The Walls Of Jericho
X Files Fiction
by
Elizabeth Mansfield
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Samantha Mulder sat on the chair. Waiting. She looked at the picture on the wall. It was the sole splash of colour in the room. It was a watercolour of red tulips, framed but with no glass. She looked at the ceiling with the fluorescent light covered by an ugly metal mesh. The light hummed. Even after all this time that hum irritated her. And they never turned it off. She looked to her bed. A single with a medium-hard mattress, with only a flocked white spread. No pillow, no sheet, just in case. Samantha tried not to think. Thinking was bad. If you thought, things happened. That was why there was no glass in front of the watercolour of the red tulips and why she didn't have a sheet on her bed and why there was a metal mesh over a light fixture set into a nine foot high ceiling. There was no hope of running away. It was the other form of escape they sought to prevent. She returned to looking at the picture. She could stare at it for hours. It was a reward. And if she didn't do as they said they would take it away. Her mind started to drift. She remembered daddy. She tried to suppress that memory but too late. She remembered daddy, mother, Fox. She remembered them taking her away from daddy as mother screamed. What had mother being saying?
"I hate you. I hate you." What had daddy said? "It's all your fault." And Fox? He'd just watched. Why had they taken her? Even now she didn't know. How long ago had they taken her? She didn't know. The room had no window. (She would never, ever call it her room.) And she hadn't seen the sun since that day. Outside was a long forgotten memory. Samantha remembered putting on her mother's lipstick, her perfume and teetering on her high-heeled shoes. She'd wanted to show daddy that she was better than mother, prettier than mother, nicer than mother. He'd smiled and let her sit on his lap as she painted her toe-nails with mother's nail polish. That had been nice.
Then mother had come home. She'd screamed and pulled Samantha off her father by her hair, dragged her upstairs into the bathroom and scrubbed off the lipstick, perfume and nail-polish. She'd been crying and screaming. She'd locked them in the bathroom and daddy had hammered on the door and screamed at her to open it. Mother had slapped her and wept. And when she'd bent to get a tissue Samantha had unlocked the door and let daddy in. Daddy ordered Samantha to her room and had locked the bathroom door after she left. Samantha hadn't seen mother for a week afterwards. She'd stayed in her room. And daddy had bought Samantha a big bottle of perfume and a bright red lipstick and told her it was their secret. Samantha wondered if mother had sent her away. Probably. Mother didn't like her.
Samantha stood up and walked to the small table where her hairbrush was. She picked up the brush and ran it through her long, dark hair. She wished she could just look in a mirror. But they would never let her and she didn't dare ask. She put the brush down and for the thousandth time traced the network of scars on her left arm. She could remember how she received each and every one, no matter how hard she tried to forget. But they weren't the worst.
One of them, a man in a white coat with dark brown eyes had been nice to her. If she smiled at him the tests didn't hurt quite so much. Then one day the nasty man had appeared, he'd pointed his cigarette at her and said to the brown eyed man: "Carry out my orders." She still woke in the night screaming at the memories of what had happened afterwards. She never smiled at any of them again. Especially not the brown eyed man. She wanted to, because maybe if she smiled just right and did exactly as they asked they'd let her die. That temptation was too great. She didn't want to die. They'd taken everything but her will to live and be free.
The door opened. She jumped and bumped the table, her brush fell to the floor. Two men in white coats walked in. They didn't say anything. She walked over to them. At first she'd refused to go, she kicked, screamed and fought. But they'd soon stopped that. And now they didn't have to say a word to her, the memories of the drugs burning through her and the old scars on her back that ached even now were enough, she knew better.
One of the men grasped her by the arm, she'd have a bruise there later but that was the least she'd have to worry about, and led her out of the room and down the corridor. She looked straight ahead and pretended not to hear the screams and moans coming from other rooms.
If she could hold on, one day she'd be free. Hold on for just another minute. Just another hour. Just another day. Just another week. Just another month. Just another year. She had to believe that. It was all she had left.
P-Con VI March 27th/28th/29th 2009
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