87

Can you believe it?! Right here in our town this establishment which is the emblem of family, a picture of community and friendship, is now advertising Smoke for Free! What a disgrace to our hearth and home that this so called "Family restaurant" is now offering free smokes. My brother says they are doing just the opposite, but how can that be true when it says right on their own sign "Smoke Free"?
No one should ever smoke for any reason! And that's final.

I was working on a story. I was telling one of the Moms in our church that I wanted to write stories that have twists. I was saying how it's kind of hard to think of them for stories. She said I should ask God for good ideas in stories. So I did, and I believe He has given me some. Praise God! God bless all of you.

87

Hi, my name is 87. That’s what it says on my shoulder. I used to be 88, but 87 left. I don’t know where the old 87 went to. Every Thursday the Caretaker stamps my name on my shoulder. The Caretaker is kind; he gives me a pill before he stamps me. It makes me not to hurt so much. The kind Caretaker doesn’t like loud noises. If anybody cries he gives him a pill.
I can’t tell you what I look like. I haven’t looked in a mirror for a long time. I think I have brown hair, I can kind of tell when I’ve pulled my hair out. Sometimes I stare at the tips of my fingernails; they are a bizarre color. I am always dressed in a red suit with a gold colored zipper down the front. Attached to the zipper is a red and black tag that says 87. I don’t have shoes. Neither do the other men.
The kind Caretaker has shoes. He wears a red smock. He has other clothes on underneath. I can tell he does because I see them next to his ankles. I don’t think he knows that I can see them. He also has a red wristwatch that he looks at often. Sometimes when I have been crying and he’s given me a pill, he looks at his wristwatch until I stop crying.
I go to Class every day. The kind Caretaker teaches me and the other men. He teaches us many important things like; the Caretaker is kind because he gives me pills, red is a beautiful color, or I have strong feet so I have no need of shoes. The kind Caretaker also teaches how do things such as; being still and quiet as I watch a clock. I like watching the clock. It makes me feel peaceful. I rejoiced when we got a new clock. It has red numbers. Red is beautiful. We got the new clock after 83 got angry and broke the other one. I was scared when he did that, but the kind Caretaker gave him a pill.
The kind Caretaker also teaches me how to write about the things I imagine in my mind. The kind Caretaker says I have a superior imagination. He liked my story about a young girl in a red dress who was content all day to merely count her toes on her bare feet. Every day the kind Caretaker commands me to write my thoughts. I have many thoughts to write about. I enjoy writing my thoughts and stories.
While we were supposed to be watching the clock the old 87 used to distract me. He would talk to me by making letters with his hands.
Before the old 87 left he told me that we were in a test, a test on humans. He said that I am a human. He said that humans should not have to be tested if they don’t want to. He said most humans don’t have tests done on them. He told me that all humans outside of this structure do not have tests done on them. He told me to get out of the structure. He told me to be courageous.
One day the kind Caretaker saw him making signs.
I don’t know where the old 87 went.
The room I live in has a bed and a chair. It has red concrete block walls. With a wire I broke off the bed I scrape the cracks between the blocks every night before I sleep. The cracks I scrape are behind the bed so that the kind Caretaker doesn’t see them. The old 87 said I shouldn’t tell the kind Caretaker what I am doing because he is testing me.
I have been making the cracks larger for a long time. I can now remove two blocks, but I keep them in place so that the kind Caretaker doesn’t see. Sometimes I cry loudly because it takes so long to loosen the blocks. The kind Caretaker gives me a pill.
A few days ago I looked through the hole. I saw a dimly lit red hallway. The light would move around on the walls and floor. Someone walked past. They had shoes. I quickly slid the block back in place and lay in my bed pretending to be asleep. No one came.
The former 87 didn’t tell me how to get out of the structure, but I will try tonight. I lay in my bed and waited for a long while. Then I silently pulled out the blocks. Slowly I looked out. It was pitch dark. When I saw no one, I slipped through the crack and stuffed in the blanket behind me so no light would shine through from my room.
The concrete floor in the hall was cold and clean on my bare feet. While feeling the block wall I slowly stood up. I couldn’t see anything. I didn’t know which way to go. I picked left. I raised one arm in front of me as I touched the wall with the other. I took a small step.
Another.
Some thing cold met my hand. It was flat and hard but not a block wall. It was a concrete wall. After feeling the whole surface for a door or handle, I felt nothing. I slowly turned in the opposite direction and proceeded past my break in the wall, down the dark hall.
For a long time I walked slowly, shuffling alongside the wall I was touching. Suddenly as I stepped forward, my foot touched air. Startled, I stopped and slowly lowered my foot down feeling for a step. Nothing. I reached down with my hand. Of course I could feel the edge of the concrete upon which I as standing but nothing further.
Nothing.
I couldn’t understand it. It was just a hole.
I was vexed to escape. I thought it would be simple to leave the structure. It wasn’t simple. The person with the shoes I had seen before must have gotten in here somewhere. I felt along the walls past the edge into the hole.
On the left side my hand touched a metal pipe.
A ladder was apparently bolted to the wall. I pulled a little on it. It moved slightly, but it was still reasonably solid. I had to step over a gap from the edge to the ladder. I was fearful. With much anxiety I eventually got down the ladder. At the bottom of the hole was a door.
I swung the door open.
A bright light blinded me. I quickly spun back inside the hole and clumsily climbed a few steps of the ladder.
Upon hearing no alarms I hesitantly stepped down again. Carefully I open the door a second time and let my eyes adjust. I was standing at the end of a brightly lit red hall. Many doors led off to either side. Beside each door was a large window. From where I was standing I couldn’t see inside the windows. I took a few steps forward and looked in the nearest window.
I stood there shocked. Inside, was a man. He was wearing a suit. His suit was an exceedingly bizarre color. It was the same color as the tips of my fingernails. It was the same color as the other men’s teeth. It was the same color as around their eyes. It wasn’t red. Red is the beautiful color.
The whole room was the same color. All the walls, floor, and ceiling were the color of the tips of my fingernails. There wasn’t any other color in the room. His zipper was bizarre. The chair upon which the man was sitting was bizarre. Even his hair was bizarre. I stood dazed as I watched the bizarre sight.
The man must not have seen me. He just stared at the fingernail tip colored floor in front of him. I knocked on the glass. He slowly looked up. When he saw me he lurched forward with a crazed look on his face. It was then I saw the he had teeth colored straps holding his arms and legs to the chair. The chair was bolted to floor.
He tried all the harder to get free, writhing with convulsions. Suddenly he started loudly moaning and shrieking.
It set off the whole hall. From the rooms I could hear hysterical yells and irritable grumbling, sorrowful crying and frightened screaming. I was so afraid that I put my hands over my ears and ran back to the hole and shut the door. I sank down in the dark and quietly began to whimper myself.
Why did they have scream so loudly? Why did the man have to dress in such an ugly color? Why did he have to act that way? What were they all doing?
Then I remembered what the old 87 said. They were humans. They were in a test. Humans should not have to be tested if they don’t want to. I had to escape the structure.
With resolve I bravely opened the door and again stepped from the red hole to the red hall. As I walked down the hall towards the door at the other end I looked in the men’s rooms.
One man was strapped to a chair in a room where everything was black. Another man was strapped to the wall while massive fans on the other side of the room blew huge amounts of air on him. Another man sat strapped to a chair while he listened to a speaker which repeated the sentence “If nobody does nothing, nothing will happen to nobody.” over and over again. One man had a yellow armature attached to his waist that moved him in a circular motion.
As I walked down the hall I came to an especially peculiar and morbid one. Inside this room was a huge tank of water. In the tank was a man suspended upside-down with a tube going into his mouth. I think the tube was for air, but I don’t why he was hanging upside-down in water. I concluded that it must be a test. I looked at the sad sight of the man hanging underwater as he stared at me. Something seemed familiar about him.
Suddenly his eyes widened. He started vigorously motioning me as the other men had. Then he started making movements his hands.
Signs.
It was the old 87! I could now recognize him. How he could possibly be down here I couldn’t imagine. I studied his hands to see what he was saying.
“Help!”
He pointed to the door. I had assumed the doors were locked but maybe they weren’t. I tried the door and it opened. Inside on the wall next to the door were some dials and switches with different labels. The switches controlled different aspects of the room, water temperature, oxygen pressure, etc. One button said “Binder Off” I spontaneously pushed it. With a splash his legs fell into the water. He pulled off his mask and swam to the edge of the tank.
“Thanks man.” He said as pulled himself over the side.
He stood there, his clothes dripping.
“Man, I thought I’d never get out of there.” He combed his hand through his wet hair. “Took you long enough. What have you been doing all this time?”
I stood there looking at him with a blank stare not knowing what to say. How would I have known that he had been in that tank for so long?
“Hey man, don’t like, let it get ya’ down, at least you’re here. Let’s get out a this terrible structure.” He marched to the door and looked both ways. “We gotta’ go fast. They have security cameras everywhere.”
He ran as I followed towards the double doors at other end of the red hall. He tried the door. It was locked, but that didn’t slow him for a second. He ripped the tag off my zipper and sliced it through the crack while he turned the handle. It opened effortlessly. I looked with amazement at his quick thinking. “Hey, that was a cinch.” He grinned as he handed me my tag. I took it with obedience. He stepped through the door and then poked his head back in and said, “You know it would be a whole lot safer for me not take you with me, but I’ll take you anyways.” I didn’t know what to think about the old 87. He was just like he used to be.
I stepped through the doorway. I was shocked. It was the fingernail tip color. I looked around the expansive room at all manner of boxes and containers that had the bizarre color.
“What color is that?” I asked him as we jogged toward a suspended stairway.
“Huh? Where man?” He said as he looked around.
“There.” I pointed to one of the many support pillars.
“White? What about it?”
“I’ve never really seen it before.”
“Wow man. That’s crazy.”
He ran up the stairs, and took a left onto a suspended pathway that led us above the many rows of supplies. His wet clothes dropped water on the boxes below.
“Do you know where were going?” I questioned.
“No, but we’ll get out of this structure sooner or later.” He replied.
When we got to the end of the walkway we came to another door. Which was locked. I held up my tag, which I had been holding. “No this is a different type. It’s got a keypad.” He said pointing to a small metal box with a large red button and small white buttons. I was growing more accustom to the color. He tried poking a few of the numbers. Nothing happened. Then he pushed the red button.
Something happened. It set off an alarm through the room .
“Oh great, just what we need.” He grumbled. Some doors opened up below us and on the other side of room.
“You better run fast man.” He whispered and ran back down the walkway. I could see men down below pointing to us and yelling. The old 87 climbed onto the side off the walkway and jumped onto some tall boxes clambering down other boxes to the floor. I followed along.
“Watch out for their tranquilizers.” He warned as we weaved around pallets of equipment. “They shoot them out of guns.”
I heard a loud bang as I saw something hit the box in front of me. I dodged back and forth threw the stacks trying to keep up with the old 87. His wet feet slapped on the concrete.
“Let’s go back to red hallway.” I suggested
“No, they’d trap us. Follow me” He commanded.
A man dressed in a black vest swung around the box in front of the old 87 and pointed something at him. The old 87 dived at the other mans legs and bowled him over, stunning him. The old 87 immediately jumped and ran on. We were passing right by the door to the red hall.
“Wait,” I said, “I know a way to get out.”
“No, keep running.” He again yelled.
“No, I think we should go this way.” I persisted. Running to the door I swung it open.
“No.” He said.
I refused and ran through the door into the red hall. I heard him turn and follow after me.
“You can’t go this way, you’re gonna’ get trapped.” He shouted.
I ignored him knowing that he didn’t have any other good plans. The humans in the rooms beside me blurred past as they stared in wonder. I reached the open door that led to the hole. “Hey, you’re trapped.” The old 87 said as he ran up behind me.
“No, there’s a way out. I made it myself.” I insisted. I scrambled up a few rungs of the ladder.
The old 87 grabbed my leg and yanked me down.
“I mean it man. YOU…ARE…TRAPPED.” He said smirking at me. “It’s over. You had your little run. Now you’re done.”
I lay on the floor stunned in confusion. What was he saying? There’s still a chance of escape. We got to hurry. I tried to clamber onto the ladder but he kicked me down. ”Don’t you get it? It Is Over. You’re still in the test. Hey, I’m sorry I had to lead you on that I was your friend, but that’s my job, Ok?”
By now the other men had arrived. One of them gave the old 87 a bottle of water, which he drank gladly.
“Can one of you get me a towel, I’m soaked.” He said. One of the men jogged back towards the large room. I could hear a few whimpers from the hall. “What’s happening?” I asked staring at the strange scene before me.
The old 87 looked down at me, “Some things I told you were true, you are human, you are having tests done on you, but it’s not like it’s bad or anything. Plenty of other human’s are being tested. So don’t worry about escaping the structure. You don’t need to and it isn’t going to happen. You will just go back to the same Class with the same kind Caretaker, and all the other men.”
The End

Did you like my story? I wrote it today and yesterday. The kind Caretaker says it was very imaginative. The kind Caretaker says I have a superior imagination. I enjoy writing my thoughts. I will go watch the clock with the other men soon. To let you know, I have seen the color white before. Sometimes the clothes underneath the kind Caretaker’s red smock are white. Also, one of the other men has partially white hair. But I like red better. Red is beautiful.