Redemption Prep - Samuel Miller Page 0,25

it’s had a couple of unintended consequences.”

“Like . . .”

“Well, there’s the shakes. Muscle hyperactivity. Twitchy fingers, clenching jaw, shaking.”

Zaza waited. “And?”

“And some other types of concerns. When you start doing anything all the time, your body starts to count on it, and in the case of a drug this effective, people have gotten . . . kind of serious about it.” She finished and returned the cardboard boxes to their place on the shelves. The only thing that remained of her Apex lab build were the water bottles on the desk.

Zaza was still staring intently at her. “What do you mean, serious?”

Neesha took the bottles and toyed with the caps. “I mean . . . there was a kid in the music school who played guitar until his hands were bleeding. Some of the basketball kids have gotten a little violent. A few people have stopped sleeping altogether.”

“And you’re comfortable with that? Making a kid bleed from playing the guitar?”

Neesha sighed. “That’s a very authoritarian view of personal responsibility. I don’t think it’s fair to tell people what they’re capable of or not capable of. We don’t do that with other shit. Plus, that’s not a part of the drug, that’s just the way people are reacting to it. Most people are fine. It is possible to be too focused on something, you know.

“It makes you the most extreme version of yourself. And some people’s most extreme versions don’t work out very well.”

Part III.

Uppers.

Testimonial: Emmalynn Donahue

Year 1995–1996. Day 28.

THE FIRST MORNING of summer, when the sun is bright enough to cut through the fog and it just hangs in the air like it’s waiting for me.

The first day of class, when everybody has a reason to introduce themselves.

The first sixty seconds of a high, the way it rushes up and reintroduces itself, the familiar feeling that everything is different, the unshakable certainty that everything is possible.

The way somebody smiles in the middle of something difficult, the nod to acknowledge that they see you next to them.

The smell of the mountain, the smell of the wild grass, the smell of the mud, the smell of the farm, the smell of the kitchen and the back porch and the barn, the smell of my room.

Dr. Richardson told me to make a list of all the things that I loved in the world, and that’s the best that I can come up with.

She told me that my ability to see was the source of my poetry, and that I felt things other people couldn’t feel because I took the time to notice them.

But reading the list now, I can’t feel any of those things. Lately, I can only feel the thoughts of those things, the ink meant to represent those things. I’ve stared so long at the letters that they’ve lost their meaning, and I’m stuck writing the idea of someone else’s poetry.

The only thing I learned from writing them down is that all the things that I love point in one direction—away—and occur at one time—not now.

When I was a little girl and I felt this way, my mother told me to find my faith. She told me that I could give myself to God, when I couldn’t hold the world on my own. When I was a little girl, I didn’t know where to look for him.

Dr. Richardson says religion was my mom’s way of dealing with things that she couldn’t understand, like pain and sadness. She says everybody in the world does that, creates ways of dealing with things they don’t understand, because once you’ve seen enough of this life, you realize it’s easier to mute the world than it is to listen to it. But she said I didn’t have to. I had the ability to be better. I wouldn’t need to invest in systems to realize my life’s meaning, because I realized the meaning of my life every time I looked around me. She says that ignoring the pain and sadness of the world, or wrapping them in the cellophane cover of religion, took me further from the world. Instead, I should let them have me. I should allow myself to feel the world.

And I want to feel the world. But the thing is—I’ve seen God. He’s already speaking to me. And his voice isn’t coming from the forests.

emma donahue investigation.

aiden mallet—year 4.

transcription by MONKEY voice-to-text software.

YANIS (School Administration) _ Please speak your full name aloud.

AIDEN MALLET (Student) _ Aiden Mallet.

Y _ Aiden Mallet the basketball star.