Earnest Ben cont.

When Ben announced that he knew part of Lucy's secret she was shaken. After a brief moment of uncertainty, he mind settled. There was no way he could actually know; more than likely it was a game he played with himself. As long as he had known most of the staff he had surely guessed things about them.

Still, it might provide valuable insight into his state of mind during those hours when no one observed him. How he thought when he was alone surely figured heavily into what allowed Ben to maintain his serenity. Lucy asked him what he had figured out.

Ben looked at her carefully, his face open and, yes, earnest, clearly weighing his words. Lucy felt her heart swell a little. Part of the secret, Ben told her, was that she did things to make herself look different.

Lucy was flummoxed. Her breath caught. Ben smiled a little. Hardly a secret, she managed to say, lots of women wear makeup and dye their hair, not to mention the rest of the things they do. Clearly she had been right, this was a game he played.

Ben spread his hands, a gesture of peace, and said he knew about makeup and hair dye. What Lucy did was both more subtle and more bold. That frightened her. She took a step back. Ben's features fell.

His expression made Lucy feel terrible. She smiled the best smile she could and told Ben that he was only partly right. If he could divine the full extent of her secret, Lucy would give him a surprise.

Earnest Ben cont.

Ben told her that he was trying to figure out her secrets and Lucy looked shocked. Her face never appeared angry or upset, just surprised. That made Ben feel better about telling her. To be safe, he asked Lucy if he could keep trying to figure it out. She agreed that it could be an interesting exercise.

Late at nights, when the pills all finally wore off, Ben lay on his bed and thought. The pieces of his mind the pills had scattered collected themselves and went to work on their new task. It took only a little effort to focus now, no nearly as much as it would take a few hours from now.

Ben allowed his mind to toy with the pieces of the puzzle he had collected so far. Lucy was young, pretty, unmarried as far as he could tell. She was smart and caring. She didn't think anyone even knew she had a secret, let alone could guess what it was. It had to be thoroughly buried, then, perhaps as deeply as Ben's own secrets.

As sleep stole over him Ben could feel the first flashes of insight sparking.

After breakfast, as the pills ate into his brain and changed its functions, Ben sat in his room and waited for Lucy. He thought he already knew part of the answer and that he was close to the whole solution. He was excited.

Earnest Ben cont.

Lucy wondered if she was doing the right thing, prying into what made Ben tick. She wasn't a doctor, not yet, she might be asking all the wrong kinds of questions. Her concerns kept her awake all night.

The next day, groggy, Lucy went to see Ben again. He apologized for not having thought about his outlook. He seemed so downtrodden Lucy thought her heart would break. The one counter to the notion of human suffering she had ever met and Lucy had ruined him. She spoiled his innocence by suggesting that there was more to life than what he had.

It was Lucy's turn to apologize, then. She was truly and deeply sorry for putting Ben on the spot. He needn't worry about her questions. But Lucy's distress only compounded Ben's. He reminded her that pretty ladies should not be sad.

Touched, Lucy tried to change the subject. She asked Ben what he had been thinking about since yesterday, wondered if her answers lay in his common thoughts.

Secrets, Ben informed her as quietly as he could. He had been thinking about secrets.

Lucy knew trepidation.

She feared for innocent, earnest Ben, feared what kinds of secrets he might be keeping. If the Institute had mistreated this dear young man, Lucy would dismantle it brick by brick, her future as a doctor be damned. Summoning her courage, she asked Ben what kind of secrets he had been thinking about.

The answer could not have been more shocking if it had been delivered by little green men. Hers, Ben said, he was thinking about her secrets.

Earnest Ben cont.

The next time Ben saw Lucy he smiled again. His day was not going especially well, but he smiled. It made Lucy happy when Ben smiled.

They had given him the unpleasant pink pill again and it made his mind feel like a herd of elephants had gotten inside and were spraying his thoughts everywhere, the way they sprayed water on TV. All Ben could do was try to answer Lucy's questions, try to talk with her. He hoped he wasn't disappointing her.

Lucy had secrets. Been was good at noticing people's secrets. He knew that the tall brown-haired doctor was more than just golf friends with the thin old one, despite the fact that the old one was married and they were both men. Ben kept their secret because it made the doctors happy to be such good friends. Other people had secrets that were unhappy but Ben kept those, too. Telling would make people even more unhappy.

Ben knew one of Lucy's secrets. It was plain as day. Right away he knew she loved him. She wanted what was best for him. His mother and father wanted what was best for him, too. They told him so when they sent him here, told him they loved him. Now Lucy loved him as well. It made Ben happy, even with the pink pill.

When Lucy asked how he stayed so happy Ben just shrugged his shoulders. He always kept people's secrets. When she asked how he kept a positive outlook, Ben though about how to answer for a long time before asking Lucy if he could think about it longer.

Lucy agreed and told Ben that she would talk to him tomorrow. Ben kept on smiling and said he looked forward to it. Deep in his heart, in the place he kept his secrets, he wasn't sure if that was true.

Earnest Ben cont.

Lucy left her first meeting with Ben in a confused state. This young man--her records indicated he was twenty-four--was perhaps the most contented person she had ever met. Maybe the most content person in the world. The records said that mentally he was still a child, but Lucy suspected Ben was wiser than anyone knew.

Therein lay some of Lucy's confusion. How could he be so serene about all of this? How could he be so accepting of his fate? He was quite clearly intelligent and he had known a life outside the Institute, yet he behaved as though this was the lot he had chosen and smiled his little Buddha smile.

Innocence, Lucy decided. He could smile like the Buddha because he had no idea what the Buddha had known: life is suffering. He could be content here because all he had to do was take his pills and live his life. He never went to the other wing, had no idea what else happened in the building. He was innocent and that was why the rest of the staff treated him like a child.

Lucy resolved to study Ben more closely. She had some favors stored up; if she cashed them in she could get assigned to this floor and get more opportunities to talk with Ben. If she could learn what kept Ben so happy she might be able to apply it to other patients. It would make her a better doctor some day.

For the rest of the day Lucy went about in something of a delighted mood. She tried to think like Ben might think, to look for goodness and assume the best. In some rooms it was easy. In others it was very hard. But Lucy tried. At the end of the day it made her feel good.

After work, Lucy kept her appointment with her piercing artist. The cold steel hurt intensely as it bit her flesh, slid through her nipple. She bit her lip to keep from crying out. When the jewelery was in place she felt symmetrical again. Lucy paid her piercer, tipped him well and walked out onto darkening streets without telling him that she would not be coming back.

Earnest Ben cont.

Ben was having a good day. There were no unusual visions today and everything that he heard seemed to be something that everyone else heard, too. They gave him fewer pills than usual today. His least favorite, the pink one that tasted like earthworms, had not been given to him. Deep in his heart, where he kept all his secrets, Ben was relieved.

He never told anyone--not even himself--that he disliked the pink pill. Ben would never be so rude. He did admit to himself that taking the pink pill was a less than enjoyable experience. Ben didn't know whether to be ashamed of his relief so he sat and studied his shoes.

A new one came to see Ben. He thought she was new at first, but remembered seeing her in different parts of the building. She was an old one, then, but new to here. Ben tried to classify her properly but could not.

She was shorter than Ben and had fine white skin. Her hair was nearly as black as her thick-framed glasses. Her mouth was pink and her eyes were brown and both of them looked sad. Ben thought that it was awful for a pretty lady to be sad and told her so. She smiled, looked even prettier, but it was a sad smile.

The lady said to call her Lucy, not nurse or ma'am or anything else. Just Lucy. She asked Ben how he was doing, how she felt, how long he had been here and a great many other questions. Ben told Lucy that he was doing quite well, that he must be since he wasn't as sad as her. Then he asked why she asked so many questions that everyone else already asked.

Lucy told Ben that she was just looking out for him, that she had his best interests in mind and that she hoped he didn't mind all the questions. Ben shook his head and smiled like a saint.

Earnest Ben cont.

Lucy was a nurse, though she wanted to be a doctor some day. She told herself she would be different from other doctors, she would set a new standard of care. To prove to herself how different she would be Lucy spent every spare dollar she had making herself look different.

As far as the world could tell, Lucy was a normal nurse. Clean, well kept, carefully dressed with work in mind. Beneath her uniform, where the world could never see, Lucy kept her differences. Carefully depicted scenes and symbols were tattooed on her back and in places unlikely to be seen by the public. A handful of piercings in intimate locations lent their weight to Lucy's resolve.

She told herself that the exquisite pain of the needles was a reminder of her desire to improve the lives of patients and change the world of patient care, but she hardly needed the pain to remind her. Every day when she reported to work, every time she helped to feed or clean or restrain a patient, Lucy was reminded.

No, the pain was her penance. She put herself through the pain and discomfort because there was no way, not yet, that she could ease the pain and discomfort of her patients. And then she met Ben.

Earnest Ben

It was raining cats and dogs, right up until the pills kicked in. With alarming celerity the helpless animals were pulled, shrunk, contorted until they became regular raindrops. Ben was relieved. The thought of the little dogs and cats getting hurt when they hit the ground made him anxious.

Ben was often anxious, but they gave him a pill for that. He also noticed a lot more things than some people did, but there was a pill that made him as oblivious as everyone else. They had a lot of pills for Ben, pills to make him do some things and pills to keep him from doing others. Ben always took his pills.

He was a good boy, everyone told him so. They only gave him the pills to make him better, they told him. If he was so good, Ben wanted to know, why would they want him to be better? What was better than good? They laughed at that, the new ones. The old ones knew that Ben meant what he said. Earnest, one of them called him. Ben had no idea which one was Ernest. If they were seeing people who weren't there, Ben had pills they could borrow.

Not even the new ones laughed then.