Sophie (part III)

1

Three weeks passed like nails on a chalkboard. Days bled together in an obnoxious, eeky sort of way which resulted in restless evenings and sleepless nights. Dread hung like a grey cloud, blotting out any rays of contentment from Sophie’s increasingly scattered existence. She wondered if she could sue the hospital for causing clinical depression, but decided that if they could loophole their way out of giving her care, she would probably end up owing them money if the case ever made it before a judge. She also contemplated the merits of arson, but decided that the risks outweighed the giddy psychosis which danced in her subconscious, playing on her frazzled nerves. In spite of the rage, the anticipation, the abject fear, three weeks did indeed pass and a shiny black car sat in front of the apartment complex waiting for her to emerge, bag in hand.2

The car ride—an unfortunate seven hour excursion spent exclusively in silence left absolutely unbroken—left Sophie with a horrifying case of cabin fever which seemed to counteract her overactive imagination and quiet her nervous tendencies. She couldn’t have cared less about the destination to which they were headed as long as she could leave this chamber of conversationless doldrums and incurable motion sickness to once again breathe free from the overwhelming new car smell. It saturated the air and choked her. The silence smothered her. The unchanging scenery left her cross-eyed. She had never been so far from home.3

The car eventually rolled to a stop in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere. The landscape was dotted with the skeletal remains of dormant deciduous trees and unhappy bushes that might have been planted to one day turn into a hedge. The ground was dusted with a few inches of snow which swirled around Sophie’s feet and across the wide plains. It must have drifted from somewhere else because the air seemed too dry and the sky to clear for even the basest snowfall. The rest of the area was utterly flat; the horizon could be seen fleeing with the curvature of the earth. Even the road hinted at the solitary state of this odd section of the continent. It was a dirt, one lane travesty hastily constructed for the sole purpose of arriving in this specific point. The facility—the only building for at least an hour in any given direction—stood as the lone reminder that mankind could willingly venture out into the veritable tundra to cultivate the dead, rock ridden earth. Architecturally speaking, it seemed unnecessarily large against the stark backdrop, but perhaps this was simply due to a lack of perspective and proportion. It was built out of some strange conglomeration of steel paneling and stone work with a very few, large windows on the first floor, though nowhere else. Sophie had a sudden urge to tell the driver to turn the car around when she saw the razor wire fence peeking from the back of the multi-floor complex. No memory research institute should require so much security. Unfortunately, when she turned to proclaim her desire to evacuate the premises immediately, a portly woman was taking broad, lilting steps towards the front doors of the prison camp, Sophie’s luggage in toe.4

“Oh good criminy,” Sophie blinked in disbelief and then took off after the lady who had pilfered her luggage, fighting the urge to yell ‘Stop, suitcase thief!’ all the way through the front doors of the great, grey monolith. She hit the lobby at a light jog and had closed the distance between her person and her belongings substantially, though unnecessarily. The woman, who upon closer observation appeared a jolly creature who was round everywhere though somehow still healthy, stopped at the front desk, slapped a sticker on the luggage and then turned, offering a clipboard piled to an almost comical height. She handed the stack to Sophie with a sweet, toothy smile which made Sophie wonder, if only for a moment, if this grand woman had not been a fairy godmother in another life.5

“If you’ll read and fill out all the pages, we’ll get you set up in a room as soon as possible,” she cooed, then once again snagged the baggage and waltzed from the room with unexpected grace.6

“Luggage, come back!” Sophie wheezed just a few decibels above inaudible. Her forlorn cry went unanswered and Sophie wandered mindlessly to a chair nestled in the corner farthest from the front desk and plopped down. She took the opportunity to assess the lobby in hopes that any information gleaned could ease her into this nightmarish circumstance. The room was square with two large windows on either side of the glass door which let in the lifeless glow of the winter sun. The walls were painted in typical health service shades of mauve, grey, and ecru—inoffensive hues neither too stark nor reminiscent of bodily fluids or natural life. Two halls ran from the far end toward some unknown destination lit exclusively by tube lights flickering more blue than yellow. A laminated desk sat in the most omniscient corner, though Sophie couldn’t see who was manning the phones. The only hint at any out of the ordinary circumstance was the security system—a network of unnecessarily elaborate, barely hidden security cameras and sensors. Such advanced circuitry seemed excessive in the remote location chosen to support the facility.7

Satisfied by her rudimentary observations, Sophie turned her eyes to the veritable novel in her lap and began to scan the coversheet. It provided no information worthy of long term retention aside from the facility’s name—Meadowbrook Clinic: Research Campus. Sophie smirked lightly at this industrial complex was near no brooks or meadows; she could say with relative certainty she was in some sort of desert. The amusement faded and she moved on to the next page which turned out to be a standard medical history form. She felt a wave of relief, weight, allergies, tattoos, piercings, and the like. This continued for a hefty percentage of the stack, but the questions became more invasive and obscured. The nature of the paperwork changed mid-stack to a single, very long legal document. Sophie contemplated the merits of interpreting the legal jargon for the next few hours, but decided against it. She flipped to the end, signed her name reluctantly, and stretched before standing. She meandered over to the desk and set the clipboard down in front of the receptionist who was wrapped up in some cheap novelette. The woman sat still for a moment, then set down the book with one hand while grabbing the document with the other. Sophie hovered over the desk as the click of acrylic nails on plastic keys filled the room.8

Suddenly Sophie heard a voice lightly call her name. She whirled to see the portly woman standing in the intersection of the two hallways, beckoning to her with a ridiculous though intensely genuine grin pasted on like the expression on a classic paper doll.9

"Miss Sophie, if you'll follow me we'll get you situated with your roommate. You must be absolutly famished after such a long journey.