I’m shouting at the top of my lungs and I don’t think I can get any louder. “S***! No! I don’t want to! Please, don’t make me go in there! Not again! I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I promise.”

The white gloves cover the cold, crooked fingers that clinch my arm in a tight bind that almost hurts. It would hurt if I wasn’t so used to the grip.

The first time I went in to the room I was only seven. Apparently the fact that the girl who sat next to me wanted to play vampire and decided to sink her teeth in to me didn’t matter. I guess I completely deserved to go to the room for punching her in the nose. I know it was wrong, but as the red waterfall gushed from her nose and splattered drops of rouge crimson on the floor I felt… good. I felt powerful. But the power quickly faded when the gloved hands rendered my struggles useless. I was dragged to a small silver box that teleported us to a higher level of the building, then down a hallway to the second door to the left.

The room can be dark, very, very dark. Or the light from the window can make it as bright inside as it is outside, but the vale curtains are always closed. There isn’t much in the room. When I was little all I noticed in the room, besides the window that is, was a single solemn desk directly in the center. Now as I have grown older, more observant, and much more familiar with the room, I know everything about it.

The second time I went to the room I cried. I cried like an infant that had not known anything apart from his mother’s womb. I know that an 11 year old shouldn’t cry but I couldn’t help myself. This time I would have to in the room for even longer. As if the first time wasn’t enough. To the Gloves, if you sinned again and they found out, you hadn’t stayed in the room long enough. They have it all mapped out. An equation if you will. Actually there was an equation. They never told us that but I figured it out. I had lots of time to think about it. I may be a troublemaker, and a little cruel, but I’m not stupid. It’s simple really, the age you will be on your next birthday plus the number of offences you have on your record is equal to the number of hours you must stay in the room. If you are lucky enough to have been attacked or assaulted the number of those inverted offences can take a max of 2 hours off your time in the room. So I was 11 years old, I had one offence on my record and no inverted offences, well none on record. I spent 12 hours in an empty room. Nothing to eat, nothing to drink, nothing to do.

During my 12-hour stay I started to look around. It is a small room so I use the word “look” quite literally. I didn’t even have to move from my place atop the desk. There is no chair, so I sit on top of the desk with my legs crossed. The darkness makes the air feel thick and heavy the way it does on a hot day after months of drought and it is hard to make out any shapes in the room. As my eyes adjust, I can tell there aren’t any shapes to see anyway, just four walls. I sit facing the door. On the wall opposing the door the window is placed to provide the light from the outside world. Only it doesn’t. The vale curtain is made of so many layers that the only light that escapes is a tiny sliver jutting out from the underside of the window. I hate this room so much.

I hate the room but while I’m there I might as well make to most of it. I like to imagine that people come in to question me, like I’m a badass spy that has just been captured and is holding very important information that must be brought back to the Specs at HQ. If the Gloves got this information everything would be over. They would know everything. They would know the Hollow Points’ deepest darkest secrets. They have been trying to fix the broken, heal the sick, feed the hungry, and clean that of which is unclean for years now! They think we are unclean. If you do not where the color white that represents purity, then you are unclean. They think we are evil, but they are the ones who neglect the broken, they do not provide medication for the poor and dying, they feed those who can feed themselves, and if you are not one of them, you are unclean. If you wear black like the Hollow Points then you are flirting with the color that represents death and despair, and therefore must be unclean. If they got the information the whole mission would be a failure. As my dreams of interrogation become more vivid I tend to get lost. Sometimes I make it hard for myself to see the line between the real and the fantasy. It doesn’t help that I imagine real places and real people.
My 12 hours are up because the oak wood door swings wide open, letting an abundance of light fill the room. I’m blinded by its luminosity, and can only make out a large silhouette standing in the doorway.

When I’m not in the room I live a mostly normal life. I live alone in the nicest house anyone of my social status could possibly hope for. It’s not much really, just a humble little place off the highway, down an alley and through a gate marked “Housing for the People Who Can’t Afford to Buy a House”.

I passed many unfamiliar faces that day. Some wore big black-framed glasses. They were the Specs. I’m not making fun of them it’s just what we call the people who are way smarter than everyone else. Some others people were so beautiful I stopped in my tracks. My jaw hung open and I’m pretty sure a bug flew in. The Exquisites. They are simply beautiful and there is no other way to describe them. Except maybe exquisite.
I’m shouting at the top of my lungs and I don’t think I can get any louder. “S***! No! I don’t want to! Please, don’t make me go in there! Not again! I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I promise.”

Back in the room I have lots of time to think. I think of all the people I know. I think of all the people I haven’t ever gotten to meet. I think of people I love and I feel the tears coming back to the surface. Just before they trickle down my face I stop myself.

“Who do I really love?” I whisper to the darkness. “I had killed my mother when I was given life, my father, or should I say my sperm donor, was out the door before I could talk, and who else was there that a boy should love?”
No one, I reminded myself as I fought to keep the tears at bay.

Now as the Gloves carry me to the room, I scream. I shout. I kick my legs and thrash my arms, but this is all a show. They can never be allowed to find out because if they knew, they would know my darkest secret. I do not hate the color black. My friends do not hate the color black. We are, I am the darkest color. I am the color of evil. Black is the color of evil. I am the color of evil. I do not hate the room. In the room lies comfort and solidarity that only isolation can provide. I cannot hate that of which is myself. From darkness comes evil. To darkness we all shall return.


There is one thing I think a boy can love. I love this room.