All That She Can See(67)

Cherry’s gaze darted over the hall, desperately trying to spot anything that looked remotely like a control panel. She was hoping for something huge and obvious. Maybe even a large sign that said Control Panel, but she knew it would never be that easy. Most likely it was small and discreet, hidden away and impossible to find. All of a sudden she had an overwhelming certainty that she wasn’t going to be able to pull this off.

‘In here.’ The woman opened a white door and the light that spilled out was blindingly bright. Cherry squinted and cautiously stepped over the threshold but refused to move any further until her eyes adjusted. The straw-haired woman closed the door behind her, leaving Cherry on her own.

Or so she thought.

‘Nothing in here but me for now. Come in. Take a seat,’ a voice said.

‘The light. It’s too bright.’ Cherry rubbed her eyes but stopped when feeling the edges of the lenses under her eyelids made her cringe.

‘Your lenses have made your eyes sensitive, that’s all. Once you’re in here I’m sure they’ll adjust and settle.’

Cherry took one step in and blinked.

‘Now, 601 —’

‘Cherry.’

‘— you seem to have been quite the troublemaker and we usually find that those who cause trouble have lots of trouble of their own.’ Cherry could now make out a white table with a large divider running down its centre and a white chair on either side. ‘Come and sit opposite me. This mirror here is a special device our team have developed.’

Cherry moved slowly towards the chair and lowered herself into it. The ‘mirror’ in front of her was as clear as glass and she could see a woman on the other side in a yellow suit. Her hair was the blackest black Cherry had ever seen, her skin was paper thin, and her sunken eyes had deep purple bags hanging underneath them.

‘You’re Lonely,’ Cherry whispered.

‘How ever did you guess,’ Lonely said without the inflection of a question. She swivelled her chair to a touchscreen behind her, pressing it a few times. ‘I’ve sent a message down to the control board to shut your lenses off while we conduct this examination so when I do this,’ she tapped a series of buttons on the screen behind her and the glass frosted for a moment and then a silvery sheen glazed over its surface, ‘you’ll be able to see your own reflection and that of your own emotional baggage too.’

‘I can only see me,’ Cherry said. She leaned in closer to the glass and noticed a scratch on her forehead that hadn’t been there before.

‘Give it a moment. They’re probably still just fixing your lenses.’

Cherry linked and unlinked her fingers under the table. She cracked her knuckles and traced the palm over her hands over and over, killing time, until finally she noticed a small black blob in the mirror, just above her right shoulder. It stretched upwards and expanded until she could see Loneliness in the mirror.

‘I see Loneliness. You’re looking taller,’ Cherry said sadly and held out her fist over her shoulder which Loneliness fist-bumped and then promptly drooled on. ‘I can see it without the mirror, though. Why do you need to look at it through the mirror?’

Lonely tapped another corner of the screen and the image of Loneliness froze in the mirror. Cherry looked at the real Loneliness as it looked at the image of itself, twisting its head from left to right like a confused puppy.

‘We capture images of feelings so we can compare them and see how they differ from person to person, and how they adapt to their owners over time. By the size of this Loneliness, I’d say it’s been around for almost two decades, is that correct?’

Cherry tried to remember the first time she’d seen Loneliness. ‘I was seven when we first met, so… seventeen years.’

‘Yes. Almost two decades, then,’ Lonely repeated.

‘Oh…’ Cherry said. Had it really been that long? She glanced up at Loneliness, who grinned at her, almost affectionately.

‘And it seems like you’re very cooperative towards it. That usually happens the longer a feeling has lingered. You have a routine. You don’t fight against it and it doesn’t fight against you.’

‘No… we… erm… we get along just fine.’

‘Interesting.’ Lonely typed some notes onto the screen. ‘It’ll be quite the monster to remove.’

‘Remove?’ Instinctively, Cherry reached out behind her and simultaneously Loneliness clutched Cherry’s shoulders. She didn’t want to feel lonely any more but Cherry didn’t like the way Lonely had said ‘remove’.

‘Mmm, yes.’ Lonely nodded. ‘Remove. We’re going to get rid of it.’

‘Why do you need to get rid of it? Can’t I just have lenses and then I won’t even know it’s there?’

‘You already have lenses. This is something more permanent.’

‘Why can’t you just shrink the feelings gradually? Give everyone a dose of the counteracting feeling? Like —’

‘Like you did? Yes, we’ve all heard about your kind-hearted approach.’

‘And what’s wrong with that? It worked.’

‘It takes too much time.’ Lonely threw up her hands. ‘It’s as simple as that. No one wants to be told their heartbreak will go away eventually. They want it gone immediately. We can offer that to people.’