Judgement

      Lenaia had always been different. It wasn’t her fault, for she had been born different. No one understood though, and so they feared her. They had no reason to fear her of course; she was a most gentle and understanding person if one took the time to get to know her, but few ever did. It was all quite upsetting, but Lenaia did not let it get to her. She knew things that others did not, and though they wouldn’t listen now, they would regret that decision eventually.

      The warm arms of the early-morning sun’s rays held her close as she sat in her usual place by the east window of the cafeteria. Her pale gray eyes were locked intently on the exquisite orange sphere which stared back at her from the plate on the stiff, white, table. When she had selected her breakfast this morning, she had been looking for something special, as usual. She was never quite sure for what she was searching until she found it, and this time it was a pungent, perfectly ripe tangerine. It was round and flawless and beautiful in all ways, especially the skin. The pocked surface to any other would seem meaningless, but to Lenaia, it meant all the difference. The tiny pores, like so many other things Lenaia saw, formed a pattern, like a message, or a song. Whatever it was, she knew it was there; it was not so much the seeing actually, it was more the sense of knowing.

      “You going to eat that?” Her friend Jimmy had sat down at the table across during the time she had spent examining the fruit. Lenaia glanced up at him, spotting the ever-constant, ever-comforting, rhythmic twitch below his right eye. She smiled at him and nodded, then picked up the tangerine and started carefully peeling away the firm, perfect rind to reveal the soft, sweet flesh within. Cool juice started to run down her hand, wrist, arm, and she blinked. Tangerines were not red; this she knew. But somehow the fluid which squeezed out of the sphere was a deep crimson: the hue of spilled blood. It gushed from what was no longer a beautiful tangerine, but a beating, writhing heart. Now her hands were no longer her own: they were gray and cold, with long fingers, and clutched the organ tight, like some treasure which had been sought after for millennia. Something drew her eyes up, and she was horrified to see Jimmy, with a dark, bloody, gaping cleft carved out of his chest. His pained, confused gaze met hers, and she let out the shrill cry which had been suppressed through the whole sudden nightmare.

      Lenaia hurled the tangerine pulp across the table, missing Jimmy just barely as it splattered on the window behind him. He was entirely unphased by the outburst and went to go clean the mess from the window. Lenaia ducked under the table, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them, hiding her face in her arms, trying to be as small as possible, to not be seen. “Not real, not real, not real, not, not, not...” she chanted, repeating what her doctors had been telling her for the past few months. Of course she knew they were wrong in this diagnosis, but sometimes pretending made things a little easier to bear in her own mind. The images had come so many times with so many people, but they were always so similar: the slender, ashen fingers replacing her own; the gruesome death of someone, an old friend or a complete stranger. It was all so disturbing, and only gave people more reason to confine her because of her differences. Normally her idiosyncrasy was serene and harmonious, not destructive or painful in any way, but as of her sixteenth birthday, eleven months ago, things had changed. The visions had started, and her family could no longer handle her with these strange impulses which transformed her normally quiet, however complex personality. The images had caused her to become irrational and uncontrollable at times; any human would be disturbed by them. But not just any human would see meaning in them, and that was why they came to Lenaia. She had desperately tried to convey the message to those around her, but she was crazy; no one would listen to what she had to say.

      “Come on out, Lenaia,” a gentle alto tone cajoled, and she felt a hand on her shoulder. For a moment Lenaia was afraid to open her eyes, should the hand have long and skinny gray fingers, or the speaker be strewn across the ground with a drying river of blood staining her chest. At last, her eyelids found the courage to reveal the world once again, and she sighed with relief to find the kindly smile of Dr. Katherine, one of her “new friends” at the Meadowbrook Institution. “Let’s get you off that dirty floor and fetch another tangerine. I had one earlier, and it was quite delicious.”

      At the thought of what dirt might be clinging to her from the floor, Lenaia slid out from under the table and stood up quickly, brushing herself off. Her voice was still a tad shaky as she replied, “No thank you, I’ll be fine... Some water would be nice though.”

      “All right then, let’s go get some water.” Dr. Katherine walked Lenaia over to the drink area where she obtained a large plastic cup of clear, cool water. Lenaia accepted it, took a sip, smiled and thanked the Doctor, then went back to her table to sit down. There would be no point in telling Dr. Katherine or any of the other doctors about the consistent yet constantly changing message of her visions, as they would simply insist that her imagination was running away with her. After all, that was why she was staying at Meadowbrook. If she could escape the waking-nightmares, she would be able to return to her family. The images weren’t real, none of her suspicions were real, the doctors would tell her, and then they would give her another pill, the blue kind. The drugs didn’t really help the visions though, because they came at no particular regularity. Sometimes she would have ten in one day, sometimes none for a week. Of course, there was the fact that the visions did not originate in Lenaia’s own mind which also explained the ineffectiveness of drugs and other treatments, though this was fiction to any who refused to open themselves to the truth which Lenaia did her best to profess. There was a pattern, of course, but the doctors would never believe that either. The pattern was all part of the message, and had only become apparent recently. After eleven months of torture, things were starting to make sense. However, they were not looking all that bright.

      “I cleaned up your fruit,” Jimmy told her as he sat back down in the same spot as before. Lenaia longed to close her eyes, afraid she would see him in pain again, but she resisted the urge: she would be brave. The twitch below his eye continued as usual as he glanced about and lowered his voice. “Are they talking to you again, Lenaia?”

      She nodded. “It’s almost time. I wish people would listen, but I don’t think they’re going to.” She paused and smiled. “Thank you for listening, Jimmy, and trying to help speak out. I fear that there is no chance now, though. The message is almost complete, and though it changes with each time, I can feel no good coming from what I’ve been shown thus far.”

      Jimmy sighed. “You did your best.” He got up and walked off, in his typical abrupt manner, leaving Lenaia in quiet contemplation.

      After a while, something caused her to look up. The final piece of the pattern had fallen into place in her mind. It was time; there was no turning back, no altering fate. Not enough had listened, not enough had believed. The innocent would lie along with the guilty, and there was nothing she could do about it now. A single tear welled in Lenaia’s eye, gaining just enough substance to spill over her bottom eyelid and down her cheek. “I’m sorry, everyone,” she whispered, and then it began.

      The poor Russian man who had worked his whole life and was soon ready to pass on; the televangelist who had been labeled a heretic; the rich aristocrat who had suddenly begun to hear voices; the exchange student from Japan who had returned home a lunatic; the successful Australian businesswoman; the daughter of the tribe’s chief; the school bully; the thousands of select individuals who could have sparked change, could have prevented the holocaust, but were put down and silenced because their ideas were outrageous, and they could not possibly be true. There were so many who had been told and had strove to spread the word, but so few had listened. Then there was the quiet autistic girl from a quiet town in a quiet part of America, who had never wanted to hurt anyone, just wanted to find a place in the world. Still, so few that heard actually heeded, actually believed.

      She was no longer herself; they had taken control for the final stage. It only took moments for the visions to come true, and with unthinkable swiftness, the first of the victims fell. There were so more innocent here than guilty, but it did not matter. The civilization which dismisses its own prophets, its wisest citizens, does not deserve to carry on, exploiting the power of judgment, clouding acceptance with the darkness of oppression. Many races had learned their lessons well, but this one had always been problematic. Finally, the trouble would be eliminated. They were fulfilling their purpose once again, passing judgment on those who did not utilize the responsibility appropriately and to the fullest, condemning those who closed their minds to the possible truths of the “insane.”

      As the frenzy ceased briefly, Lenaia managed to break through the hold they had over her. She saw for a final time what had once been her world, her people, no matter how much they had rejected her. The bodies lay carelessly about the large, white room, with sunlight still streaming in through the east window. At the place where she had sat every morning for breakfast as long as she had been at Meadowbrook, their hearts were lined up in three straight rows of seven each; Jimmy would have liked that, she thought. And as she gazed at this epitome of the massacre which was the first of many to come, Lenaia spoke her final words.

      “Real. Very, very real.”


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