Internment(25)

Everyone in Block 2 begins to stand. A few hours, a creepy camp motto, one violent display of authority, and we do what we’re told.

I do not like being told. Especially when what I’m being told is so clearly wrong.

Ayesha and I say good night. Her parents are in a hurry to get back to the block, so they speed-walk ahead. I don’t blame them. The trailers might have cameras in them, but outside, in the open, it feels much more like we’re animals in a pen, waiting to be slaughtered.

It’s completely dark. The searchlights from the watchtowers sweep the grounds with swaths of light while guards patrol on foot, guns and Tasers at the ready. Their blank faces hide any feelings or fleeting doubts. As we turn the corner to Block 2, I stumble. The dirty-blond-haired guard with the tattoo is posted between Blocks 1 and 2. And like all the others, he has a Taser and a gun.

He turns and sees me looking at him. He tilts his chin and catches my eye, then spins his head back into its rigid, proper place.





My body is wrecked, but I can’t sleep. Every time my eyes close, I see that Suit in my house drawing a gun. Stop. Breathe. Sleep. Now I see the boy, the screaming mother. Stop. Breathe. Sleep. The woman getting tased. Over and over again in my mind.

I drag myself out of the lower bunk and splash cool water on my face.

We can’t stay here. We can’t be here.

But how the hell do we get out?

There has to be a way out. No wall is impenetrable.

I slip into my clothes and dusty sneakers and tiptoe out of my room. My parents’ door is shut. I walk on cat feet through the tiny kitchen and living area, grabbing a key card off the table. I slink out of our trailer, making sure the lock clicks as quietly as possible. My parents will go ballistic if they catch me sneaking out after curfew.

There’s a chill in the air, so I pull my hoodie up over my head. The same hoodie I wore when I snuck out to see David. I’ve been trying so hard not to let my mind rest on him. How I wish I’d been able to call him, see him, before I was taken away. How heart-shattering it is not to have said good-bye. I have to push him out of my mind, at least for now. If I actually allow myself to think about—to feel—how desperately I miss him, I won’t be able to get out of bed.

There are fewer guards posted. The two closest ones are up a block, chatting. One smokes, the orange embers of his cigarette wafting to the dusty ground. Searchlights sweep the camp. I stay close to the trailers, hoping to hide in the shadows. I count the time between sweeps of the beams of light from the guard towers and sneak from trailer to trailer, trying to avoid detection and the consequences that come from breaking curfew. I flatten myself against the aluminum siding of a Mercury Home when a searchlight passes. Too close. My heart thuds in my ears. My breathing quickens.

I pause because I’m suddenly and stupidly aware that I don’t exactly know where I’m going. And that I’m utterly alone out here in the dark. We’re so far from anywhere that Mobius might as well be the moon. But I see the garden in the distance. And I remember that hole, or whatever it was, I saw at the fence before Soheil got in that scuffle with the guard. If an animal dug its way in, I wonder if maybe there’s a way out.

The wind is still, and for that I’m thankful. I could do without another lungful of dust. The calm in the camp is eerie. In the distance, a high-pitched bark echoes in the foothills. It feels like the sound of loneliness. Goose bumps rise on my skin. There are no dogs at Mobius. Pets are forbidden. So maybe it’s a coyote or a wolf or a fox. Honestly, I’m pretty sure I don’t know the differences among any of those animals. What I do know is that for this one little moment, I’m glad an electrified fence exists between me and those sounds.

The mobile units are pretty close together, but a wide-open space stands between the last trailer and the garden. I hold my breath and wait for the searchlight to pass, then run across to the garden. I crouch down in the dirt against one of the big boulders as the light sweeps by again, but the edges of the bright beam fall short of me. I breathe.

I inch my way up to the boulder Ayesha and I came to earlier; that’s where I was when I spied that burrow, that hole by the fence. I run my hand against the surface of the rock, feeling for the grooves of the initials we found before. When I find them, I rub my hand over the letters. They have a story. In some other time, two people came here willingly. They were probably young and in love. Who knows where they are now. Whether their love survived. So I’m pretending they are together somewhere, happy. It’s make-believe, but it gives me a little hope. It reminds me that once there was a normal.

I flatten myself against the ground and creep forward so I’m facing the mountains, peering through openings between the orange plastic barriers. I squint into the darkness, searching for that hole. But it’s impossible to see. I don’t have a phone to illuminate my way. There is only the brilliance of the wandering searchlights, and I don’t plan on getting caught in their beams. Still, I scan for that hole or, I don’t know, some other way to get through the fence. An electrified fence. Maybe it’s not really electrified. Maybe it’s only a threat, a scare tactic. Maybe that’s how an animal got through. That imaginary animal through that hole I can’t see. And even if it wasn’t totally stupid and risky, how could I possibly dig my way through? I look up at the razor wire. Even if the fence isn’t electrified, even if I could scale it, how would I get over the top without being slashed to ribbons? And how would I even test it to find out if it is electrified?