Free Cages by Chris Pasley

understood then why no one talked much at
lunch, why everyone was always so quiet, why it was so difficult to get close
to anyone.  And I knew that once Remi got out of solitary I would have
nothing whatsoever to do with him.  At that moment I was on Conyers's
side.  We were all bad.
    The bullet holes meant
something else now.  They were comforting in a way.  I knew that
every time I passed one that a Beast had been killed there, and I felt a little
safer.  The posters on the walls were protective totems, shielding me from
whatever external influence might make me go Beast.  And they were
foreign, these parasites, even if they lived inside of me.  Surely there
was some way to kill them?  I was actually entertaining some way of
putting my hand in the school cafeteria microwave as an experiment by the time
Mr. Jarvis's class rolled around.
    He was somber that day, with
none of his bouncy good mood.  Beast incidents were not uncommon, but most
people are spared seeing all of them; they're isolated across the
Quaratine.  But this had been a abomination we all had seen and shared in,
and so the pain seemed that much deeper.  After the daily roll call
and a brief scare where one kid didn’t hear his name, h e started to write a poem up on the whiteboard by E.E.C ummings, something about the rain, but he soon stopped as his hand shook
too much to continue.
    Jarvis turned to the
class.  "Nobody wants to talk about it," he said brokenly. 
"Nobody ever wants to talk about it.  It's like bad luck.  Even
in the teacher's lounge we...we talk as if nothing had happened, though it's
clear that something very definitely has.  This class is about meaning,
finding meaning in stories and events.  We should not shy away from
it.  What did this mean?  What did it mean to you?"
    No one sniggered, no one
snorted.  They were entranced by his sincerity. 
    "I want us to do some
writing, all of us.  I want us to write what it was that we saw
yesterday.  I want to write down how it made me feel, and what it made me
feel like ."  Jarvis held his head in his hands.  "So
this is what I want all of us to do.  You can start now if you want, and
turn it in tomorrow.  Remember...be honest.  That is what the most
powerful writing is, you know, honest.  True."  He pulled out
his desk chair and sat down.  He uncapped a pen and turned a page on his
notebook.  "Tomorrow I will share what I wrote and I hope some of you
will share yours."
    All I could hear after that
was the sound of pencils scratching over notebook paper as the students took to
their work.  I saw some simply put their paper away and stare off into
space.  I saw one girl doodling in the margins, but ignoring the writing
space altogether.  Still, most of the class seemed to relish the chance to
vent their feelings, something Quarantine rarely encouraged outside of
indulgences like the Blind Hall.  I looked down at my paper and felt what
I assume Jarvis must have felt.  Just a longing to get it all down, so the
thing I had experienced wouldn't slip away from me.  I began to
write. 
    I still had joined no real
after-school club or intramural, so I was alone when I knocked on Conyers's
door.  The locks to the outer lobby of his office scraped open laboriously
and I was greeted by the MP5 muzzle of one of his pet guards, who curtly asked
"What?"
    I explained that I wanted to
talk to the Principal.
    The guard's eyes narrowed, but
he said "Wait," and shut the door again.  Three minutes later it
reopened.  "Okay.  You can come in."
    The graffiti Remi had drawn in
the lobby was gone without a trace.  Just as Wilson's office had been, the
lobby was freshly painted with no signs of anything amiss.  The guard
gestured to the main office door and I knocked gently.
    "Come in." 
Conyers's voice.
    I turned the handle and
stepped inside.  The last time I had been in this office I had been too
focused on getting the bug in place to notice much about my surroundings,