A Day in the Life of Chester Owens
Chester was having the meat grinder dream again. Steel bracelets strapped his body against a conveyor belt that moved slowly toward a mouth of monstrous machines. The factory was dark. Fluorescent lights flickered intermittently to reveal his captor, the mysterious blonde woman who wore floral dresses.
At this point, he had experienced the vision so many times that his mind had reached a strange place at the interstice of reality and lucidity. There were degrees of agency that seemed to depend entirely on chance. Sometimes he was able to move against the steel bracelets. Other nights he saw flashes of his room, as if a part of his consciousness had escaped the nightmare.
The worst version was when he was completely immobile. Like a sentient crash test dummy, he could only stare forward and wait for the impact.
There was one instance when he had managed to speak with the blonde woman. Little would come out, though. All he had uttered was, “Why?” She had not answered this question.
She had always spoken, however. Usually it was the same line: “Now you’ll return to meat.”
Even before the dream was over, Chester knew why he was having it. The blonde woman would be visiting today. Her inspection was always on the first Monday of the month.
Chester had not spoken to her, but he understood that she wielded a great deal of power over the residents of Greendale. Whenever she left, something changed, no matter how small. Occasionally she would leave with one of his classmates in tow, flanked by a row of beefy security guards. More often it was that she fired one of the staffers. Other times, construction began the day after she departed.
The dream ended as it often did: his body reached the blades, and he awoke to a tingling sensation. Light ebbed beneath the curtains that obscured his bedroom windows. The glow was usually the first external stimulus his mind registered.
Chester sighed and began the morning section of his daily routine. It started with urination, something he knew was far from idiosyncratic but still played an important part in the rhythm of the day. As he filled the bowl, the automatic toilet buzzed and whirred. Soon it would analyze the nutrients in his urine and confirm he had been taking his medication at the prescribed dosage. An automated report would be sent to the staff. The head psychiatrist, Janet, had not mentioned anything about Chester’s diet, so he assumed it was acceptable.
Chester’s alarm clock sounded. He had configured it to play random tracks in a customized Beatles playlist. Today it was “A Day in the Life.” He had tried to program his alarm clock so the song would begin in the middle section where Paul McCartney sang about waking up. He had yet to succeed, though, and he did not think it was worth asking a staffer for help. So the song began as it usually did: with lyrics about a man dying in a car crash. Chester did not mind the morbidity. Following a gory nightmare, it almost felt appropriate.
For a few minutes he ruminated on the parting words from the woman in the floral dress. Originally, he had interpreted the “meat” detail literally and wondered if perhaps Greendale was some sort of human farm. After dismissing that notion as absurd, he considered telling Janet about the nightmares. She might offer an insight. At the least she would be happy to see him open up and share something instead of the usual taciturn tactics.
Next was clothing. His wardrobe consisted of outfits that would draw the least amount of attention and judgment. He used to consider stocking up on duplicates of his favorite combination: blue jeans, a black t-shirt, white socks and grey sneakers. Unfortunately, he had realized that many people teased those who dressed the same way every day, and he did not want any comments. To belie the anxiety while satisfying his desire for simplicity, he varied the colors of his jeans and shirts but only selected items from the same brand.
No one was the same size as him, so he did not need to worry about rushing to the rack. He had theorized that the woman who ran the “thrift shop,” a shared closet for residents, had scavenged clothing specifically for him. Purportedly, every article was donated from the outside world. Somewhere on the planet, outside the walls and fences of Greendale, there were other men who bumped their heads on the arches of doors and planked until they could find a bed big enough to contain their legs.
After the recent passage of his sixteenth birthday, Chester had measured his height at six feet and seven inches. Chester was not only tall, though. His shoe size was fifteen, double extra-large shirts fit him snugly and his measurements placed him in vague categories not displayed in the thrift shop catalogue. He ran and lifted weights daily, a commitment that had pressed his flesh even more tightly against the custom-crafted cloth.
Once he finished dressing, Chester drank a bit of orange juice and used it to swallow his prescribed daily morning pill, sixty milligrams of duloxetine. A selective serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, the drug was primarily for helping Chester sleep. Janet had recommended twenty milligrams at around age fourteen, when he started struggling to fall asleep and stay asleep for roughly eight hours. As his symptoms worsened during puberty, she upped the dosage to forty milligrams, then sixty. For almost a year, Chester had been content with that level. It seemed like his sleep symptoms were gradually improving.
Chester placed the orange juice carton back in his stout refrigerator. The only other items it contained were a Brita pitcher and large bottle of plain-flavored oat milk. In his “studio apartment” there was a bathroom, kitchen sink and counter, but no appliances for cooking, nothing that could birth flame and pain. There was also no metal cutlery or glassware. All he had for eating was a set of plastic plates and cups, as well as some utensils composed of a biodegradable, bamboo-based material.
The food was downstairs in the dining hall. Chester dreaded his trips to that part of the facility — the small talk, the encounters with people who had made comments about him or bullied him. He had taken a cooking class and wished he could make use of his skills. All he wanted was to maximize the time he spent alone or with his only friend, Felix.
Chester reflexively headed for his dream journal, but he swerved as he recalled that the dream had been a repeat, not worth documenting. Before heading down for breakfast, Chester stretched and meditated. He had learned some yoga poses by watching classes that practiced out on the central field during lunch. Because his stress tended to manifest as tension in his chest, he began by swinging his arms behind his back and arching forward.
Chester had grown accustomed to the logistically inconvenient aspects of his body. The simple fact was that humans designed objects and buildings for the majority of people who were much smaller than him. What he abhorred, however, was how his ponderous presence made it difficult to achieve the level of social invisibility he preferred. People constantly gawked at him or made asinine jokes about his height. Mostly it was the revolving door of Greendale employees. The novelty of his frame had worn off on his classmates, but there was always a new operations worker or chef who demonstrated the boundless nature of unoriginality. “How’s the weather up there?” was his least favorite by far.
After grabbing his tote bag and closing the door to his quarters, he pushed the door handle down to confirm it had automatically locked. He assumed the maintenance staff could access his apartment, but the lock at least seemed to keep out other students. More importantly, the safety check was part of his sacred routine, the order of which could not be violated unless absolutely necessary.
To minimize awkward and unnecessary interactions, Chester avoided the elevator. Despite being on the fifteenth floor of his tower, he did not mind the descent, and he relished the climb as another opportunity to maintain his physique. There were always fewer people on the stairs, none on a lucky day.
As he lumbered down the steps, he paused briefly near the flat portions of the stairwell and looked out of the floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the side of the building. He caught glimpses of the horizon, mountains so distant and hazy a child could have smudged them into existence with the tip of a grey crayon. He wondered if people lived there and had spotted the Greendale towers on a clear day. Beyond the vanishing point, there was the rest of civilization, the portion of humanity who lived as those he had only seen on television.
Chester had not breathed outside the walls of Greendale, at least not at an age he could remember. Like the other residents, his teachers and therapists told him he was born outside the facility, abandoned by his parents and taken in by the staff. The story did not seem like a complete lie, but Chester doubted its veracity.
There was no point in pressing the staff for more information. Most people did not know anything. Those who did would not tell for fear of losing their employment.
Nonetheless, Chester had induced a fair amount about his situation. The vast majority of children who grew up in Greendale had a diagnosable mental illness that ranged in severity but generally did not inhibit daily functioning. Those who suffered some sort of breakdown or violent incident disappeared, supposedly transferred to another facility.
Greendale was one of several educational institutions in a network. Chester had not heard the name of this umbrella organization, and he did not know exactly how many schools there were. He was, however, certain about the existence of a “pre-college facility.” Greendale employees openly discussed aspects of this branch, including the blonde woman’s “main office” there. The teachers said he would move to the pre-college campus for his junior and senior years of high school, a prospect that filled him with dread. It had been hard to establish even the small amount of mental and emotional comfort he enjoyed at Greendale.
The staff constantly collected data on everyone. There was the urine and stool analysis, mental health questionnaires that assessed progress, as well as seasonal blood tests and brain scans. After age six, administrators asked Chester to stand in one of two lines while he waited to be examined. Eventually he realized he was in the line for students who had not made significant progress in coping with their mental illnesses. Some students moved from one line to the other. Chester had been in the no progress line for nearly a decade.
The line for food was less depressing. Chester waited for granola, fruit and yogurt, which was much faster than scrambled eggs and bagels. New chefs cracked jokes about how he should take a double serving. His indifferent response usually deterred them from a repeat performance.
Chester was not rude, though. He had learned the value of manners and making eye contact. He forced smiles when he felt he had to. Because he was minimal with his speech, “thank you” was one of the only phrases many of the employees ever heard him utter.
He took a seat at the far corner of the room where he could see everything, and no one could walk behind him without first passing through his periphery. A genuine smile spread across his face as he anticipated Felix’s arrival.
Two employees were eating nearby, a man and a woman.
“Hey, is that Waterson girl gone?” asked the man. “I didn’t see her when I was sweeping up near the infirmary.”
“Yeah, didn’t you hear?” replied the woman. “She tried to stab one of the nurses with a needle.”
“Woah!” exclaimed the janitor, revealing a bit of the scrambled eggs that had been further scrambled in his mouth. “What was her deal anyway?”
The woman shrugged and said, “The shrinks never tell me. I just help them cart people away when they can’t handle it anymore. I think I know why, though.”
“Why?” asked the janitor, his pitch rising in anticipation.
The security guard shifted her eyes around. “Don’t make me say it,” she whispered, although her commitment to secrecy seemed facetious.
“Oh, come on,” urged the janitor.
She ceremoniously summoned her smartphone and began tapping. Chester assumed she was going to show a text to the janitor. Instead the chorus of “Borderline” by Madonna played for a few seconds. A suppressed laughter traveled to Chester’s ears, and he immediately understood the joke.
“You’re terrible, honey, and I fucking love it!” proclaimed the janitor.
Chester averted his eyes and pretended he had been mixing his granola into his yogurt. His cheeks tightened, and he worried he was about to smile — even laugh — and reveal he had been eavesdropping. After mentally chastising himself for nearly laughing at something so offensive, he tried to analyze the situation beyond himself. The employees were being horribly insensitive. Chester maintained that point. On the other hand, Greendale had instilled him with a complex sense of empathy. There was a whole class on it, after all. It must be difficult, he thought, to care for people with severe mental illnesses. The female security guard was one of the few people who had survived years of high turnover, and Chester could remember when she was patient and kind. Her empathy had aged and fatigued, strained by the undiscerning symptoms of Greendale’s violent minority.
Felix arrived, accompanied by a nurse. He paced along the perimeter of the dining hall, slapped his tray down on the table and plopped into a chair. The chair rocked and rattled for a moment, and Felix savored the sensation as if he were on an amusement park ride. He savored everything he could, and there was hardly a minute when he was not having fun.
Felix flung his hand in the air and waved to Chester as if they were far apart.
“Morning, Chester,” he shouted.
“Morning, Felix,” said Chester.
The nurse made eye contact with Chester, and they nodded to each other, nearly in unison. The understanding was that Chester supervised Felix during meal times, allowing the nurse a reprieve for breaks or other tasks.
Non-verbal communication was one of the few social standards Chester approved of. One of his teachers said most communication was non-verbal. This idea made Chester feel better about his lack of enthusiasm for speaking. It was possible that what mental health professionals had pathologized was simply a preference for minimalism.
His few attempts at leveraging verbal communication had been frustrating and fruitless. He felt, however, that there was no choice but to speak. Despite its mantra of acceptance for everyone and celebration of introversion, most Greendale classes factored “participation” into final grades.
Chester abhorred that word: “participation.” Its true meaning did not specify speech, but in the classroom it was a synonym for voicing opinions and shouting answers. Even the most thoughtless comments would have a net positive effect on grades.
A few weeks ago Chester had considered “participating” when he realized the teacher had made a mistake. But then his study of empathy kicked in. If he corrected the teacher in front of the class, the teacher might feel humiliated. Chester decided to converse privately with the teacher after class so he could claim credit without risking an embarrassing scene. Instead of responding with appreciation, the teacher asked why Chester had not raised the issue during the lecture.
No one was socially adept to the point of absolution, and there were so many paradoxes and logical fallacies in social norms. People greeted each other by asking how they were doing, but most of the time they did not want to know or hear an answer that was longer than two seconds. Non-verbal communication was more effective and efficient for greeting, yet people insisted on phrases that were either superfluous, nonsensical or rhetorical. People pressured each other into speaking candidly and then complained or criticized when the truth was hard to stomach. There were commands framed as questions, questions that were actually statements and statements that stated nothing. Metaphors murdered birds to preach productivity. There were so many cherished idioms that, to Chester, seemed idiotic and insipid.
Chester loved his time with Felix because he could truly be himself. There was no expectation to perform. When they were together, it was like teleporting to a version of the world that made sense.
Felix surveyed the bits of granola and fruit that had bounced out of his bowl and onto the outskirts of his tray. He pinched each piece with his hands and tossed them into his mouth. Far from the most dexterous person, many of his pinches missed or failed to grasp the food long enough to feed himself. The scene reminded Chester of the claw machine he had seen in movies. He imagined that only Felix would be able to enjoy something so repetitive and frustrating.
“Ball later?” asked Felix.
“Yeah,” Chester replied in between bites.
The pair tossed a ball around every day during the lunch break, and every day Felix asked if they would continue tomorrow. The activity had become part of Chester’s holy routine.
Once they were done eating, they took their trays to the disposal area. There was a conveyor belt that transported the trays behind a tiled wall. In front of the wall there were two holes, one labeled “waste to energy” and another “compost.” The staff constantly explained exactly what materials went in which hole. A flier between the openings read, “Keep Greendale Green!”
“Sustainable,” “green,” “eco-friendly,” “environmentally conscious” — Chester had seen these words and phrases pasted around the campus, as well as their numerous variations. Chester assumed the stories of climate change were true, so he appreciated the fact that Greendale was dedicated to sustainable operation and teaching their students to live this way.
What annoyed him was when Greendale staff became braggadocious. They frequently attempted to illustrate the value of their precious school by claiming most regions in the outside world were destroying the environment.
As Chester moved from grade to grade, he witnessed other facets of this comparative tactic. His teachers lectured at length about how most education systems were archaic and failed to endow students with relevant skills. It was best that Greendale did not offer regular access to desserts because sweets increased the chance of developing cavities and diseases. There was still a stigma attached to mental illness in most of the world, but not Greendale, not as much.
To argue that people were able to physically isolate and abstain from travel for long periods of time without going insane, teachers constantly referenced the coronavirus pandemic of the early 2020s.
“You’re lucky you were only a baby then. We had to live through it.”
“At least when you get out of here, you’ll get to be in a normal world.”
“If we were able to make it through that, then you can make it through this.”
“You’ve got it easy here. Wait until you get out into the world.”
Chester’s theory was that this communications strategy had two goals. The first was to overprepare Greendale students for a world that was purportedly cruel and unforgiving. The second was to instill a sense of gratitude that would counteract the pain of the truths every resident knew: most people in the world were not born in facilities. They grew up with parents, siblings, commutes, candy, open lands, city streets. Instead of living the first eighteen years of their lives in a decorated cage, they were born with a degree of freedom that could not be denied or downplayed.
Like all the children of Greendale, Chester did not know anything about his biological family, or if he even had one. Greendale had given him the last name, Owens. It could have come from anywhere, though. Janet might have chosen it, or maybe it was the product of some sort of name generator.
Chester had not completely ruled out the possibility of Owens being his genuine last name, one from living parents. The scenario was unlikely, however. A real last name would make it easier for Greendale students to find their birth parents — assuming they existed — after leaving the system.
For years Chester had vaguely fantasized about the idea of a typical childhood. It was not until recently, however, that he attempted to vividly paint a mental image of his mother and father.
A few months ago one of the security guards said, “Here comes that Blake Griffin-looking boy.” Chester had not heard of this person, so he used his computer to look him up.
All Greendale students had computers and smartphones with limited capabilities. The primary restriction was that thousands of internet search terms and apps were blocked. Smartphones could only call within the Greendale campus and would be confiscated before leaving the facility.
“Commercial pornography” was blocked and banned. There was, however, a database of “Approved Educational and Recreational Pornography.” As a supplement to instruction in class, these videos covered a wide range of sex-related topics: the non-verbal aspects of consent, examples of where the viewer might lie on the Kinsey scale, condom application, sex positions, polyamory, the parts of the vagina, kissing, foreplay, how to pleasure someone and help them achieve an orgasm. In the recreational section of the database there were popups that reminded students how mainstream pornography in the outside world perpetuated unrealistic body image perceptions, domination of women and inaccurate portrayals of typical sex between consenting adults. Greendale only offered videos of “real-life” people who had volunteered to be filmed during the normal course of their relationship or dating.
Chester masturbated to the videos so he could preemptively dry the wet dreams that would otherwise disrupt his sleep. What interested him most, however, were the couples featured in the content. He wondered how they had met, what their lives were like, why they had decided to participate in the series.
Since he was a child, he had been fascinated with stories. He was afraid of people but obsessed with their origins.
When he researched Blake Griffin, he saw Griffin was biracial, born to a Black father and white mother. Chester had assumed he was part Black, but he had not visualized possibilities of his own origin. The photo on the image search tab fueled his imagination. He envisioned a Black man and a white woman meeting, perhaps in college. They would go on dates and deal with the disapproving looks, the eventual awkwardness of mixing cultures and families.
For a moment Chester wondered if he was related to Griffin. They had similar stature, skin tone and freckles. Upon closer examination, however, the connection seemed unlikely. Chester’s nose was narrow and long, with a slight bend in the middle. His head was more rounded, his forehead was small, and his hair was straight.
Despite his longing for parents, Chester did have some semblance of familial love in his life. Felix was his adopted little brother, and Janet was like a surrogate mother. He loved them and was hoping he could work up the courage to say so before he left Greendale for the pre-college facility. Now that his sophomore year was days from ending, the move was imminent. When the change was not filling him with anxiety and dread over losing his routine, he thought about how much he would miss Felix and Janet.
Occasionally Chester thought he might be biologically related to Felix. There was little evidence to support the theory, though. Felix had smooth black skin and thick, coarse hair. He was a bit short, especially compared to Chester, and his nose was short and wide. If there was anyone the young boy resembled, it was Janet. Chester had wondered about their relationship. As usual, there were no answers to be found, and Chester did not feel comfortable asking her.
Once the nurse returned, Chester waved goodbye to Felix, picked up his backpack and headed to his first class of the day. Whenever he walked the halls, he checked the walls to see if there were new inspirational quotes about mental illness. He enjoyed judging the ones he considered horribly cheesy. The latest was: “Yes I overthink, but I also over-love. – anonymous”
According to one of Chester’s teachers, there were entire websites and businesses that relied on the average internet user’s infatuation with quotes. The most popular and lucrative quotes were usually the ones Chester perceived as nauseating platitudes.
Fortunately there were a few he appreciated. Lately there was one in particular that had been on his mind: “You are not your illness. You have an individual story to tell. You have a name, a history, a personality. Staying yourself is part of the battle. – Julian Seifter”
Chester wished the wisdom applied to him, but he felt like most of it did not. According to Greendale, he was his illness. He was the boy with severe social anxiety, the one who had not made much progress over the years. The staff had defined him as such, and the illness had defined his personality. His history was Greendale, and Greendale had chosen his name. The uniform narrative of the institution limited the idiosyncrasies of his individual story.
This narrative deprivation had driven his passion and potential career: writing. As soon as he was old enough to read, he realized that his stories and essays were all he could control. Unlike the confines of Greendale, his imagination was limitless. He was the God of his characters. Storytelling allowed him to create people who could not harm him, who would always do exactly what he wanted.
Once Chester began the high school portion of his education, he declared a “specialization” in writing. This decision allowed him to take a few more classes on writing and reserve a mentorship for when he entered the pre-college facility. Janet had said he was lucky to find a career path at such an early age. College was ridiculously competitive, and he would need as much preparation as possible.
The bulk of required material at Greendale focused on functioning as a healthy, well-adjusted adult who respected both people and the planet. By high school most Greendale students had finished mandatory courses on traditional subjects such as math, reading, essay writing, history and science. Advancing past basic algebra was optional, only recommended for residents who demonstrated a passion and proclivity for math.
Toward the end of the hall, he saw another quote that struck him: “The key to growth is acknowledging your fear and jumping in anyway.” – Jen Sincero.
Sometimes Chester felt like fear’s lawyer. His instinct was to defend it, even at the cost of his own reputation. Fear was the ultimate straw man, the easiest target to tear down in sanctimonious snippets.
Fear was the one person in his life who could take on multiple roles and transform seamlessly between them. Fear was his keeper. It kept him safe, and he was grateful for that safety. Fear was his friend and roommate, always with him, always there when he was too afraid to invite anyone else. Fear was his tormentor and parole officer, relentlessly punishing, never allowing too much freedom.
But fear was so valuable that it could be absolved of these sins. Without fear, there would be no safety, no relief, no courage. People criticized fear, yet it was the stern father of the social norms they embraced. It was the motivator for lying and being disingenuous. Fear was perfect because it was human yet inhuman, malign without malice, maternal like a womb, yet cold as a void. It had shepherded the survival of man, but now it had mutated into an anxiety that was often more painful than useful. As Chester approached the entrance to his classroom, he decided once again to forgive fear and continue their abusive relationship. It wasn’t fear’s fault that it had become such a burden.
His first course of the day was “Relationships II.” The class was nearing the conclusion of the latest chapter on office politics, a subject Chester had found depressing. The overarching lesson was that strategic ingratiation was often more crucial to career success than excellent job performance. Chester’s hope was that he would be able to secure employment at a company that evaluated its employees solely on results, not relationships.
It seemed that aggressive extroverts ruled the world, Chester thought, while introverts were lucky to pick up their scraps. Janet had tried to convince him otherwise. During one of their brief sessions Janet managed to extract some of his inner musings, revealing an anxiety about being destined for a place of inferiority in the world. Afterward she used her power to commission an introversion section in the Greendale library.
Chester’s cynicism was a challenging opponent, though. He doubted that these authors who celebrated introversion were really introverts themselves, and most of their advice appeared the same as the platitudes and quotes he despised. The entire genre felt more like a targeted marketing strategy than anything meaningful or empowering. When Janet pried these thoughts from Chester, she responded by arguing that marketing and authenticity were not mutually exclusive. Introverts could play on the same board as extroverts without losing sight of who they were.
Chester had taken much more pleasure in some of the other required courses: “Personal Finance,” “Sustainable Lifestyle,” “Ethics and Morals,” “Civic Engagement,” “Anti-Racism.” They made him feel like his life would matter in the outside world, regardless of social choices. Saving money, recycling, conserving water, reducing waste, being kind to people — none of these skills were directly related to social aptitude.
At Greendale, Chester’s social anxiety was an academic advantage. Other than breakfast and lunch with Felix, he did not interact much with the other residents. He spent the extra free time studying, reading, writing and exercising. Despite the occasional points he lost from lack of participation, he had received A’s his entire life. Greendale did not post class rankings, but Chester was confident he was in the top five of the hundred or so students in his grade.
He also used his free time to earn “community service tokens” that could be traded for goods and privileges. Usually the services were assisting Greendale employees with cleaning, trash collecting, composting, recycling and gardening. Chester knew all of the staff, and they recognized who he was. They did not know him, though. His aura of fear and discomfort had not solicited any affections or curiosities. It seemed like none of them cared enough to offer words or gestures that might gently knock on his defenses.
Most residents bartered tokens for desserts. The other options were discs of films and albums, books, posters, paintings and clothes that were not secondhand. Chester had requested everything but clothes, and only a few desserts. These items were true belongings, visual embodiments of who he was. People in the outside world had them in excess. With every acquisition, he felt more like a normal person, as if his weight in tokens could buy his way into a past that did not exist, that could not exist.
Sometimes Chester doubted the courses on being a decent human would be so valuable if he had parents. But then he figured he was not giving Greendale sufficient credit. Based on the novels and biographies he had read, being born to guardians was like being thrown onto a roulette wheel. The worst gave nothing but trauma, and even the best could not help but traumatize a little. Chester wondered where he could have landed, if perhaps being born to an institution was one of the better possibilities in his personal multiverse.
The next class of the day was “Creative Writing.” Because the end of the semester was only days away, it was Chester’s turn to recite a section of “Rat Warrior,” the novel he had been working on for about a year. The prospect of the performance had filled him with dread for a few weeks.
During the previous class, Chester asked his teacher if he could be chosen to recite first. Her entire body enlarged with enthusiasm. “Of course!” she exclaimed, unable to squelch her surprise and elation. As he had calculated, she assumed his request was a result of increased confidence, a victory over his social anxiety disorder. She would tell Janet, and Janet would make the same assumption. Then perhaps she would worry less about his progress.
In reality the motivation was to reduce his agony. If he went on first, he would not need to spend as much time sweating over the eventual performance, the bane of his banal existence.
Chester felt conflicting emotions regarding the manipulation of his teacher and surrogate mother. There was guilt from allowing people to believe in falsehoods that benefited him. But then there was the satisfaction he took from outsmarting his superiors, taking control of his personal narrative and public image.
If his understanding of public relations and marketing was correct, convincing his educators of positive change was more important than actual “improvement.” After all, he did not understand how overcoming his illness was necessary. It was the world that was wrong. Extroverts pressured introverts into participating in trite rituals. The vain had inherited the earth and flooded the soil with their genes while the meek hoped they would have better luck on Mars. Despite the number of clichés Greendale touted about accepting one’s self, “improvement” — in Chester’s case — meant becoming a different person. The hypocrisy was infuriating.
“Chester is up first,” announced the teacher. His classmates were similarly astonished, or rather fooled.
Chester rose and held a printed copy of his manuscript. It was like his heart was tumbling down a rocky hill. No matter how many times he told it to slow down, it would not. It either accelerated or hiccupped.
Instead of fighting the stress, he decided to ride it like a wave. In a mumbled sprint, he read through the excerpt as if a bomb would explode if he did not finish in time. It was like he was reading a single hyphenated word that stretched on for paragraphs. His massive body was quickly clad in a cold sweat.
“Unlike-most-rats-Ralph-was-loved-by-humans-Not-all-humans-but-at-least-the-two-who-had-saved-him-from-the-lab-and-adopted-him-as-their-beloved-son-Hatred-was-still-there-though-because-these-two-humans-owned-a-cat…”
A smattering of muffled laughter immediately erupted around the classroom. Even the most empathetic of the kids could not help but smirk.
The teacher shot disapproving glares at the students. Then she shifted her attention to Chester.
“Slow down, Chester,” she said in a calm, soothing tone. “Take a deep breath.”
Chester rapidly inhaled, causing an audible whistling noise, a sort of waking snore. This noise incited more laughter. Again the teacher admonished the class, this time verbally.
Chester continued, now clutching his heart with one hand, hoping that the direct physical stimulation would make it listen. Nausea wobbled him. He had reached an ironic point of equilibrium where the anxiety was so disruptive and exhausting that it had forced him to slow down. His attention was divided between reading and staying on his feet. A bit of his consciousness evaporated. But then his eyes struck salvation: the big red mark he had made at the end of his passage. It signaled relief. The final sentences of his performance were more intelligible, but everyone had already stopped listening.
“He could not kill Ralph because he knew the humans would cast him out. They lived in a situation that was technically peaceful, but very tense.”
He collapsed into his chair. It shook under his weight, and its legs shuffled in place. The teacher stood and clapped aggressively. She craned her neck and noisy hands back and forth in a semi-circle until the students joined her in a standing ovation. Chester nodded in feigned appreciation as he reached for his water canteen and wiped sweat from his forehead.
The teacher punched a few notes into her computer. Chester assumed she was writing a summary for Janet. Instead of listening to the other readings, Chester spent the rest of the class cursing himself for the pitiful performance, wondering why the practice reading in his room had not prepared him. No clever plan could negate his fundamental deficiency, he thought.
The last class before lunch was “Culture and Society II,” which was a series of lectures that explained how the world worked and what kind of behavior was acceptable. Today the students were wrapping up a chapter on “inclusive language and political correctness.” The teacher paced around the room as he explained a few examples that were not in the textbook.
“Many years ago it was more common for people to refer to those with mental illness as ‘the mentally ill,’” he said. “What basic rule of inclusive language does this term violate?”
One of the girls in the class raised her hand and said, “Person-first language.”
“That’s correct,” replied the teacher. “And for those of who you might think inclusive language is just nitpicking, know that your words matter, and they have an impact. There was a study, in fact, that showed characters in a story were more likely to be negatively perceived and judged when described as ‘the mentally ill.’”
Chester had been enjoying these past few lectures because he believed they were relevant to his goal of becoming a full-time author. Words did matter, and he wanted to know which ones to avoid. He had even worked up the courage to email the teacher a few questions. The latest was, “Is it acceptable for authors to write characters who use racial slurs, even if the author is not a member of the race the slurs are offensive to?” He had asked because he was considering making one of the villains in his story racist against a protagonist, and he thought the narrative might be more compelling if the character shouted epithets. Unfortunately the teacher had responded by asking Chester to meet with him during office hours. To avoid the potential awkwardness of an in-person discussion, Chester pretended he had not seen the response. When the class ended, he rushed to lunch before the teacher could talk to him.
As Chester rounded a corner, he noticed a new banner pasted along a hallway. The blown-up image showcased a rainbow coalition of teenagers: an Arab girl wearing a hijab, an Asian boy, a Black child who wore a dress and had noticeable facial hair, and a Hispanic boy (teachers and administrators had squabbled over whether “Latino/Latina” or “Latinx” was the optimal term, so Chester had attempted to eschew the issue by sticking to “Hispanic”). Each of these students had labels above their heads: depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder. At the top of the banner there was a tagline: “We’re not just diverse. We’re neurodiverse.” It had been hard for Chester to appreciate diversity. Only minutes ago, this rainbow of students had united to laugh at him. He wondered if the humiliation would have felt any different if his peers were monochrome.
“Neurodiverse” did not bother him as much as some of the other mental illness euphemisms Greendale promoted. His least favorite was “neurodivergent.” Chester posited that the person who coined the term was trying way too hard to be edgy. It sounded like a buzzword. The “divergent” part implied the person had chosen to diverge from the majoritarian path of not having a diagnosable mental illness. This tone suggested that mental illness should be leveraged as personal branding, as if opening up about suffering was the same as choosing to dye one’s hair an unnatural color.
Chester passed the banner and neared the area where Felix would be waiting. When the weather was not too hot or cold, Chester picked Felix up from his special education tutoring, and together they walked to a small, withered tree in the middle of the quad. No matter the season, not a single leaf sprouted on its branches. No one else wanted to sit there. Every other tree on campus was lush and full of leaves, at least outside the winter months.
Students had said the tree was “dead,” but Chester did not think this description was accurate. He imagined that a dead tree would break or fall over. This one had not faltered. Chester loved it because every bit of bark was the same as the day before, and the day before that.
The boys sat on the grass and ate from their metal lunchboxes. They stared around aimlessly, taking in the sights and sounds of the other children. When Chester and Felix were together, they felt no pressure to converse. Extended silences were sacred, not awkward.
After they had taken time to digest, Chester opened his backpack and took out two small wooden paddles and a purple ball. Felix grabbed one and ran gleefully away, awaiting the opening serve. Chester started with a lob. Felix spiked it, and they repeated the pattern until one of them missed. This time it was Chester who took the first swing of pure air. The ball rolled through the thin grass and bumped against the border of a concrete path.
Chester was about to pick it up when he noticed someone approaching from the perimeter of his periphery. Before he reflexively turned to look, he already knew who it was. His ears had screamed a warning, but his mind was too slow to react. There was only one person he knew who walked in a way that made an unnerving shuffling and thumping sound, like a heart that struck too hard on the downbeat.
The encroaching enemy was a small white boy with curly chestnut hair and brown eyes that seemed to look past everything reflected in them. He had a mysterious limp that made his signature sound. His name was Rolland, and during his elementary and middle school years he had been the scourge of Greendale.
Several years ago he disappeared for a few weeks and returned with the limp, along with eyes that were both restless and tired, afraid and angry. After that he did not bother anyone. In fact he was the only person in Greendale who was even less socially active than Chester.
Rolland had been a harmless recluse for a while now, but Chester still ruminated on the torment. There was one day when he suddenly felt a horrible pain in his lower half and realized that Rolland had snuck up on him and punted him in the testicles. As he collapsed on the ground, Rolland shouted, “Timbeeeerrr!” He howled with laughter and danced in a circle around the fallen Chester. Greendale staffers quickly noticed the spectacle and whisked Rolland away to detention.
Other times Rolland had followed Chester and Felix around during lunch and made horribly offensive commentary as if he were narrating a sports or wildlife documentary. Rolland had dubbed the pair “Big Pussy and The Retard.” When they batted the ball back and forth, Rolland would say something like, “Big Pussy goes wide. He’ll need to tighten up his labia to avoid tripping over it. The respect of The Retard could increase his chances of attracting a mate.”
Chester could easily recall many incidents like these, and he was not the only victim. Rolland had been a frequent topic of discussion among employees, many of whom he had heckled and pranked. His sadism series included: developing insulting impressions of several teachers, regularly raiding dessert storage areas, tampering with gym equipment, vandalizing signs and textbooks with obscene edits, inciting food fights and “disrupting class.”
What angered Chester, perhaps more than the bullying itself, was the attitude that Felix was inferior to his peers — the “retard” and “retarded” name calling. After all, the insults did not bother Felix. He barely noticed them.
Unlike the students and staff, Chester believed Felix was a superior being. If the measure of fullness in life was pleasure and happiness, Felix was in a league of his own. Despite technically having an intellectual disability, Felix possessed more than enough intelligence to work a living wage job, make friends and enjoy some hobbies. He lived without worries and woes, anxiety and animosity. He lived in every moment, and every moment was a millennium of mirth. Instead of clinging to routines for comfort, he found nuance in monotony, merriment in the numbingly mundane.
But Chester was also painfully aware of one of the other reasons he had become friends with Felix: he believed Felix was incapable of betrayal or cruelty. His solitude often allowed a bit too much time for introspection that led to disturbing revelations. Chester wondered if his attitude was as bigoted as those who treated Felix as a sort of institutional pet, a dog to be petted and spoken to like a baby. Perhaps the guilt was his punishment for being too much of a coward to voluntarily enter a relationship that might involve any sort of unpredictable risk.
It was all Rolland’s fault, Chester thought for a moment. If he had not been a victim of bullying, maybe his life would be different, maybe the anxiety would have dissipated by now.
But he knew that idea was an unfair oversimplification. For years Rolland had been his most reliable excuse for failing to meet Janet’s expectations. In a sick way, he felt he needed Rolland more than anyone. A powerful external force inspired more sympathy than an internal failing. Without Rolland there was no story to his illness. Now Rolland was not a threat, and soon Janet would remind Chester of this fact.
The end of lunch bell rang. As if the quad was a puddle with a stone dropped in the center, ripples of students spread toward the edges and into their respective towers. Chester ushered Felix to his nurse and waved goodbye. He always tried to walk slowly so he could avoid the initial rush. This seemingly simple feat was difficult. His legs were so large that they carried him very far and fast without much effort. Every one of his steps were worth two of an average-sized person.
He did not want to be late, though. Once the crowd thinned out, he accelerated his pace and made his way to Janet’s office. In the elevator, once he was alone, he took deep breaths and practiced some of the meditation techniques his therapist and teachers had taught him. One of his favorites was massaging the space between his clavicle and the tops of his shoulders. A wave of tingles flowed from the back of his head down to the nodes above his tail bone. He prayed for a peace that would last through the meeting.
As usual, Janet’s door was open. Chester knocked lightly before entering slowly, as he had learned was the polite behavior. Janet looked over from her desk. Her eyes widened a bit.
“Chester,” she said with a surprised tone, as if she had not been expecting his visit.
Janet was the Chief Clinical Officer at Greendale, the highest-ranking employee who worked full-time at the facility. Chester had estimated that she was in her early forties, a relatively young age for someone who had achieved so much success. The only person Chester had seen who wielded more power was the blonde woman, but she was an outsider.
Janet had the same smooth black skin tone as Felix, and her facial features were similar. These facts, combined with her obvious affection for the boy, had caused Chester to suspect they were related or had some sort of special connection. Her hair was different, though. It was straight and thin. Sometimes Chester wondered if its natural state was more like Felix’s curls.
Despite his curiosity and rapport with Janet, Chester did not dare to probe about the possible connection. The subject was uncomfortable, and he worried about repercussions of upsetting Janet. One of the many unspoken social rules Chester had learned was that it was best not to ask people about certain issues. If they wanted to divulge sensitive information, they would do so of their own volition.
For about a year now, Janet had taken the role of Chester’s therapist. He was her only client. Because Janet was extremely busy, their “sessions” were rare and short, more like progress check-ins than mental health care. Chester used to have a therapist, but he had disappeared mysteriously. Instead of assigning him a replacement counselor, Janet insisted on taking responsibility for him.
Chester took a seat. Janet stared at him for a few seconds and smiled. Knowing she wanted him to make eye contact more often, he resisted the urge to look at the floor. She picked up a folder from her desk and began flipping through it. Chester caught a glimpse of one heading that was large enough for him to read from a distance: “GAD.” He often forgot about his other diagnosis, generalized anxiety disorder. His anxiety seemed more like a state of existence than an illness.
He did not see the other acronym, but he knew it was there. SAD, social anxiety disorder — such an appropriate acronym, Chester thought. Having SAD meant being sad, because it was pathetic to be afraid of everyone. SAD also stood for seasonal affective disorder, depending on the context.
Chester did not see seasonal affective disorder as a personal failing, though. People could not help it if a lack of light plunged their souls into darkness. He did not allow himself the same sympathy, however. No amount of Greendale positivity and empowerments could convince him that he was not a failure.
The other clinical note he had spotted a few times was “mild depression.” If his intense feelings of self-loathing and sadness were considered “mild,” he imagined that major depressive disorder would have immediately sent him down a path to death by suicide.
“How have you been?” asked Janet.
“Good,” replied Chester.
Janet peered expectantly over the folder. Chester smiled awkwardly. It was his non-verbal refusal to elaborate. Her eyes darted downward. Chester could not see exactly what she was looking at, but it was most likely her watch. She always checked it during their sessions. After all, their work was not officially part of her schedule. She gambled on the existence of their time, knowing Chester did not mind cancellations.
“I see that you were a little nervous during your reading today,” said Janet. “Ms. Maheswaran was worried you were going to faint.”
Chester had forgotten how quickly news could travel. A deep sense of shame brewed in his stomach. It spun and spread through his body. Suddenly there was pressure behind his eyes, cracks in the dam he had damned. He took a deep breath in through his nose and tried to focus on the sensation of the cold air.
“And you still haven’t socialized with anyone other than Felix,” continued Janet. “Rolland hasn’t been bothering you, has he?”
“No,” replied Chester. His eyes were everywhere else now.
“Please look at me when I’m talking to you.”
He complied. Her eyes intensified the feeling of shame. The cracks in the dam were spreading, deepening. His throat felt brittle, like a string that had been tuned too tight.
Janet set the folder down.
“You’re not progressing fast enough, Chester,” she said. “You only have two more years before you enter the real world. At this rate you won’t be ready. Imagine if I was your supervisor at a job. You think I would let you lead a team? Your options are going to be so limited if you can’t deal with people.”
The dam began to leak. Chester cursed the nature of the human body. He wished tears could transmute to sweat that would drip down the back, something people would not notice immediately. But more than anything, he cursed himself. Since childhood he had cried frequently, unable to hold back tears. It was not that he felt emasculated or embarrassed. Greendale had succeeded in teaching him that crying was nothing to be ashamed of. What bothered him was the inconvenience and impracticality of being unable to control his emotions. How could he defend himself and speak coherently when sobs were trying to choke his words before they even verbalized? Janet also had a point that not everyone would be like her. What if he did encounter an abusive supervisor who would punish him for crying?
“I’m trying,” croaked Chester. “I’m sorry.” That was all he could manage to say.
Janet leaned forward and began to rise from her chair, but she stopped herself in the middle of the motion. Chester wondered what she had wanted to do.
“Oh Chester,” she cooed in her motherly voice. “I know I’m being hard on you. I just want to make sure you’re OK when you’re out there.”
Chester nodded. An alarm on Janet’s phone rang. She swiveled her chair over to read the push notification.
“I have to take this,” she said. “I’ll see you and Felix before you move. Maybe the pre-college facility will be better for you.”
Chester wiped his tears and went to his room. The moment the door closed, he broke down. The weeping provided relief, but he did not know what to do about the underlying problem. Like Janet, however, he hoped the pre-college facility would have more resources.
He missed his old therapist, Roger. Since his disappearance, Chester had ceased improving how he coped with stress and anxiety, both social and amorphous. It was possible he had regressed. Roger always made him feel good, even strong. When they spoke, it was like the prelude to confidence was whistling in his ear, gradually imprinting itself in his mind.
Chester had actually tried twice to make another friend, but neither person seemed interested. He wondered if it was because they resented him for Janet’s nepotism.
Other than his skill at taking care of Felix, Chester had no idea why Janet gave him special treatment. He still had not mustered the courage to voice these issues during their sessions. There would be no time to discuss such matters anyway.
After lunch, on days when he did not have any more classes, Chester usually spent the rest of his time studying, reading, writing his novel and working out. The only homework assignment he had left before his sophomore graduation was a “take home” quiz on salary negotiation. One of the short answer questions was: “Why is it a bad idea to talk about what you want?”
Chester wrote: “Talking about what you want gives the supervisor or boss an opportunity to frame your request as selfish or greedy. It’s better to focus on accomplishments and numbers relative to what other people in the industry are earning.”
The logic made sense to him. It fit perfectly with the cynical attitude he had developed. People were always looking for excuses to give less and take more. The only way to overcome the evils of humanity, he thought, was to be meticulously prepared.
Once the homework was done, he opened up his draft of “Rat Warrior.” The novel had been progressing smoothly. Chester was about halfway through. In the scene he was working on, the titular character, Ralph, was creating a sword by gnawing a piece of glass into the shape of a blade and wrapping the bottom with discarded dental floss and other pieces of trash.
Chester might have been the only person at Greendale who did not mind rats. Given how small their brains were, they seemed to be incredibly intelligent, determined and resourceful creatures. The idea for “Rat Warrior” had come to him after he watched a gritty rat drag a slice of pizza up a flight of stairs and into a hole in the side of a building. There were humans within kicking and stomping distance, but the little rodent seemed undaunted. The other students who witnessed the odd sight laughed and pointed; some moaned in disgust. Chester stood in awe, transfixed, unable to process the silliness of the scene until later.
Before his late dinner, Chester liked to work out. There were not many people at the gym after six p.m. or so. Because he usually did plenty of running during the lunch break, his exercise routine primarily consisted of strength training and elliptical machines. He liked the elliptical machines. They made him feel like he was contributing something to Greendale. Each machine generated power that fed into a reserve supply. The dashboard showed how many watts the user generated in each session. After every ten watts, the machine would dispense a Greendale credit or token. There were also machines that washed dirty laundry by having the flywheel chamber double as a washing machine drum. Behind the row of elliptical machines there were a few dryers, some powered by the electricity from other elliptical machines.
After Rolland bullied him, Chester prioritized strength training and self-defense. When he “pumped iron” — as some of the other students called it — fear pumped through his body, making his veins taut, a frame of blue layered beneath his brown freckles.
Lifting was the easy part. Learning martial arts was difficult. Other than advising students to buy pepper spray and carry it with them at all times once they reached the outside world, Greendale did not teach any sort of self-defense. Chester’s assumption was that the staff was worried students would use the knowledge to attempt an escape or revolt. To develop at least some skill, Chester tried to train his reflexes and mimic moves he saw in old Bruce Lee films he had purchased with his Greendale points. The other item he had purchased was a “reaction ball,” a many-sided ball that quickly bounced at random angles. He played Jacks in his room and sometimes with Felix, although in the latter case he tried to give himself handicaps.
Sometimes he wished he was smaller, of average height and build. When he traversed narrower sections of the halls during crowded times, his broad frame made him feel like a whale in a river. There did not seem to be a point to his overwhelming strength. He would never harm or intimidate anyone, so what was it worth?
Dinner was routine and uneventful, Chester’s favorite. The only variable was what Felix chose to talk about. This time it was his newly discovered ambition of being a firefighter.
“Fires are everywhere,” Felix said between bites of salad. “There can be a fire in any place in the whole wide world. So if I was a firefighter, I could go anywhere. I’d put on the pants, spray the hose, the whole thing. I was watching this firefighter on TV, and he put it out, and he saved the cat, oh and the people, too, but the building wasn’t OK.”
“Well, maybe you could do even better than him,” said Chester. “Maybe you could save the building, too.”
Felix lit up. “Yeah, buildings are expensive!” he exclaimed.
His hands blossomed. A bit of food flung off his fork and onto the adjacent table. One of the other students noticed and darted his head around, thinking someone was trying to throw food at him. Once he analyzed the direction and spotted Chester and Felix, immediately his expression morphed from irritation to resignation.
Because the semester was about to end, Chester had gradually been trying to explain the circumstances of his departure to Felix. So far all Felix understood is that they would be seeing each other less often.
“So, Felix,” began Chester. “They don’t let people in the pre-college facility talk to people at Greendale. I won’t be able to say hi to you, not even over email or…”
“You’ll visit, though,” interrupted Felix. “Or I’ll visit.”
“No, no visits,” said Chester.
“Why?” asked Felix.
“I don’t know.”
Felix stared deeply and uncharacteristically into Chester’s eyes for a few seconds. “Will you come with me when I become a firefighter?” he asked.
Chester paused. He was not sure how to answer the question without misleading Felix or making a promise he could not deliver. “I’ll try,” he said.
Felix smiled.
Dinner concluded, and the evening fully dawned. Like sentient, sedentary lizards, the solar panels that had basked in light during the day now slept. The power they had generated funneled into the lamp posts around campus. Felix loved watching the lights turn on, how there were little delays and flickers. It was this combination of ceremonious imperfection and reliability that made him feel compassion for machines, as if they were alive in the same way he was. Chester enjoyed observing Felix’s reaction, the sort of meta voyeurism that made his experiences feel richer.
They parted, and Chester watched Felix disappear into his respective tower. On the way back to his room Chester passed a publicly available bowl of condoms that had depleted more rapidly than in previous weeks. His theory was that people were feeling like they had nothing to lose. Many students had developed relationships but were not being transferred to the same pre-college facilities. If they did not hook up now, when would they ever? It would be years before they would become free, normal people, eighteen-year-olds with social security cards and a ticket to life. Would they still want each other then? Would they be able to seek each other?
Chester often wished he was asexual — or that his penis was always soft, only able to urinate. Thoughts of sex seemed like nothing but a distraction. He researched chemical castration, but the option became unappealing when he learned it had been used on sex offenders and pedophiles.
The door to his apartment closed behind him, and he felt a familiar wave of homeostasis. He savored it.
Teachers had told him the pre-college facilities were all modeled after Greendale, but he was skeptical. Change was change, no matter how big or small. There was no exact replica of his room, of his current life.
Showering was one of the penultimate parts of his daily routine. Chester did not understand how anyone could go to sleep covered in the dirt and sweat of the day, the smells of meals and others.
Afterward he did a bit more schoolwork and rounded out the night with some reading. Once midnight approached, Chester sat on his bed, tented his hands, closed his eyes and prayed. He did not consider himself religious, mostly because he was scared of trying the social aspects of religion. Chester was, however, interested in the idea of a singular God that was omniscient and omnipresent. If this being did exist, Chester would never be completely alone. He was not sure he wanted to “believe,” though. Faith seemed like something for people with more confidence, those who could leap a gap instead of sidling around the edge.
The other reason for his interest in religion and spirituality was all the stories in the Bible and Koran. His favorite by far was the Book of Job. When he read it, he felt vindicated in his belief that the world was unfair. Then he wondered if the author had intended that message.
For a while he was not sure if he — an undecided, unsocial believer — had a right to pray. But then he thought more about what a prayer could be. It was not only a message to God. Prayer was a ceremonious and meditative method of expressing desires.
So he prayed for what he wanted: a peaceful life as an author, a reunion with Felix and a reduction in anxiety.
He opened his eyes, grabbed a device from his night table drawer and held it in his hand. It was a biofeedback machine that monitored physiological signs of anxiety. It glowed red when his mind and body were not ready for sleep. As he took deep breaths and meditated, the colored gradually shifted to yellow, then green, the go light for sleep.
One of the meditation strategies Roger taught Chester was to close his eyes and painstakingly paint a detailed scene in his mind. The goal was to tire the brain until no amount of anxiety could stave off sleep.
Chester had been unable to memorize the exact sequence of details, but the scene was always the same. He was a grown man living in a one-story house. His home was in a quiet, spacious neighborhood, the kind where every house had acres and acres between them. He had his own library that was organized by the color of each book’s spine. This order produced a subtle rainbow effect.
In his home office he worked leisurely on new novels and short stories. All he had to do was send a few emails here and there. Publishers, agents, public relations people — they would take care of the rest. He could be one of those elusive, reclusive authors whose face no one knew, perhaps one who went by a pen name.
He had an orange cat named Hobbes that loved cuddling up with him on the couch or in bed. Chester thought about petting him once, twice, three times…until sleep accepted his invitation.
