Routine Machine

I’ve lost track of time. There are two ways you can lose track of time: one you are too busy to notice the passing of time; and the other you have absolutely nothing to do so time becomes meaningless. Either way you’re fucked.

My government put me in here years ago. At least I think it was years ago. I remember some things happening to me but not much else. It’s all kind of grey and bland like a late night television screen. Snow, that’s what they called it.

I remember memorizing the daily cycle of the ventilation system as it clicked on and off. I remember sensing when my food was going to arrive, through the slot in the door. I remember starting to sleep in each of the different beds on a four day schedule. This routine was important. When you’re confined or just living, routine helps ground you. I wonder if humans need routines. Maybe we need to have things neat and tidy and clear so that we don’t have to stress about basics like finding food or shelter. Maybe routine is an essential aspect of civilization.

I always appreciated my life outside of these concrete walls for its routine. Wake up; drink coffee; take the bus to work; punch in and sit at my station for three and a half hours; eat lunch from vending machine; work another three and a half hours; take bus home; order pizza; drink a beer; watch television; fall asleep in lazy boy; repeat. I guess now I’ve got a new routine. I can’t really complain about the routine. When you get used to it, time passes easier.

How long had it been since they walled me up in here? Who were they anyway? Who gave them this power? I hate my government. What gives them the right to lock me up and throw away the key? I didn’t commit a crime. All I did was get sick.

I was twenty-six when I came back from Russia and took a job at a chemical plant. It paid well and I was saving to bring my wife and son over from Russia. I was working there for a while when I started to notice a cough that wouldn’t go away. Then I started losing weight. Ultimately I found myself in hospital after having lost fifty pounds in a month. I collapsed at McDonald’s and I didn’t even get to eat my Big Mac. The doctors quickly realized that I had a rare and potentially deadly strain of tuberculosis. I thought only Africans got these kinds of diseases. Apparently Russians and Americans do too.

I don’t know what I did wrong. They gave me some pills and orders to return to the hospital every few weeks. I obeyed naturally. One day someone caught me out without a mask. I had acquired a taste for vodka in Russia. I needed orange juice for my screwdriver and I forgot my mask when I drove to the corner store. Secretly I hated wearing those masks and having all the people I encountered stare at me. Who wants to stand out? Still forgetting my mask was an innocent mistake.

With a few drinks in my system, I shouldn’t have been driving but it was only a short drive. Who would waste time walking? My drink was more important. One of the doctors saw me there I think. What doctor shops at Mac’s?

So when I next visited the hospital they snatched me and told me I was a danger to public health. How? I was just like everyone else. I just wanted a drink, to drive, to be free. I care about other people; I wouldn’t hurt anyone. So they had a court order to restrict me to a small room in the hospital. A place for criminals designed for high security detention. Four walls, four beds, three square meals and buckets of multicoloured pills all for me!

I knew you could go to jail for being a terrorist or reading the wrong books and websites; that makes sense. But I didn’t think you could go to jail for just catching something. So I’ve been here for years and I still cough all the time. Never a moment’s rest.

I’m scratching this story, my story, on the walls of my cell using my finger nails which are very long now. It helps keep them short; they took away my television, my computer and my nail clipper. I wonder if anyone will read this someday and wonder about me and what I’ve been through.

So the routine continues. The ventilation system keeps clicking, the food appears three times a day like clockwork. I wonder if there are people out there preparing my meals or if a giant machine is keeping me going, passing me pills and food. Its only mission is to keep humans alive even if they are completely and utterly miserable. The routine machine I sometimes call it.

I think they would have been happier if I had died. Less cost, less bother to lock me up and keep me going. I wish I was dead sometimes. Obviously my tuberculosis has different ideas.