other veteran nut jobs like me. He places the pile into a cabinet door and slides it shut.
“You already know that.”
“Yes. Your attorney has pleaded a most convincing case to have you evaluated first. But this course of action services both of the involved parties actually. Otherwise we would have glossed it over and have been done with you already. So to the point of this visit. The big story we want to hear from you. The story we all want to know. Tell me why you are here. Tell me the story from your point of view.”
“Where do I start? The part you already know. Or the part the Party doesn’t want you to know?”
The Commissar places his hand under his dark overcoat and onto his hip, then leans forward. Ignorant of his actions, the Psychologist sighs. “No, let’s not start there quite yet. While we will hear about the,” he pauses for a moment, “controversial aspects of your tour, I want to begin somewhere else.”
“Such as?”
“Well I am sure you know you are a special case from the Herculean War…”
“Because Buzz stopped being effective on me?” my voice cracks, my hands shake into fists, their temperature rising, “and that I want to get back at the fuckers for what they made me do? So what if I’m a defec—”
“No,” he says harshly. “A defect would have been someone who was never fazed by field stimulants, which is considered impossible. You, on the other hand, somehow built a resistance.”
Blah, blah, blah. Great, they just want to figure out why their drugs failed on me. AbsconDX—god I can’t believe I campaigned for them once—is probably facing death threats from the Party for their drug’s failure too.
There’s a coy look on his face, then it’s gone. “However, I digress. We are not here for that. Now, back to the reason of our visit, your point of view of the entire events during the Herculean War leading up to your believed death, and return here. By reciting these events, we can begin to find a way to determine if you are mentally sane, and solve the most perplexing mystery of your survival”
“Where do you want me to start?”
“How about… when you first went solarside. Yeah, let’s start at the beginning of it all.”
Great, Mr. Reeves wasn’t lying. Are they trying to write a book about me or something?
“Come on Peter, let’s relive every part, and don’t dare hold anything back. I am in the mood of an entertaining story.” He leans back in his chair and taps his knuckles against the table. “Look at it this way; beyond the grave implications of punishment you are obviously facing, this is your last real chance to get it all out.”
I cough. Even though I knew this, the words still hit me like a bullet. Christ, after this, there was nothing. Either lethal injection or being locked up into an asylum for the rest of my life—what would be worse? The rain drops falls heavier against the window—or at least they feel like they do. Mr. Reeves adjusts his chair and it squeaks against the laminate. The Commissar takes a dragged out, annoying, sip of his coffee. Dread tries to knock on my door one more time.
Fuck it. I’m here aren’t I?
I take a deep breath…
PART I
II
I drag my hand from her shoulder down to her hip. My phone’s vibrating alarm tells me I have to get ready. I move slowly and quietly out of the sheets. She raises her head, blowing the hair out of her face with a croaked yawn. “I’m just gonna get ready,” I say. She face plants the pillow again. I look at the phone: 5:40 AM. I could spend a few more hours in bed. But I have to study—why I am up early today. I put on some clothes, and look over at her. The blanket barely reaches halfway over her ass, and I get the pleasure of seeing her sleek back and sides of her breasts squishing to the sides.
I walk past her to the bathroom. She isn’t the hottest girl here, but neither am I a stunning guy. I look back one last time as I close the door. I hate objecting woman like this. It’s shallow and dehumanizing. In a university full of young bright and aspiring minds, I could easily get into an impassioned conversation with any of them, and learn to appreciate their true beauty: their mind. Especially, where at this point in life, would develop far beyond their finished figures into what actually mattered when searching for a partner. Not the sexual desire of their body that is only a fleeting encounter.
I don’t have much time before group study so I’ll have to multitask again. I sit down on the toilet, but do not raise the lid. I open my backpack and grab the text book, Comparative Party’s, and unzip my pants. I begin imagining last night—all of my past encounters—while I read the text to review for midterms.
The New Founding Fathers Party, commonly abbreviated to NFFP, is the ruling American party of today’s government since 2013. This party, like almost all unitary party systems in modern first world countries, is an offshoot of the Global Founding Fathers.