Free The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan

see-through. Then theywould put me in a box. The box would have a light switch that’d make my thoughts glow a different colour, in my see-through skull. So they could read them. Forced telepathy – it’s the last step for total mind control.
    Imagine them waiting to hand over a wee award for finally catching them out! They’d clear it all up.
    ‘Yes, yes, Anais, we grew you in a Petri dish – you got us!’
    ‘I did?’
    ‘You did, you got us! We knew you would.’
    ‘How did you make me then?’
    ‘We grew you, yes. Clever, isn’t it!’
    ‘Not really.’
    ‘Now we’re going to keep you in a cage, next to Brian. You can read Brian’s thoughts in his see-through skull. See, Brian’s thoughts are as warped as your own.’
    That gives me the shivers. Brian’s thoughts are clearly more warped. Is it more warped tae rape a dog or tae think of murder? Thinking of murder isnae the same as murder – it’s not even like I think about murder a lot. I just think whatever the fuck it is I shouldnae think.
    Like, on a train platform, the train rushes in and I always think – Jump! Just fucking jump. Or some wee radge will be standing there, or even some nice wee old lady, and I’ll just picture my arm slamming out. Then – them dead on the train track. I dinnae wantae, I dinnae wantae think stuff like that. Probably there is something fundamentally wrong with me. Thoughts are not actions, though, thoughts dinnae mean anything – unless they do. Then you’re fucked.
    I can never work it out. Why do I think thoughts like that, unless I’m bad? Probably there’s something in me that’s gonnae come out one day and everyone will see it. I mean,even though I umnay a Brian, really – right where no-one can see – I’m rotten. There’s something wrong with me.
    It’s why nobody kept me. Except Teresa and she got murdered, and whose fault was that? The therapist said it wasnae mine, but I could have checked on her, I could have made her come through for lunch. I could have knocked on the door after her client left and asked her if she wanted a cup of tea. But I didnae, I sat in my pyjamas and ate crisps and watched cartoons while she lay there for a full fucking hour.
    The experiment know.
    They dinnae know this, though: I’d die before I’d pick on someone. I would. You dinnae bully people, ever, cos all bullies are cowards and I umnay a fucking coward, I never was. And I’d take my own life, I mean totally fucking kill myself, before I’d hurt even one hair on a bairn’s head. I wouldn’t think twice. I umnay a Brian – but they cannae tell the difference, and I’m beginning to get less sure by the year.
    Turn so my ear is pressed against the door. What if they’re behind the door? The experiment. Maybe some of them have made a bet that I’ll get in, but some have made a bet that I won’t. They could be sniggering into their test-tubes right now. They’ll ask me about it one day, on the radio, when I invent something dead useful.
    ‘So, did they grow you, Anais?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Liar.’
    ‘Am not.’
    ‘Are too. Just like in the nightmare!’
    It is always the same. In the nightmare they grow me from a pinprick, an infinitesimal scrap of bacterium, study me through microscopes while wearing radiation suits andmasks. There’s a stupid tune in my head. What is it? It’s that nursery rhyme Teresa used tae sing about what little girls are made of. Sugar and spice and all things nice; whatacrockofshit – I knew I wasnae all things nice, even then.
    ‘What did they make you out of then, Anais?’
    ‘Sugar and fucking shite, mate.’
    ‘No, really, what did they make you out of?’
    ‘Bacteria. Bacteria they scraped off some dead mother-fucking alien, you prick; now get out my fucking way!’
    The nightmare happens in the daytime. It happens in the night. It happens in the shrinking place or especially the falling place. First the tongue expands so fast you cannae blink, then it kicks in, too