First

I woke up with a start about ten minutes to six, roughly five minutes after they stop pumping the chemicals through the ventilation system that conk us all out. Our keepers prefer us all on a rigorous schedule. It's a horrible feeling, that miserable haze, looming over all my senses until I get the chance to fall asleep for real. The worst part is the instant recognition of the sensation, the painful familiarity and realization that I'm still here. At least, it doesn't last long. Now, I have a chance to dream; my only freedom in this box, the happiness for me in this place is to dream and to dream of her.

The first wake-up alarm is a pleasant violin piece played at a reasonable volume. What you're supposed to do is to first get off of your plank. It's called a plank because the only similarity it shares with a mattress is shape. Next, you take the four steps across the cube to two orange circles on the wall and place your hands inside them. This activates a subroutine which retracts the plank into the wall, dumps a cleansing solution on you, and blasts you with a jet of freezing water. Vents open up in the floor to collect the water, followed by a burst of hot air that would scorch the hairs off your nethers if you had any. You don't. Apparently, our keepers are of the belief that hair is a privilege. We don't get any of those. Just a plastic rectangle, three meals, and a fifteen minute break every three hours.

If it were up to our keepers, we'd just have a tube pumping nutrients into our bodies while we widdled away our time. The Government, the useless puppetocracy, told them it was too harsh a punishment for our crimes against them. The smiling face that represents the will of our keepers graciously agreed on his masters' behalf to allow us to "keep our humanity and dignity intact". Rubbish. It was a show of mercy for the public that was already scared to death of how the definition of democracy had changed so dramatically in a lifetime and how the value of human life had been reduced to nothing. My humanity has been stolen, my dignity has been used for a toilet, and my continued existence is an affront to God. Just existing is "too harsh" and I still have quite a ways to go. So does she.