The Annihilation of Foreverland

fuzzy edges. The lump was Zin, sitting in the center of his cell with his knees pulled against his chest and his arms wrapped around his shins.
    “You want to protect your core, Danny Boy,” Zin said. “Do whatever you can to conserve your body heat. Walking around is only going to waste it. It might feel good now but you’ll pay for it later.”
    “Why are they doing this, Zin?”
    “Sit down and do what I told you,” he snapped. “And use your legs to keep your balls from touching the floor. You don’t want those getting cold.”
    He didn’t have to worry about his scrotum touching anything. It had shriveled up like a mummified prune. The floor felt like a glacier. He stopped rocking back and forth before Zin snapped at him again, but he couldn’t control the shivering.
    “You good?” Zin asked. “Now, get into a breathing rhythm. Slowly, take in a breath and let it exhale on its own. In.” Zin sucked air through his nostrils, loudly. “Out,” he said, letting it leak out. He did it again, and again.
    Danny followed his example. The chattering continued, but he felt less scattered. A little more settled. The fear that was strangling his insides had subsided to mild warmth. The muscles that were bunched around his shoulders released.
    In.
    Out.
    He continued.
    The room was mostly silent. Some of the others were talking. There was subtle laughter. Someone was whimpering.
    “Here’s the deal,” Zin finally said. “We come here every two weeks, get naked and wait for the needle.”
    “What’s that?”
    “You’ll find out. After this round, we’ll screw around for two weeks like we’ve been doing until the next one. You get the picture.”
    “How long do we do this?”
    “Don’t ask that question. Just count your breath, that’s all you need to know.”
    Laughter crackled through the room. Someone said to shut the hell up, then added, “God, I hate this freaking part.”
    Danny went back to breathing like Zin. It wasn’t helping, he was getting colder. But there wasn’t much choice. Danny could make out more details, could see that Zin was sitting with his back straight and legs folded beneath him, his hands in his lap. His chest rose and fell.
    Danny didn’t know who was in the cell on the other side, but he was standing and shrouded in darkness. He hadn’t uttered a word.
    Across the aisle , Parker had not moved. He stood in his cell hunched over. He looked disconnected already. He didn’t seem to care whether it was hot or cold, whether he suffered or not. Like some spirit from another world.
    The seconds stitched together and became minutes. Zin told him when to get up and walk around, when to rub some feeling back into his buttocks, and when to sit still and breathe. Danny was still shivering. There were moments when he swallowed the knot in his throat that threatened to break out sobs.
    Danny lost count of how many times he and Zin walked, how many times he rubbed the feeling back into his buns, and how many breaths he’d counted. But he would remember for the rest of his life the sound the fan made when it engaged.
    It started with a buzz. The long blades began to crawl in a circle. After one rotation, they picked up speed and the breeze came down with a slow helicopter sound.
    Wop-wop-wop-wop-wop.
    Then came the hiss of the sprinklers. A fine mist swirled in the current and settled on the floor and everything else.
    “I won’t talk after this, Danny Boy, no offense,” Zin said. “This is where the real work begins. Just remember when the needle drops, push your tongue against the roof of your mouth.”
    “Why?”
    Zin began to pace. “Or else you’ll bite it off.”
    And that’s when the lump in Danny’s throat broke. He tried to smother the sobs but failed. No one said anything.
    No one laughed.

    The fan would stop. So would the mist.
    Then start again.
    Danny stopped the breathing exercise. He hadn’t done it since the fan began. He was curled up on his side with his legs drawn up to his chest. He had cried out all his tears. His stomach ached.
    He found strength watching Zin. He sat so still. He was getting up more often and walking back and forth with a steady, measured pace; his hands folded over his stomach. His head was slightly bowed.
    And on and on, it went.
    On and on, it went.

    There were large patches of forgetting.
    Danny wasn’t sure if he’d fallen asleep or just blanked out. The floor had begun to grind into his hip and his neck hurt from lying