“You smell!”
Not an unusual insult from a seven-year-old, but was not the greatest start.
“It’s probably my perfume, did you learn about perfume from your tutors?”
I looked at the screen embedded in the table between us. It was blank now, and I am certain that must have increased her anxiety.
“No. You smell.” She wrinkled her nose.
“Like… soup water, and powder, and honey, and alcohol”
I blanched at that and hurriedly explained how perfume was made with an alcohol base, in case the doctors watching our exchange were unsympathetic. I didn’t drink much these days, but could do without my professional conduct being questioned.
“Is there anything else you would like me to know before we begin?” I asked.
The little girl furrowed her brow, thinking in earnest.
She was little - for her age I mean. Not underfed or neglected, just small and delicately boned, like a baby bird.
I supposed she had been a kind of bird; kept in a cage, trapped in place, treated as an oddity. I couldn’t understand how the study snuck past the ethics board, much less went on for so long.
“My name is Jennifer, and I am here to help you transition.” I said.
There was no doubt she knew what I meant. A tiny lip wobble gave away the fear she was obviously working so hard to conceal.
“Why don’t you start by telling me a little bit about you? What’s your favourite colour?”
Silence.
The room was so neutral it had barely any colour in it. Magnolia walls, off white housing for the drones and computer stations. I should have known better than to start with that.
“Okay, how about hobbies? Is there anything you like to do?”
She was a tough cookie, and it wasn’t easy to build rapport, but with time and gentle coaxing, her guard began to come down.
“I like to draw” She said quietly.
Not a breakthrough, but four words of insight was better than nothing, and I leant into it.
“Fantastic, can I see?”
She scampered to the bed and rummaged for a moment under her pillow, taking her time to discard a few scraps of paper I can only assume were unfit for public consumption.
“These are wonderful Mia!” It was true. She drew with the same janky lines and odd proportions as any other child her age, but it warmed my heart to see her wonder expressed so freely.
A proud blush spread across her cheeks and we fell into a more fluid rhythm of conversation.
I learned about her life in the facility. How her days were structured in forty-minute blocks with breaks for creative expression and food. How she didn’t like stories much but enjoyed crafting and math.
It occurred to me that it must be hard to engage with even fictional worlds so removed from her own. To all intents and purposes, her universe only extended to these two rooms. She received instruction on physical education from a drone programmed to correct her form. Even her showers involved a degree of technological interference.
We spoke about the details of her routine, her likes and dislikes, for over an hour before the hint of a frown crept in. I got the sense she was still a bit sceptical about the world outside, that perhaps she suspected it was a test to see how much she had been paying attention.
“Everything okay?” I asked, stealing a glance at the nearest camera.
“What’s your favourite colour?” She said, mimicking my earlier tone.
I was taken aback by her sudden playfulness, and she giggled at my surprise, wiggling her eyebrows, straining to push them up in exaggerated imitation. I smiled, and glad to see her laugh, made a show of mulling it over for her benefit.
“I think blue. Blue is my favourite colour.”
“Why?” Her curiosity was intense but anticipated. It made sense she would want to explore things, after all this was – I was – all so new to her.
“Well, I grew up by the ocean, so I guess it reminds me of home. When I was little I would go to the beach and sometimes the sky and the water were such similar shades it seemed like they were all mixed together, like the whole world as far as I could see was blue. It was beautiful”
I could see her taking in what I’d said, rolling around the concepts and examining them against what she knew of the world outside. Mia had never seen the sky, or the sea. All she had were pictures on a screen and the oppressive cream embrace of her surroundings.
“Can I touch you?” She whispered, so lightly I barely caught the words.
Ordinarily I would have said no, as much out of personal preference as professionalism. But being with her, this child who had never been held, or comforted by another living person, it stirred instincts I hadn’t prepared for.
Everything I was doing was being monitored by medical professionals, the same ones who had checked my credentials, and screened me for contagions, eliminated the risks, and cleared me for entry. The same ones who had locked an infant in a sterile box.
I bought time to consider the consequences by making a joke.
“I thought you said I smell!” I whispered back, conspiratorially.
“You do. But…” She looked down, in more than just disappointment. I could feel the need radiating from her, and reached out my hand.
“NO!” A panicked voice from a speaker to my left.
That was the last sound I heard before I was caught in the eruption. Swallowed by deafening silence. I felt as though I was falling and drowning all at once, being pulled forward by a force I couldn’t understand. There was no chill wind on my skin, but I knew without question that I was moving. And fast. I focused on trying to breathe, trying to find my centre. My eyes were screwed shut, I didn’t have the courage to see what was going on around me, I was certain I’d be sick.
A tiny hand squeezed mine.
Mia.
Fear for her outweighed the panic, and I heaved my eyelids open, ready to fight, to do whatever it took to keep her safe in the abyss.
Then everything was still.
She was there, right in front of me, wiggling her bare toes in the white sand. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, and stood blinking dumbly at the light as she let me go, skipping to the edge of the water.
I was dazed. This was home, but not home. Everywhere I turned the view was the same, an endless cycling panorama. I spun around again. Sand, water, a horizonless sky that looked like it was melted into-
“Mia?” Her name dropped from my mouth like a stone.
She played tag with the lapping waves, squealing in delight when they caught her ankles. It was all wrong; the muted sound, the unnatural stillness, the absence of salt tang in the air. It made my senses scream, overwhelmed by the need to find something familiar in it.
As sobs racked my body, and I fell to my knees, the little girl waved. She ran smiling, kicking up sand, calling out to me. The same words over and over, almost singing, like a chant; like a curse. The careless answer I gave to a question I did not understand.
“My favourite colour is blue.”