Seven. Taken Away
“The city!” The guide spat. I was back on the bus. “People who live in the city are nothing but trouble. If I’m going to advise anything, just stay away.”
I had blinked awake on the beach to find myself alone. The kids were gone. Back at the bus no one had even noticed I had ever left.
The drive home was a long straight shot, barreling past hills and surf and windswept dunes, no sights, no smells, no more photo calls, just the roar of the engine and solemn faces staring into the distance. The hobbling and winding destinations were now being thundered past at impressive speeds – a storm of green signs all whipping by in a blur, hurtling towards those consistent white block letters – the city.
Flashes of the night returned, and I stared into the sky with a vague smile on my face. “Why do people not like the city?”
“Because,” the guide spat. “People from the city are the most arrogant, selfish...” I tried to listen. But I gazed at the hills I saw the kids everywhere. Walking around in casts.
I softly closed my eyes as the night drifted back. In the background the guide prattled on. “... inconsiderate, immoral...”
Juggling. Spinning balls on strings.
“... stealing our resources...” Stepping around roaming pigs.
“Uncultured...” Drinking under a raft propped up by a stick.
“PreTENDERS… who don’t give a DARN about the rest of the island...” And I was amongst them, in a white dress, eating berries and getting sick from beers. And there was Jack, in a chariot pulled by six dragons racing the sun across the heavens.
“BeWARE of the SUN,” the guide warned.
I leaned my head against the window, watching the world whiz by. There was so much to organize. Where would I live? If only I could find those kids…
“That won’t be necessary,” the guide assured. “We have organized accommodation for the entirety of your stay. Now, there is a mandatory farm excursion next weekend. Mandatory,” he repeated. “Now, these families are very generous and kind to let you stay in their houses and all these details are arranged beforehand. Beforehand,” he repeated. “Absolutely no exceptions –”
“Excuse me,” I called from the back.
The guide whirled like a dervish. “Is there a problem?”
“The farm I was assigned to.” I held up the sheet. “It says ‘Beef’.”
“So?”
“Well, as a vegetarian, I’m sort of against things like that.” I scanned the paper. “Could I switch with someone, say, on the apple farm?” In a quick snap the paper vanished from my hands.
“We have worked tirelessly on these arrangements,” he said, “and I am not about to spend one more minute, not one more minute, of my life on the phone!”
I sat on the bus, staring out once again behind the glass plane, watching them fade back into nothing.
We were all dumped into a decaying train station that had been turned into housing for American kids. It sat isolated on the outskirts of town where the harbor met industrial pollution. Inside kids from North Carolina and Boston wandered eager through the station, their tribalism matched only by their social dependence on alcohol. They would head out to the waterfront, where the cruise lines sailed in, drink themselves into a stumble and then drag themselves back hanging on the arms of newfound friends, singing bar songs into the night. When not at the bars they shuffled in clusters from their rooms to the kitchen, from the lab to the laundry in endless loops, wrapped in their refuge behind the solid glass walls.
I rapped on a window that used to sell train tickets and now handled student queries. A man with a thick mustache and beady eyes appeared behind the glass. “Hi,” I smiled. “I’d like to leave this dorm.”
“I’m sorry, you can’t do that,” an American voice hissed.
“Excuse me?”
“Any student that is here on behalf of a university program holds a binding contract with the Railway Campus for accommodation that lasts for the entire duration of their study,” he rambled with a speed made for radio. “There are no refunds.”
“Okay. Well would it be possible to at least switch over to the other side of the building?” A stadium was being built next door, and men in hardhats jack-hammered away outside my window from six every morning. They were punctual.
“The building is completely full,” he said flatly. I could tell from the dead look in his eyes it was a lie.
“Okay then. I just want a cancellation. Keep the money. Just rip up the contract so I can live somewhere else.”
“All right.” The man plunged a fist down and surfaced moments later with a series of papers. “That will require you to fill out these four forms, including a detailed written explanation of the extreme circumstances which require the dissolution of your contract, a psychological evaluation and a five hundred dollar cancellation fee.”
“Five hundred dollars.” I repeated. “For you to keep my money. Just to allow me to leave.”
The man’s pencil thin lips curled into a smirk that caused the right hand side of his mustache to flick upwards. “That is the process.”
I couldn’t believe it. The friendliest country in the world had put us in a prison. All our colleges had signed contracts agreeing to this entrapment. Yet I was the only one that seemed to mind. Kids stared with open jaws at the soaring ceilings as if it were a glistening emblem of industrial progress. I had the feeling something had gone terribly wrong.
That night I could hardly touch my dinner. “I hate this place.”
Leslie slid her tray across the table and took a seat. “I like living here. It makes me feel like part of something.”
“It’s a terrarium.”
“It’s not all bad.” She stabbed at a piece of meat and twirled it round on her fork. “I’m just glad we have the internet.”
And I was invisible again. I shuffled through the faceless students, one foot in front of the other, floating, as if barely conscious. I padded through the expansive concourse, passing circles of slouched figures in khaki with faded baseball caps, sucking down cigarettes, empty conversations echoing and bouncing on the sterile tile floor and whitewashed walls. Frozen figures clustered round the washing machines, stretched over broken gas burners, draped themselves over couches and carpets. I was in no one’s company, but in the presence of hundreds.