Please, Won't You Push Me for the Last Time

~Kellin~

I don’t know why I’m talking to this boy. I mean, he’s clearly one of them, brainwashed into believing that what they do is right. I can’t think of a way out of this. I know how it works, your parents or teachers will send you to them every time you act like you have a fucking personality, and then they ask you a bunch of questions and examine your behavior and give you the appropriate cure- a pill to shove down your throat on a daily basis. It is supposed to make you happy, healthy, and obedient. I hate it so much it hurts, but I can’t explain it away, and I know that after tonight, I won’t be able to feel even that anymore. I will be gone. So I guess why not talk about it?

“I don’t understand,” Vic says, looking genuinely confused, which normally would’ve annoyed me, but it was kind of cute on him, so I decide to explain.

“Nothing here is healthy right? Running full speed down the street on announcement day is deviant and also, unhealthy, right?” I ask him.

“Well yeah I suppose but just, what you just did with your voice was so…” He looks down as he talks.

“Like nothing you’ve ever heard before, right? Do you know why that is?” I ask, figuring it was better to ask him questions so he can understand my view better. Maybe he will come here when I don’t want to anymore. Maybe when I have to stop being me, someone else can be who they are here. I smile at that thought. I’m grasping at straws, but it’s still better than nothing.

“Because it’s not something healthy people do?” he whispers quietly and looks back up at me.

“Exactly. So tonight I did a bunch of stupid things and tomorrow my parents will take me to the doctor unless I can think of a healthy thing that would explain it and I can’t. So they will fix me and then I won’t want to come here anymore.” I say simply and sit down. Honestly I’m just trying not to cry at this point.

“But… I would come here again.” He says after a long pause. This makes me smile a little. I was right when I assumed people would naturally love the things here, because people naturally created them, and besides, it’s nice feeling a little less alone in this, even if it’s over now.

“Maybe you’re getting sick,” I joke, but then he looks genuinely worried. “I’m kidding.”

“You didn’t look sick when you were singing…” he said, suddenly sounding angry. I remember the first time I heard music of people who were “sick,” I was angry too.

“I’m not obedient, that’s all that really matters you know.” I say defiantly.

~Vic~

This boy Kellin is messing with my head. His singing was so beautiful, and everything here is so fascinating and great and he’s telling me that what I’m thinking can only mean I’m defying the country I believe so much in. I don’t even want to think anymore, and nothing makes any sense right now, but I really want to help him. I want him to have what he wants, which is to be mentally unstable I guess. Maybe even one of the deranged, the ones who aren’t easily cured, who have to go to the hospital for some time. They can cure them too though, they always do. There is a cure for everything.

Is there a cure for being this confused? Because here I am in some forbidden place, with torn clothes and scraped hands from crawling, and wanting to help this boy to stay unhealthy. While I’ve been thinking, he seems to have changed moods. He seems to do that a lot actually.

“Here,” Kellin tosses a pair of pants at me, jeans I suppose, “don’t worry, they’re clean, I took all the clothes in here home once and fixed them up when my parents were on a vacation. I keep some here, in case I ever need them. They’ll stand up to the crawl back out. There’s only one way, so I’m sure you’ll find it. There’s still an hour til curfew, so you can make it back in time if you hurry.”

He turns back toward the tunnel we came in, and stops midstep before turning back to me, “it was nice to meet you Vic, you know, while I’m still kind of me. Remember me like I am tonight okay?”

And with that, he leans down into the tunnel and starts to crawl back to society. I sigh and change into the jeans. They fit tight and feel thick, and they aren’t like anything I’m used to. Clothes are usually designed for comfort, because nobody healthy is too obsessed with their appearance anyway. I suppose it wasn’t always like that though, and besides these probably will hold up better to the concrete tunnels considering mine are completely shredded and Kellin’s looked perfectly undamaged.

There is so much to think about right now, and I don’t want to think at all. I want to go home and go back to my normal life and my normal future and my normal clothes and just never think again. I know that won’t happen though, as ridiculous of a request as it was, I am going to think about this Kellin boy and how strange he is every day, because he seemed so desperate for me to do so. All of this bothers me, and it shouldn’t. The government and the APA exist to protect us from ourselves, and keep us from getting unhealthy or unhappy. We take our cures because it helps us fight off the diseases we have as humans, so we can help each other and function as a successful society.

But there is nothing I want more in the world than to hear music like that again.