Fools Follow, Part 3

Somehow, the best way to make things normal was to enforce silence. There was some sort of intellectual leap to therefore using drugs. The theory was that by drugging their charges, they were slowly accustoming them to the mind numbing dullness of reality. And, once they were fully adjusted, they could be released back into their nut-and-bolt lives in the larger machine of society. Once this policy had been made, it had been rigorously adhered to, because as the directors knew, normal people made a schedule, and followed it, no matter what else happened.

The place where the treatment occurred was a round room at one end of the facility. The room had been selected because circle’s had not corners. In the same, earlier meeting, corner’s had also been judged to be bad, anti-social places, where abnormal people liked to go and sit in because they did not like being forced to look at other people. As such, corners, and square rooms were sometimes, de facto bad. Moreover, as all of the Directors had also agreed upon during the same meeting, there was really nothing more soothing than a circle.

In the circle room there were chairs and tables. At evenly spaced intervals, the room was also full of the residents. The residents were herded into the room in the compliant or non-compliant states by Orderlies, who kept an indifferent eye at best upon them. Once everyone was in the room, small plastic cups that were full of a dizzying array of multicolored pills were distributed to everyone based on their number.