Please Remain Seated

The receptionist stamped the document twice, and slid it back through the opening in the glass. “Hold on to this. It’s the door to the left, take a seat and don’t walk around or talk to anyone. Security will help you if you have any questions.” She rattled the script off like she’d said it a hundred times, already looking past me to the person behind in the queue. I sensed this was my cue to leave, and hastily thanked her before taking your hand and heading through the door. Your shoes squeaked noisily on the linoleum. The receptionist hadn’t looked at you for the whole interaction. Perhaps that’s how she managed to do her job.

The waiting area was a grey-carpeted vastness, easily as wide as our street, and at least three times as long. A few nondescript doors lined the walls, fronted by numbered check-in desks. There were no windows, the rows and rows of seats lit only by fluorescents. Every ten paces or so another client waited, one sprawled on a seat fidgeting, one with fingers in her mouth and a distant expression, another grasping at his chaperone and crying out. Most of them looked younger than you were, some of them barely in their second year. The chaperones seemed young too, older siblings or perhaps teenaged parents. We passed a girl with a ponytail grappling with a toddler in her lap, bobbing a yellow plastic fish in front of her disgruntled charge. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen. You turned to look as we passed her, and I watched you take it all in, the yellow lights reflecting in your eyes as you hung your head back, mouth slightly ajar, fingers still hooked in mine. A while before you’d been chatting away as you always did. I hope you still do. I heard some older kids have to re-learn how to talk. Perhaps you learned an entirely new language.

An officer was positioned at a pillar ahead of us, also watching you, one hand on the weapon at her hip. She stood beneath the words ‘Please Remain Seated’ printed in government-sanctioned-green. I hurried you, adjusting my gait to little steps so that you could manage.

We reached in a fairly empty area across from one of the desks. I’d tried to find a spot out of sight of any officers patrolling the area, which soon proved to be futile as I spotted the unblinking eye of the security camera trained on us. I unfolded the document the receptionist had given me, although I’m not sure what clarification I was hoping for. You climbed up onto one of the seats and stood there to get a better view of the papers in my hands.

“M-A-R…that’s my name!” You pointed.

“That’s right, kiddo.” I turned the paper to show you the full document, and pointed to your date of birth. “You know what that is?”

“Numbers,” you said. You took the paper, poking at it and singing the numbers under your breath like a mantra. I swung my backpack off my shoulder, and sat beside you. People said to bring food, not just snacks, but as much food as you could ration to eat during the wait. Games were good, too, and books. Some were known to haul several tonnes with them to keep them busy. Anything to stop you having to think about what you’re waiting for, I suppose. I’d brought a flask of soup, some fruit and chocolate, some bread rolls. In terms of entertainment, you were becoming quite the ‘I-Spy’ connoisseur, and though I’m not much of a reader myself, you had a favourite bedtime book that I’d brought along. I’m sure you remember the book, or the drawings at least, and I assure you, the irony of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ was not lost on me at the time.

You finished your number song and handed the paper back to me, crumpled in your hand. We ate a little. You took off your shoes and bounced your boundless four-year-old energy out on the carpet until I told you to sit down. I chewed on my hangnail, you sucked your thumb and that time I didn’t tell you to stop. You fell asleep across two seats, neck twisted awkwardly in my lap, and the lack of a clock continued to deny me any sense of time. The guard changed, or perhaps it didn’t, their words and their walk and their shoes too uniform to tell.

At one point, you looked up at me between sips of juice.

“Can we go to the swimming pool? After the Sleep?”

“You can go again, sure. You liked diving down and touching the bottom, huh?” You loved swimming. That’s how I remembered this locker we used to store our towels.

You nodded. “Will you take me?”

I hesitated. “Remember what I said before, Margo? About how I’m not sure I’ll be…able to take you places after the Sleep? You might have another brother who can take you.”

You nodded as though it was the most normal thing in the world. “Ok. Our other brother can take me.”

After we’d burned through half of our rations and exhausted our surroundings of ‘I-Spy’ potential, you were sleeping again when I heard the first chime of the wait. It came from a desk further down from where we were marked with the number 212. A woman with a round face and a lab coat appeared from the adjoining door and came to the desk, bringing the intercom microphone to her lipsticked mouth.

“Would client Millie Gable please come to desk 212 for processing.” She turned her head, looking at us. Well, at me. She held my gaze for a moment when her attention was taken by a young mother leading a toddler that approached her from some other corner of the endless waiting area. They greeted each other in hushed tones, and like the receptionist, the lab coat woman made an effort not to look at the child.

“She’s three years and two months.”

“Excellent. Any particular reason why you waited?” The woman paused for an answer, and when she didn’t receive one, looked up quizzically at the mother. The corners of her mouth were turned up as though to mimic sympathy without actually doing the work to really feel something for someone else.

“We...I’m sorry, waited for what?” The mother scratched the back of her neck anxiously with her free hand. The little girl swung on her other. The woman kept smiling.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t clear. We prefer younger children, as you might know. Your daughter is three. After eighteen months we tend to ask our clients for the reason why they wait before bringing their child for the Sleep.”

The mother gripped her daughter’s hand a little tighter. “She…We weren’t planning on it. Originally. When she was little, when she was that young, we didn’t think…we weren’t considering it.”

“And you are now.”

“Yes.” The mother swallowed, and breathed a long shaky breath out. “We really…needed the money.”

The woman looked down, stamped the documents and beamed back up at her. “Your application has been approved. You’re all done.”

The mother looked far from relieved, nodding slowly. For the first time, the woman leaned over the desk and regarded her young client.

“Hi Millie. That’s a pretty dress.” She circled the desk, approaching the girl and reaching out a manicured hand.

“I’ve got a lovely surprise for you in the other room. Would you like to come, and see?”

Millie said nothing, but reached up to take her hand before looking to her mother.

“Mama’s not coming this time, poppet. It’s just for you.” She looked at the mother as though asking for help. I doubted she really needed it, but I suppose the smoother the better with things like this. They really try to rip the band-aid off as painlessly as possible. You went pretty easily. I’m not sure if that’s something you want to know.

“Wait.” The mother suddenly let go of her daughter’s hand and pulled forward the bag on her shoulder, rummaging inside. “I forgot. I had something I wanted to give her. Wait a minute.”

The woman began to move back toward the door she had entered through. “I’m sorry, we don’t allow the clients to take any items with them.”

The mother didn’t look up. “It’s important, I had it made. So, she remembers me, and her name, and everything. Please, can’t you make an exception?” She pulled out a small black box and prised it open, her hands shaking. “Please.”

“I’m sorry, there are no exceptions.”

The mother lifted a delicate silver chain from the box; a pendant swung from it. “It’s just this. Please.”

“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. You can collect your payment from reception.”

“Wait, please! Millie, sweetheart, come back. Wait!”

The woman pulled Millie toward the door, and the mother followed. With the same apathetic smile, the woman leaned into the intercom again. “Can I have security at desk 212, please.”

The officers came almost immediately. They had probably heard the mother begging from all the way across the waiting hall. They dragged her away, shouting her daughter’s name, her hand still clutched around the chain. Legally, of course she no longer had a right to be there. The paperwork handing her daughter over to the state had been submitted and approved, and her daughter would be reassigned a new name and a new family that could afford to raise her, ten or even a hundred years from now. Until then, the Sleep, freezing her little body and brain for a while to be thawed out again when things were better. It was the only way they could get participants young and plastic enough for the Sleep to work, and they knew financial compensation would work if people were desperate enough. When the dust settled after the mother’s arrest, the woman and the little girl had disappeared through the door. You woke up not long after that. You were a very heavy sleeper. Perhaps you still are. Perhaps that helped the lab coat lady out a lot when your time finally came.

I don’t feel like telling you all the details of how it happened, actually. You know that it did, or I would be telling you in person and not like this. I suppose I should ask you for forgiveness, but then it would have been worse if I’d kept you around. Not worse for me, but for you. It kills me, Margo, that I have no way of knowing how it worked out for you, or if you will even get to read this. When I found out that you wouldn’t be able to take this letter with you into the Sleep, I near about panicked just like that young mother did. They don’t even let you take baby photos, or a bit of paper so you know your own name, or when you were born.

After you’d gone, I walked back out the way we came in. The necklace that mother had brought was on the ground, the heard-shaped pendant broken in two halves and crushed underfoot. I didn’t keep the money. It’s in the envelope if you want it, if its still worth anything on your end. I guess I left it here because I thought the locker might be something you were able to remember. Your baby photos are in the envelope too. I hope you find them.