March 15, 2014 · Words: 1,234
“Eat up Sam.” I hear my dad say to me from across the dinner table. “Oh come on, I don’t usually cook and you always beg me to. So why aren’t you eating?”
I poke at what appears to be a cross between spaghetti and chocolate cake. “What is it?”
“Spaghetti,” My dad answers, forking a glob into his mouth, eyeing me. “Why?”
I poke at it again. “What’s the brown stuff?”
He speaks, his mouth still stuffed with his concoction. “Part of the spaghetti. Oh come on, just eat it.”
My hand shakily grips my fork, twists some noodles around it, and shoves it in my mouth. I gag and force myself to swallow it. Suddenly my stomach starts convulsing and my vision blurs away into splotches of red and black.
I fall off my chair onto the floor clutching my stomach, and gasping for breath as I feel as if someone stuffed cotton balls down my windpipe. A pain spikes up my torso and my back arches.
After what feels like an eternity, my vision becomes sharper and out of the corner of my eye I see my dad frantically scratching notes onto a notebook.
The rest of the convulsions slowly stop, leaving me sobbing on the hard, cold floor.
My dad leaves the room shortly afterwards, slamming the Office door shut behind him. I stay on the floor for a long time, crying my heart out. I don’t see my dad for the remainder of the day.
I wake up with a start, shaking uncontrollably. It’s strange how sometimes you manage to forget your worst memories, but then relive them in your sleep.
“Come on, Sam! It’s already 6:58!” Pat says sprinting ahead of me down the hallway. “We’re gonna be late!”
I pump my arms harder and try my best to keep up. It’s one thing to be woken up by the sound of someone banging on your door, hollering that you are going to be late. Then another thing having to get ready in less than twenty seconds before that someone banging on your door becomes too impatient to wait and barges in, points out the time, then drags you out the door.
Turns out, it pays off in the long run. We burst through the doors at the training facility and join with the rest of us, who all stand in a clump, chatting nervously.
The door booms open as Kelli and Kate barrel in, Kate’s blue hair still tangled on top of her head.
Not a moment too soon. Sergeant Heath materializes behind us, along with the rest of the instructors, who all carry identical tablets.
“Good morning children,” Sergeant Heath booms, straightening out his suit. “Today is the first day of training. We will work on this for a week. It teaches all of you to keep your feelings and emotions inside of you. Not only will this help you for real hand to hand combat, so you don’t start bawling when you get injured, but in real situations, like interrogations.”
“Interrogations?” I squeak. “Why interrogations.”
Sergeant Heath ignores me and continues. “We will head into one room soon, where you will all be given the same task. Your goal is to keep it all inside of you and not show it. You will you see what I mean in a moment.”
He whirls around and leads us to the end of the facility where he ushers everyone into a brightly lit room. Inside, there is a circular table, which is basically a giant metal cylinder that juts out of the ground, with ten chairs, ten glasses of water, and ten red peppers, neatly spread apart. I force myself not to let out so much as a squeak, as we are sat down and explained to what our task at hand is.
“What we will be working on this week,” He says, “Will be repeated in various different ways. Today, your goal is to eat the pepper, sitting in front of you, without reaching for your glass of water, which is a temptation. And in all situations you will be in, there are always temptation in front of you. You will see what the consequence of falling for temptations is soon. You must sit for five minutes, after finishing your pepper, so eat it fast, and the faster it will be over.”
Sergeant Heath finishes instructing us and steps back. Our instructors step forward, tablets in hand, and begin typing in things, gazing over our shoulders at our faces.
The kids around me shift in their seats uncomfortably, unwilling to be the first to grab their pepper off the table. Then all eyes dart over to Baker as he snatches his off his table and pops it into his mouth. His face immediately turns bright red, and breathing heavily, attempts to keep his face straight, but suddenly breaks out gasping and dives for his water. A whole in the table opens up and the glass of water falls through, disappearing, before Baker can wrap his clammy hands around it.
The rest of us now press into the backs of our chairs, trying to keep our distance from the tiny red peppers. I finally work up the gut to pick it up and pop it in my mouth, where it immediately dissolves on my tongue. A blast of hot and spicy explodes in my mouth and works its way down my throat. I gasp, trying to cool it off, which only causes it to burn more fiercely. Out of the corner of my eye, I see kids, pop their peppers into their mouths, then instantly dive for their water glasses, which disappear through the table.
I ram my hands under my bottom, fighting the urge to dive forward and gulp down the water, to soften the burning in my mouth. I try to breath slowly, to no avail, it burns on. After an eternity of squirming and sweating, clamping my hand over my mouth, not paying attention to the other kids, who not only are doing the same thing that I am, but have no water in front of them, I finally can’t stand it anymore and dive for my water, expecting it to disappear. I hear a beep the moment my hand touches the cool glass.
“Five minutes,” someone says.
I want to collapse and relief, and continue grabbing the water. It drops through the table and disappears, leaving my outstretched hand empty.
“What?” I cough and sputter, sweating. “Five minutes is up…”
“Yes,” I hear Sergeant Heaths voice say quietly. “However, you were fidgeting too much. In a real situation, the temptation would still mean your death. So, better not to reach for it at all, and just sit tight next time.”
He and the instructors, who madly punch in notes on their tablets, silently file out the room and shut the door behind them with a resounding click.
I’m the first to get up and walk to the door. Somehow I’m not surprised to find it locked.
This is going to be a very very very long week.
I thought the first day of shoving not real but insanely burning peppers into our mouths was bad. We eventually, started eating just really disgusting-make-you-want-to-vomit-foods.
Author's Note from 2020: Lol so apparently this is where I gave up writing this story. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it :)
© Jody Lin 2021