Chapter 8: Lunchtime Protocol
The nest swing had been a revelation. Cradled in the ropes, swaying gently as Joel pushed her, the world had reduced to a gentle pendulum arc. The harness held her securely, the jumpsuit brushed softly against the ropes, and the locked helmet meant she could let her head loll back without fear. The vestibular input was a deep, systemic hum, like white noise for her nervous system. She had drifted, not asleep, but into a state of pure, weightless reception.
When the swinging stopped, the return to solid ground felt abrupt. Patricia was there, her smile a fixed point in the softening blur of the play area.
“Lunchtime, sweetie,” Patricia said, her voice bright and declarative. “Let’s get you cleaned up for the dining room.”
She led Mae by the upper arm, their progress a steady shuffle. The dining area wasn’t a room Mae had seen before. It was a large, low-lit space with a vaulted ceiling. The lighting was a soft, muted blue that flattened shadows. The air hummed with a hidden extractor fan and carried a thick, warm scent of steamed vegetables, pureed meat, and an underlying, sweetly medicinal note—like vitamins dissolved in syrup.
The tables were arranged in clusters, each with padded, high-backed chairs. Some residents sat in wheelchairs locked into place at tables. Others were in chairs like Mae’s from Dr. Vance’s office, with trays attached. The upholstery was a durable vinyl, and as Patricia guided her to a small, quiet alcove booth, Mae’s mitt-bound hand brushed against a cold, discreet silver loop woven into the armrest. A restraint point. It felt polished from use.
Her chair was a tall, throne-like thing with deep sides. Patricia guided her to sit, then swung a clear, molded tray across her lap. It clicked into brackets on the arms of the chair, encasing her from waist to chest. The world was now this tray, this alcove, Patricia.
“Alright, let’s get you set,” Patricia murmured, businesslike. From a pouch on her own belt, she produced a large, soft bib made of terrycloth. It had a cheerful pattern of cartoon ducks. She lifted it over Mae’s helmet, letting it settle around her neck, and tied it firmly behind her. The material was thick, absorbent.
Next, Patricia lifted a partitioned dish onto the tray. The food was a landscape of muted colors: beige puree in one section, orange in another, green in a third. There were no distinct shapes. It smelled of butter and salt and that faint, sweet supplement. A simple plastic spoon sat beside the dish.
Mae’s mitts rested uselessly on the tray. She looked at them, then at the spoon.
“Now, with your new status and the safety mitts, we handle all mealtimes,” Patricia explained, her tone warm but devoid of apology. She picked up the spoon. “It’s a choking-prevention protocol. Also helps with pacing and nutrition intake. You just relax and enjoy.”
The spoon dipped into the beige puree—potato, maybe, or cauliflower. It came up steaming gently. Patricia brought it to Mae’s lips. The locked chin cup allowed only the smallest opening. Patricia expertly angled the spoon, sliding the tip just inside.
The food was warm, smooth, and blandly comforting. It required no chewing. Mae’s tongue accepted it, her throat swallowed automatically. It was calories and warmth. Nothing more.
“Good girl,” Patricia said, scooping up the orange puree—squash, perhaps, or sweet potato. “Open up.”
Mae obeyed. The directive was simple. The action was simple. The squash was sweeter. Each spoonful was a transaction: her openness for Patricia’s approval. The shame that might have curdled the food simply had no purchase. It was logic. The mitts made self-feeding impossible. The helmet made it necessary. Therefore, this was necessary. Therefore, it was right.
She watched Patricia’s face as she ate. Patricia’s expression was one of focused care, her eyes checking Mae’s throat for the swallow, her mouth for any spillage. There was a profound intimacy to it, but it was a clinical intimacy, like being examined by a very gentle machine.
Between bites, Patricia chatted lightly, her voice a pleasant backdrop. “Looks like we might have music therapy later. You’ll love the vibration plates. And Joel mentioned maybe trying the sensory pool tomorrow. The water is like a warm hug.”
Mae listened, swallowing on command. The green puree was peas, with a brighter, grassy flavor. She took it all. The tray, the bib, the locked jaw being fed—it should have been the ultimate humiliation. Instead, a deep, cellular peace settled into her bones. The cacophony of choice—what to eat, how to eat, when to stop—was silenced. The mental space that had been occupied by a thousand tiny decisions was now empty, quiet, bathed in that soft blue light.
The last spoonful of peas disappeared. Patricia smiled, a genuine crinkling around her eyes. “All done! You did so well.” She put the spoon down and picked up a soft cloth, wiping Mae’s chin and the edges of the chin cup with efficient strokes. The bib was spotless.
Then, from the pouch, she produced a sippy cup. It was a durable plastic model with a soft, silicone spout. The liquid inside was a deep, translucent purple.
“Here’s your juice. Just a little hydration.” Patricia held the cup to Mae’s lips.
Mae leaned forward, closing her lips around the spout. She sucked. The juice—grape, sugar-cut with something electrolyte-rich—flowed easily. The action was primal, satisfying. She drank until the cup was empty, her breaths coming in soft pulls through her nose.
Patricia took the cup away, wiping the spout with the cloth before capping it. “Perfect.” She untied the bib and lifted the tray away, freeing Mae from the alcove’s embrace. The world returned, but it felt different. Mae’s body felt heavy, satiated, and utterly passive.
As Patricia helped her stand, Mae’s muffled voice, barely audible through the helmet, spoke without her conscious intent. “Thank you.”
Patricia paused, her hands adjusting the harness strap on Mae’s shoulder. Her smile softened, lost some of its professional polish. It looked almost maternal. “Oh, honey. You are so very welcome. That’s what we’re here for.”
She took Mae’s mitt-bound hand. “Let’s go to the quiet lounge. It’s digestion and dim lights for the next hour. You can just be.”
They walked slowly past the other dining alcoves. Mae saw a staff member patiently feeding an elderly woman. She saw another resident, a younger man in a similar harness, nodding off in his chair, a bib still tied around his neck. This was just what happened here. This was the rhythm.
The quiet lounge was exactly that: a carpeted room with deep, beanbag-like chairs that seemed to swallow whoever sat in them. The lights were dimmed to a twilight level. A sound system played a continuous, low tone that mimicked the hum of a womb.
Patricia guided her to an empty chair. “In you go.”
Mae sat, and the chair molded around her, holding her in a gentle, encompassing grip. Patricia knelt and, with a soft click, fastened a loose, padded strap across Mae’s lap, securing her to the chair. It wasn’t restraint; it was containment, a promise she wouldn’t slip out.
“Just rest,” Patricia whispered, her hand giving Mae’s helmet a gentle pat. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
Mae watched her go, the blue-lit hallway swallowing her shape. Then she was alone in the murmuring dark. The pureed food was a warm weight in her stomach. The juice had left a faint, sweet tang in her mouth. The memory of the spoon, the bib, the sippy cup, played in a loop in her mind.
She tried to summon the old panic, the outraged voice that should have been screaming about dignity, about autonomy. It was gone. In its place was a vast, quiet emptiness, a blank page. The only urges left were simple: the urge to suck, the urge to snuggle, the urge to be still and let the world happen to her.
Her mitt-bound hand twitched. Slowly, she raised it to the front of her jumpsuit. Clipped there, where a pocket might be, was her pacifier. She hadn’t put it there. Someone had, perhaps while she was in the swing. The shield was smooth, cool silicone.
With clumsy, persistent pressure from the bulk of the mitt, she managed to nudge it free from its clip. It fell onto her chest. She fumbled, the quilted material sliding uselessly, until she managed to trap it against her body with her other mitt. She worked it awkwardly toward the chin cup’s opening.
It took time. Several minutes of muffled, futile effort in the dim light. Finally, she angled it right. She pushed the nipple of the pacifier through the narrow gap. It slipped past her lips.
She closed her mouth around it. The familiar, soothing shape filled the space. She began to suck, slowly, rhythmically.
The womb-tone hummed around her. The chair held her. The strap across her lap was a gentle certainty. The pacifier was a tiny, rhythmic focus in a world now devoid of demands.
Her eyes drifted shut. Behind the locked helmet, inside the locked suit, strapped to the chair, Mae finally allowed the last flicker of her former self to dissolve into the welcoming, engineered dark. She wasn't a person making decisions. She was a system, being maintained. And for the first time in her remembered life, that thought brought not terror, but perfect, unequivocal peace. The surrender was complete. It was metabolic.
The peace was a tangible thing inside her now, a warm syrup in her veins. She was a vessel receiving stillness. The door to the quiet lounge hissed open, breaking the womb-tone hum with a shaft of brighter hallway light. Footsteps, two sets, approached her beanbag throne.
“There’s our happy camper,” Joel’s voice whispered, a cheerful intrusion. He knelt beside her, his face coming into her limited field of view. Patricia stood just behind him, a silhouette. “Digestion time treating you okay?”
Mae nodded, the movement stiff within the helmet. The pacifier bobbed in her mouth. Her eyes, heavy-lidded, drifted from Joel to Patricia and back.
“We’ve got a little move for you,” Patricia said softly. “Just to the hygiene station for your afternoon check. It’ll be quick.”
A thread of cold, fine as a spider’s silk, pulled taut in her gut. A move meant being unstrapped. It meant transition. It meant the potential for unstructured space between here and there. The deep, seated safety of the lap belt and the engulfing chair felt like the only real things. The thought of losing that contact, even for a moment, made the quiet inside her tremble.
Joel’s hands went to the buckle of her lap strap. The click of its release was obscenely loud.
She felt herself flinch, a full-body recoil that was more neural than muscular. A small, distressed sound escaped her, muffled by the silicone pacifier and the locked chin cup. It wasn’t a word. It was a protest of pure physiology.
Both staff members froze. Joel’s hands hovered. Patricia leaned in closer.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Patricia asked, her voice a calibrated instrument of concern. “You’re okay. We’re just going for a little walk.”
Mae shook her head, a sharper motion this time. The panic was a faint, distant bell, but its resonance was deep. The harness and jumpsuit were not enough. The chair was not enough. She needed the certainty of anchored pressure. She needed the explicit boundary.
She forced her tongue to push the pacifier out. It fell onto her chest with a soft plop. She took a wet, shaky breath, the air cool in her mouth.
Her voice, when it came, was a husky, metallic rasp against the helmet’s interior. It was barely audible. “Don’t… take it off.”
Patricia exchanged a glance with Joel, a look of professional recognition. “The lap strap, honey? It’s just for safety in the chair. You’ll be safe with us.”
“No.” Mae’s mitts lay useless in her lap. She tried to make them into fists, to feel some agency, but they were just pillows. The helplessness fed the need. She focused on forming the words, pushing them through the small opening. “I need… more. Please.”
Joel tilted his head, his expression softening into one of deep understanding. “You need to feel secure, Mae? Is that it?”
She nodded, a desperate, jerking motion. Tears, hot and sudden, welled in her eyes. The metabolic peace was shattering into a desperate craving. “Secure. Yes. I can’t… I can’t go loose.”
Patricia’s hand came to rest on her helmet, a steadying weight. “It’s okay. This is a good thing. This is you communicating your needs.” She looked at Joel. “The support cuffs are in the alcove cabinet. And the ankle guides.”
“On it,” Joel said, rising and moving quickly back toward the dining alcoves.
Patricia stayed, her hand a constant pressure. “We hear you. We’re going to help you feel right. Just breathe.” Mae obeyed, sucking in air that smelled of dust and clean plastic. The fear began to recede, not because the threat was gone, but because it was being answered. Her request was being heard.
Joel returned carrying a small bundle of black nylon. He held up a pair of cushioned cuffs, wider than the leather ones in the office, connected by a short, sturdy tether. “Arm supports,” he explained gently. “And these,” he held up two softer cuffs with longer straps, “go around your ankles. They just keep your gait nice and steady. A little guidance.”
Mae looked at the equipment. It wasn’t just an answer. It was a promise. A curriculum.
“Is this what you want, Mae?” Patricia asked, her voice low and serious. “You are requesting additional supportive restraint for your transit and care?”
The formal language landed with perfect clarity. It framed her desperation as a valid choice. It made it medical. It made it right.
“Yes,” Mae breathed out, the word a sigh of surrender and relief. “I am requesting restraint.”
“Okay,” Patricia said, her smile returning, full of approval. “Thank you for telling us.”
Joel moved behind her. She felt his hands on her mitts, gathering them gently. He brought them together behind the back of the beanbag chair. He looped the wide, padded cuff around both of her forearms, just above where the posey mitts ended, and buckled it snug. The tether between them was short, maybe eight inches. Her shoulders pulled back slightly, her chest opening. Her arms were now bound behind her, secured in a supportive, unmistakable position.
The sensation was an immediate relief. It filled a void she hadn't fully named. A soft, grateful sob caught in her throat.
“Good?” Joel whispered from behind her.
“Good,” she managed.
He then moved to her feet, kneeling. He fastened the soft ankle cuffs, each attached to a longer strap. He took the ends of the straps in his hand, not pulling, just holding them loosely. “These are just for guidance. You set the pace. I’ll just be here if you need a steadying touch.”
With her arms secured behind her, Joel and Patricia gently helped her stand. Her balance was different, pitched slightly forward. Joel’s light hold on the ankle guides provided an invisible rail. There was no space for her to wander, no potential for a misstep that was entirely her own.
“Perfect,” Patricia cooed, smoothing the jumpsuit over her shoulder. “See? All set. Let’s get you to your check.”
They walked, a slow, deliberate procession of three. Mae between them, arms bound behind her, guided by the leash in Joel’s hand. The harness took her weight. The locks held her together. The new restraints removed the final phantom itch of possible flight.
Every resident or staff member they passed in the hallway saw a person being carefully, thoroughly cared for. Mae held her helmeted head up, looking straight ahead, seeing nothing and everything. The rhythm of their steps was a new mantra. She did not have to think about where to put her feet. The path was created for her, one guided step at a time.
She was not being moved. She was being operated.