That night, 126 had told him, ‘You are lucky you still have your tongue.’
‘I hate that bastard,’ Hatcher’s tortured voice answered. ‘I’ll kill him if I ever get the chance.’
‘No, don’t think about that,’ 126 had answered. ‘Hate comes easy here and hate kills the spirit. You must learn to love. Something — a woman, your country, anything. Without love, life is meaningless. To be in love means to laugh, to cry, to feel without touching. Without feelings, one twenty-seven, you are a robot.’
It was true, Hatcher thought, arid yet for a good part of his life, hate had sustained him.
‘Why is talk prohibited, one twenty-six?’ Hatcher whispered feebly.
‘Talk is the seed of revolt.’
‘Ah, that makes sense.’
‘In a very primitive way, everything here makes sense, one twenty-seven.’
‘What did you do on the outside?’ Hatcher’s shattered voice asked.
‘I was a teacher. A mentor. Did you have a mentor?’
Hatcher thought for a moment. ‘I had two,’ he answered.
‘Ah, and what did they teach you?’
‘One taught me the meaning of honor,’ said Hatcher.
‘And the other?’
‘He taught me to ignore it.’
One twenty-six had grown old in Los Boxes and would die there. In a moment of insanity lie had tried to run, but two days in the jungle was all he could bear. Now he was trapped forever in box 126, and to hold on to his sanity he philosophized endlessly.
‘Talk is fertilizer for the brain,’ he told Hatcher. ‘If there is no one else to talk to, talk to yourself.’
There was also practical advice:
‘If it is so important to you, scratch your name and your age in the wall so you don’t lose your identity. Just remember no one else cares. To everyone else, you are one twenty-seven. Forget what’s happening outside the walls, it’s no longer of any consequence. This place is your reality. To survive, all that matters is reality.’
‘Why bother,’ asked Hatcher.
‘Because hope is the key to heaven, 126 answered.
He became Hatcher’s tutor. Every day when Hatcher returned from the fields around Los Boxes, there were new lessons to be learned.
‘When you are outside, don’t eat green berries. The green ones will kill you.’
And: ‘Masturbate every day, it will keep your emotions alive.’
And: ‘Forget the politics of your agony. Politicians are vermin in the soul. They sway with the winds and keep you angry, and anger becomes madness, and madness is the step before death.’
And: ‘Don’t waste your time on thoughts of vengeance. Vengeance is depressing. It requires action, and action is the enemy of thought and the friend of illusion. Here illusion leads to madness.’
‘Ah. . . that is tough to do.’
‘It will get easier. Better to forgive your enemies than to invite madness.’
‘What do you fear most, one twenty-seven?’
Hatcher gave it some thought.
‘Cowardice,’ he said finally.
‘Then as long as you’re alive, you have nothing to fear. Only cowards kill themselves to escape this place.’
And: ‘If you get sick, cure yourself. Otherwise they will kill you to keep whatever you have from spreading. There is no doctor here.’
And: ‘Do not lose your sense of humor. Humor feeds the soul. If the soul starves, so does the conscience, and your conscience is your only true companion.’
And: ‘Do not eat the pork. It is cooked badly. It will put worms in your belly.’
‘Thank you, one twenty-six.’
‘For what?’
‘I’m learning.’
‘I am a teacher. It is a joy for me.
Then there were the Mushroom People.
At first Hatcher thought 126 was merely having one of his mad days. They all had mad days.
‘Look for the blossoms,’ 126 had told him shortly before he died. ‘The big ones that grow in the shade under the tall trees. Chop them and mix them with a meal, never straight. The Mushroom People are friendly, but if you eat the blossoms straight, they get out of hand.’
