America the Poor: A Wanderers Tale, Vol Two

Chapter 46: The Last Supper, and A Horror, not a Meal

Did any of us really deserve to be there? Short of the judgment of a supreme being like God, who's to truly say what any of us really deserved, but regardless, we were there, and experienced some horrifying things, and I'm not sure anyone really deserved this life, for any length of time.

Jeremy didn't join the games, not that first day, but seemed to pace back and forth between the TV room and the Dayroom, perhaps getting some weird kicks from watching the droolers and chair rockers, they were always present there doing their crazy things. I have to admit personally, If I wasn't trapped in there, it would have made for fun entertainment just watching their behavior.

At one point he picked up a worn paperback novel, less out of real interest than lack of anything else to do probably, and again sat across from me. A while before dinner was called, not a long while, since it was getting close, we heard the inner door to the cafeteria open. Sound carried too easily throughout the hallways, especially if a door was open already.

We all heard the jangling and banging of the many carts they used to bring everything in. However, this time, the noise was the least of it, and quite welcome compared to what was coming for me. A few minutes after the noise that signaled the preparation of dinner, an intense smell started spreading throughout the halls, faster than any smell had any right to spread. In my life I've inhaled a lot of extreme things, both wonderful and decidedly not so wonderful, from the amazing natural perfumes of certain flowers, to the horrifying scents of long dead and decaying animals. The difference being basically Heaven and Hell, as represented through the most overlooked living sense, smell.

Something powerfully horrible permeated the entire ward, and if this was representative of the coming dinner then I, and many others, wanted to distance ourselves if we could, as far away as possible. I saw a boy playing cards start coughing, and I knew it was a reaction to whatever this was. Jeremy, across the table, wrinkled his nose, and I started trying to hold my breath, and shortly started only breathing through my mouth. I put my shirt over my nose and mouth in futile hopes of masking this scent, though I haven't a clue what it actually was.

In my 14 years of life, I'd never smelled anything remotely like this, and the vegetables my Uncle tried to force me to eat seemed like sweet ambrosia in comparison. If this was dinner, I'd much prefer not to ever go.

I've tasted vegetables that have hit my gag reflex before, but never had this reaction just smelling something like this. I went to the restroom around the back end up the ward (which I was allowed to do finally) just to get away from it, and ran the water in the sink, and drenched my face, taking my sweet time to do this. I stayed there the full 15 minutes, which was my maximum allotted time in the restroom at my level. When I was escorted back to the common areas, the abhorrent scent was still everywhere, and I suppressed the urge to start gagging. It wasn't easy, since I'm very sensitive to such things. Trying to read my novel, with my shirt over my nose and mouth wasn't a simple thing, since it kept falling down. Jeremy still kept a crinkled up nose, as though trying to someone block this, and I kept noticing other boys with disgusted looks.

Dinner was called, and it was to be my last dinner there in that place, though I didn't realize it then. I was one of the last ones to shuffle in, and that was my first regret, that I shuffled in at all. Attendance at the meals were mandatory, whether we ate or not. That was both a rule, and a limitation. Strangely enough, there was an empty seat directly across my new associate Jeremy, and being that he didnt drool, wasnt dumb as a rock, and didnt yet hate my guts, there I sat. I thought I was ready for what was coming, but I wasn't, not even close.

As I sat, my hard plastic tray was placed directly in front of me. There was a small juice, a milk, a lonely unadorned chicken patty, an orange,and a large steaming pile of chopped yellow pieces of something I'd never seen. This by far took up the largest section of the tray. I hadn't a single clue what they actually were, but the overwhelming smell was undoubtedly from these piles on all the trays. With the aroma and source directly in front of my face,