nonconformiTy

The Institution

Only the incessant ticking of the grandfather clock down the hall breaks my silence as I write today. The people here love anything uniform, that is why the clock is here. I also know that its placement in this location serves the purpose of indirectly and constantly reminding us of why we are here. I refuse to let them get to me--refuse to let them believe they have alleviated my so-called insanity. I always try to do everything conceivable to rebel against them. Everything that they stand against, I am for. They told my mother I had an illness, but not to worry: it was curable. That is, if I was sent to the right place.

Rehabilitation. For the socially impaired and unacceptable. As you can probably tell, I fit into the second category.

Honestly, if you ask me (most people wouldn't ask a mental patient for their opinion on anything), I become less and less socially acceptable with each tick and tock of that stupid clock. They keep me locked in a room for the majority of the day. I am only allowed outside of my quarter once a week since my behavior is “deplorable” (a word the shrink loves to use). So, I have essentially become socially withdrawn and cannot be bothered with pointless things like small talk. The only remotely social activity I ever resort to is my harassment of the staff members here. I purposefully go out of my way to terrorize them with my "deplorable behavior". It's a fun, masochistic game of cat and mouse on my part-  I break a rule, and they take away the privilege that allowed me to do it. One obvious example of this is that they have shaved off my hair, since I broke the dress code one too many times with it. So, I just become more socially recluse, planning my next deviation while locked away "safely" in my prison cell.

My quarter is sterile and white. Very white. The walls are white, my bed is white, and the sub-zero, feet slaughtering tiles are white. They say that white is a pure color. When I first moved here a few months ago, I had sarcastically made a racist remark and claimed they were being chauvinistic. For that, I was punished. I still believe that they were overly sensitive about it, though. I had probably made a point. I’m perceptive like that. But, apparently I'm the only who sees it. Who knows? Maybe I am crazy.

I suppose you're wondering why I was put here in the first place. Then you ought to understand the current circumstances of the world. This is the year 2102. You would have believed that the world had progressed in its ability to comprehend individuality, but quite the polar opposite has happened. Social standards have been changed and gender roles are reverted to the primal theory that men must be masculine and work hard and women must be feminine and domestic. Music has no words and must follow the same, repetitive beat (much like the grandfather clock down the hall). Art must be only of Biblical images. And you must dress according to the dress code: silver and white. Color has been drained from the world altogether.

I am seventeen years old. I am a young woman. I used to be the happy daughter of two of our civilization's most reputable historians. They had a... nonconventional form of teaching me about history. They told it to me not from the censored history textbooks given to people my age, but fhey told me the truth from the perspective of the people that lived during that time. I fell in love with the information age, where an invention called the internet allowed everyone to share their multitude of opinions and ideas. Naturally, as the moldable teenager I was at the time, these free-thinkers became my idols, my role models. I wore thick, black eyeliner. I painted my nails black. I used to let my hair fall onto my face and dyed it charcoal black. And to top off my wardrobe, I wore a hot pink tie. My parents did not share my idolization of these times. I had always believed that it was because they, just like my friends, had learned from a censored textbook. But I was wrong, they were just cowardly sheep, submitting to being thoroughly squashed underneath some higher power's pinky.