"Evil"

It was peas and carrots day. Sure, there was meat, but Jen was more interested in the vegetables. She would grow up big and strong, and then they might notice her. They might even let her leave; after all, she was here to get healthy. Is that not what the doctor said? She was not truly paying attention to him at the time, as he was not paying attention to her, but he had definitely mentioned getting healthy. She was sure of it. In order to do that, she knew, she had to eat all her vegetables.

She loved peas and carrots day. This was mostly due to the person who provided her with “just one scoop” of each. He was nice; he noticed her. He would let her get off with two of each. She felt as though she could tell him everything, and that he would listen with interest. He might even respond! Oh, what bliss that would be, she thought to herself as she impaled the first legume and brought it to her mouth.

Jen could imagine all the other peas, gaping gasps, all eyes pointed right at her, as she bit down on the first. She did a little dance with her shoulders, as though to say, “Yeah, I ate him, what are you going to do about it?” She then scooped up a group of four or five and shoved them in her grin.

She was feeling fairly good about herself, making such a show of herself and such, when she spotted someone out of the corner of her eye. Backed into the corner, as pressed against the padding as he could get, was a fairly young brown-haired man. At least, it appeared to be a man; his hair was long and unkempt, and he held his knees up towards his face, concealing his chest, so she could not know for certain, but she was pretty sure he was male. What she did know was that he had to be new; she had never seen his figure before. She also knew that he was one of a select few who were not staring at her. If she knew he had been there for some time, this would not bother her so much, but this one was new; he should have been, at the very least, appalled by her display. The fact that he had not even lifted his head intrigued her; she swiftly ambled her way over to his little corner.

“Hello there!” she exclaimed as she raised her hand in a sort of welcoming gesture. He cringed inside his ball, not even looking up. She was not one to get discouraged so easily, though.

“My name’s JEN! What’s your’s?” He did not offer up so much as a glance. “Do you have a face under there? C’mon, speak up!” She attempted to pry him open, to which he forcibly jerked himself away from her and moved so she was now face-to-face with his back. Slightly put off, she began looking around for some sort of prop. The perfect object presented itself to her on the nearby table - a tray of food, presumably his.

“This your food?” He did not acknowledge the question. “Someone’s gonna eat it if you don’t pay attention.” There was no reaction whatsoever. “... Someone like me.” She sat there, waiting for the slightest nudge, but it did not come.

“If you don’t want me to eat your food, you’re gonna have to stop me then!” She gathered up a large sum of vegetables on the fork. “I’m gonna do it!” No reaction befell her. She just sat there dumbfounded, with the fork quivering in her hand, waiting for some sort of response, but no matter what she did, he did not budge.

“Fine! If you don’t want it, it’s mine!” She began childishly shoveling in the various foods on the plate, not caring the least bit about cleanliness or manners. He remained as stoic as ever.

It was about this time that one of the doctors came along with a wheelchair. “Okay, Craig, lunchtime is over. Time for you to go back to your room.” He bent over to grab the man’s arm in an attempt to influence him off the floor and into the chair, but he violently resisted. “Craig, don’t you want to be back in the solitude and quiet of your own, private, secluded, special room? Then you’re going to have to cooperate and get in the chair.” This apparently sounded better than staying in the cafeteria, so Craig lunged into the chair, still managing to keep his face hidden behind his arms and legs. “There, was that so hard?” the doctor remarked. He turned the chair around and wheeled it out the same hallway he had entered from.

Jen just sat there, perplexed. No one had ever shown her such contempt. It intrigued her, yet disturbed her at the same time to know that such a person would even exist. She let the thought stew in her mind, ever lingering, until her visit that evening to Dr. Langsley.

Dr. Langsley was a nice, middle-aged woman with greying hair. She was a little on the heavy side, but Jen did not mind all that. What really interested her was the fact that Dr. Langsley wore glasses. She had to wear something special over her eyes in order to see Jen better. This made Jen feel somewhat giddy every time they spoke with each other. These meetings were scheduled by someone else, whom Jen had never met before, but who apparently were so interested in her that they would spend some of their time making sure she had the time to do what she wanted. They sounded like really nice people.

“So Jen, how are you feeling today?”

“Well, I was feeling pretty good for most of the day, but then lunchtime came, and...”

“...And?”

“Dr. Langsley, do you know someone named Craig?”

“I don’t know, Jen, I know about three Craigs.”

“Are any of them new here?”

Dr. Langsley’s eyes suddenly lit up with understanding, and did Jen notice a bit of worry in that expression? “So you do know him?”

“How do you know Craig?”

Jen began regaling the incident in the cafeteria - how the nice man had given her extra vegetables, how the peas screamed in terror, and finally how Craig had made every attempt to shun her. Dr. Langsley listened to all of it, nodding on occasion. When Jen had finished, she sat there for a few seconds, pondering what to say.

“Jen... Craig is... well, I’m really not supposed to say this to anyone, but... Craig doesn’t much like people. He’ll try anything he can to avoid coming in contact with them.”

Jen did not understand at all. How could someone like this exist in the world? And also, “Why was he in the cafeteria? If you guys are trying to make him feel better, shouldn’t he just stay in his room all the time?”

“Well, that does seem to be best at first, doesn’t it? The problem with that, though, is that Craig wouldn’t ever be cured that way. The only way he can ever be ‘fixed’ is to experience a social situation a little more at a time each day.”

She still did not understand, as was quite obvious to Dr. Langsley. “How about this: you know peas and carrots, correct?” Jen nodded. “Well, you’re very much like the carrots - orange, bright, trying ever more to get in the sunlight, to be seen. Craig, on the other hand, is like the peas - he just wants to stay in the pod all the time, out of sight from everyone. Even on the plate, they’re a dull color so as to keep away from vision. Does that make any sense?”

Jen nodded slowly, then asked another question. “If I’m like carrots, and he’s like peas, does that mean we’d go well together on a plate?”

Dr. Langsley stuttered slightly at such an insinuation. “No, no, heavens no... you see, the peas don’t want to be on the plate in the first place; they’d much rather be in their little pods on the vine. The carrots, however, are perfectly fine with being on the plate for all to see. The peas would be miserable. Just because they taste good together doesn’t make them one and the same.”

Jen seemed to understand this somewhat, but she was still unclear. It was fairly obvious that Dr. Langsley did not know any other way to explain herself, so Jen just changed the subject. “Guess what I learned to do yesterday!”

The night came and went, and it was potato day. Jen did not much like that day, since the folks giving out food then were nowhere near as interested in her as that one nice guy, and they never allowed for more than one potato. Already somewhat put-off by this, she sat in the usual spot - about the center of the room - and began to eat her potato. She glanced slightly towards the corner where Craig had been the day before, and sure enough, there he was again, unmoving as ever. She tried many things from where she was - whistling, waving her arms, jumping up and down, acting like she was running towards him in slow motion - but, as before, nothing would make him look at her. She was starting to get frustrated. The doctor came to take him back to his room, and something attached to his waist caught Jen’s eye and gave her a wonderfully brilliant idea.

Soon, it was time for her to return to her own room; one of the doctors came to escort her there. Once they were back, Jen began acting out the plan. As soon as the doctor had turned his back on her, she grabbed the key ring from his waist. She knew he would not notice, at least not for a while, as she was well enough to be kept in an unlocked room; besides, he could probably just grab another set from wherever it was they came from.

That night, the full extent of the plan came to fruition. Jen opened her door, peered both ways to make sure no one was coming, and left, headed in the direction she had seen Craig taken before. While she had not seen which door he had been left behind, all the doors had small windows, so she could easily find the correct one. Sure enough, when she approached room R-013, she spied a familiar hairdo; this time, however, he was leaning against the back wall. Upon seeing his full figure, she was surprised to find herself thinking dirty thoughts. She shook them away and began the process of elimination - only one of the keys she had was the one that would work in that door. After four tries, the latch turned, and the door opened. Immediately, Craig shot his head up to see what was going on. When he saw the unfamiliar figure enter the room, he slowly started shrinking into his knees again. Jen was not going to let him get away from her that easily; she ran over so her face was parallel to his and slammed her palm into the wall beside him. He winced, and she grinned. Again, she found herself thinking dirty.

“Hello, Craig,” she sang. “How are you this fine evening?”

Craig’s eyes were darting left, right, up, and down, looking for some means of escape. None could be found. He continued to sink lower into his lap.

“Oh Craig, honey, what’s wrong? Don’t you want to see the lovely lady in front of you?” He still averted his gaze. She was only getting more frustrated; this is not what she had planned for. She just wanted him to look up at her, at the very least.

“Why can’t you look at me? What’s wrong with you?” He did not answer; he was going into a panic attack, and would not have been able to answer anyway due to hyperventilation. “I don’t understand! Why won’t you pay attention to me? Why won’t you answer?” He was in the fetal position at this point. “Answer me, dammit!” He was now unconscious; he had passed out from fear. Jen was weeping out of sadness, rage, and confusion. Why couldn’t he even glance at me?, she thought. Why won’t he acknowledge my existence like everyone else? She could not stand it any longer; he was the most evil thing she had ever known, and had to be dealt with accordingly.

That day had been potato day, she remembered. There had to be some sort of utensil they had used to cut the potatoes. She held in her hands the keys to every room in the building. That included the kitchen, she realized. She knew she would find her redemption there.

Sure enough, one of the myriad keys she held worked on the kitchen door, and there, hanging on the wall, was an assortment of sharp objects. Grabbing one and making sure to lock the door behind her, she made her way back to Craig’s quarters.

“Oh, Craigie-poo, I’ve got a little something for you,” she mocked teasingly as she once again shut the door behind her. “It’s called a stab wound, and you’ll only get it if you don’t look at me!” He was still unconscious, lying curled up on the floor, having fallen over. She pulled out the blade. “See this? It’s pretty sharp. I could seriously hurt someone with an instrument like this.” He remained still. She could stand the stoic silence no longer; this was the true Antichrist, she reasoned - no one else could possibly torture her so - and must be gotten rid of. Jen brought the edge up over her head, hesitated slightly, and let it plunge deep into his stomach. She did this five times, each in a different place on his torso.

Craig expired there on the floor, his blood seeping into the padding and turning it a light crimson. Jen threw the knife down beside him, closed and locked the door, and ran back to her own room, where she slept fairly peacefully.

The next morning, there was a lot of commotion. People in white lab coats were everywhere, discussing what could have possibly happened the previous night. Jen overheard a few of the conversations.

“...name was Craig, right?”

“...say he was stabbed...”

“...the knife get in there, anyway?”

“...had highly active avoidant personality disorder...”

“...suicide, you think?”

“...possibility we can’t rule out...”

Jen, as she had been that night, was confused. Now they were showering him with attention? She was the one who killed him; they should have been chattering about her! He didn’t even want the attention; he was a pea! “Excuse me,” she said as she tugged on one of the doctors’ coats.

“Yes?”

“Who is this?” one of the other doctors asked.

“I’m Jen! I’m the one who killed Craig!”

The two doctors turned away to converse with each other; Jen could only catch a few bits of their discussion.

“... Jen... hystrionic... constant attention... claim anything... don’t worry... ignore...”

They walked away from her. Jen collapsed to her knees, weeping silently.