Someone Fixed the Cuckoo Clock

PART 1

We're in for now.

Times change in social details, dressing and appointments updated for the new agenda. Daylight savings has been extended, I mean that as a pun, a knockout averted from the bots up the hall. The bouncer robots haven't picked up on me yet. I'm in. I'm ok.

I don't know how much longer I can continue to fool them. There's something about being a plain white woman that is neutralizing. I remain, under the radar. Normal. Words flop meaning often. Take asylum. Once for the insane, now it keeps-in those that are tested and deemed to be un-touched.

"Janie, meeting at 6 in the gymnasium, right?"

It's Alec. His pitch a tad too high, he's always looking to me, as a lighthouse to the port authority, a safe near insider. There's a slight sweat on his brow, but he quickly wipes it in his shirt sleeve and hides the jog needed to find himself in stride with me from the left, behind. I am average, according to all statistics, height, weight, hair, complexion, dismissible in every aspect, near perfect Norm. Whereas Alec is short, heavyset, and always pushing his glasses up like he's competing with Sisyphus. I suspect he's unidentified preliminary borderline but wants so much to be in that he has managed to escape signaling and bouncing out. Luck, not effort, on his part, is at work. There is a disproportionate amount of monitoring outside, and things do get by.

The parameters of the institution are eating away at him. I can see the strain in the constriction of his suit, with seams about to burst. He wants so hard to fit in. He's trying not to breath too hard and relax his leashed mind over contradictions.

"Of course, thanks for reminding me," I say saving face for him, with my voice set to autopilot confidence, the tone I know is expected, and registered on the Checklist.

My response covers me, and him, guarding a secret edge between us, one which only I fully recognize and can articulate. His stress is such that he is turtled. If he could, I bet he would draw in his head and appendages in self-defense. It would get him bounced out immediately as a Bonk. So, this questioning-affirmation is his self-preservation. His thinking, if I'm wrong on details, we'll both be out, and there will be a life preserve to hang on to, maybe. He doesn't know that I am barely hanging on to Expectations.

He thinks I'm a sure bet. The Norm.

"You're a gem. No wonder you're on Responsibility 5."

He slows to compose himself, knowing that I have to move on, to make the clock. They've run the battery of tests on everyone on the inside. How Alec passed I can't say, but I catch my breath, too, knowing myself enough as I do. I'm always on the secret watch for others, like me. I tested free of any diagnosable abnormality. Not ADHD, not Autistic, not Paranoid Schizophrenic, not Bi-Polar, not Sociopathic, not Psychotic, by any given disturbance monitor. I've succeeded in keeping covert my abnormal memory, phonic and photographic. This is not a place where exceptionalism, in any form, is tolerated. This is an asylum for the purely ordinary population to dwell undisturbed and cohabitate in the hopes of reestablishing numbers of the Average Man.

Responsibility 5 is Roll Call. I earned this task by always being present, punctual, and at the front of the line. A veritable yes ma'am. I leveled the line of the lie detector test, and averaged through all the attempted trials given, like to rats in a lab. Tests for willingness to take tasty bribes, lazy shortcuts, etc., etc. My morbid attention to details has been unrecognized. The faked hypnosis has not been detected, and I have never revealed my uncanny ability to mimic gesture as well as sounds such as human voices, animals, and even electronics and incidental noises of inanimate objects.

Never let them see an introspective look in the eye, or a blankness that might be mistaken as such. Extroverted docility is the Expectation.

"Dr. Zbig," I say extending a hand expediently as I near the doors of the gymnasium. It is considered perfectly normal to herd us in here daily at prescribed times, always a little unpredicted, to keep everyone on their toes. It is a mental health check, not at all physical exercise as the room might suggest.

Robots strap sanitized apparatus to our heads as we sit in assembly seats, and automated checks are performed to identify any irregular brain waves.

Dr. Zbigniew knows my file. Seeing me, he does a visual scan and smiles antiseptically.

"Looking good, Janie. Looking good," he says pleased, and it's understood that he is talking about the order of the Institution.

I give a single silent nod. (Grandfather is on the outside, and as family he's all I've got, though I don't know any more if he's gone, and if so, how. Communication with the unasylumed is not allowed. Took some loop work for him to get me in for testing--Passing a must. Think only about breath, he'd said. It's what I call upon now at every check point.)

"Clipboard is on the platform. I've already turned on the Owl. If anything, state the code word, and it will activate back up automatically."

Zbig waves and strides further down the hall, a little too starched, a little too bland, and I can still see his white teeth flashing with indenturedness of a trusted servant.

I give another professional nod to his back. Cameras are watching.

The roster is a on a tablet, not the old school clipboard that used to be used when things were Backward, in the old Asylum days. It's digital, and in this way the central office can monitor in real time who I check off and precisely when. Order is important, for grouping input, data association. Responsibility 5 demands prompt computation since time stamp matters. I know, it's how I merited the position when Robin became patient No. 8.13B. That's B for billion. The slightest hint of deviation will send you out. Following directions is key. There are only 403 of us in the asylum.

The Owl is not a pet. In fact, no animals are permitted, except for lab work, and outside. Pet affinity is a negative indicator, leaning towards creative thinking like anthropomorphism, diminishing the standing of mankind in its special role and dominion which requires rational unsentimentalism.

The Owl is a stationary electronic unit that sits on the platform and scans activity during assembly, with an internal rotating camera, sending close ups for monitoring to the central office. It zooms on the slightest erratic movement, animated facial expression, or altered electrostatic charge of bodily tension. The reassurance is that they see you, and every flinch.

I look at the freshly washed morning faces advancing, devoid of anticipation, imagination, joy or fear.

I begin to checkmark:

Here.

Here.

Here.