Red Plates

Today is my eighteenth birthday. My family is throwing me a party. They are wishing me luck. Today is the day that I become an active member of society. At Eight O’clock, I will go to the commissioner’s department and be tested. Nobody has ever told me what I will be tested on, but I know I will pass. I am very smart for my age.



My mother made me a cake. She told me I would be okay. Then she started crying. I asked her why she was crying. She told me not to worry about her. I am eating my cake. It is a vanilla cake, but it has chocolate frosting. I like chocolate the best, so I only eat the frosting. My mother told me that I was supposed to eat the frosting and the cake. She embarrassed me on my eighteenth birthday, in front of all of my friends and in front of all of my family. I got mad at her and I threw the plate onto the ground. It smashed into a hundred pieces, maybe more probably. I got told to go to my room. I marched up the stairs and slammed my door shut hard.



I am so mad at my parents right now. They embarrassed me in front of all of my family and all of my friends. I am throwing my books at the door. Now I am crying because I am so mad. In my mouth I taste sea salt. My nose is very runny and my face is very hot. I push my face into my pillow and before I know it, I am asleep.



My dad is calling me to wake up. He says it is time to get ready to go. I yell down to him that I am going to get ready. I stand in the bathroom looking into my own face in the mirror. My eyes are still red from crying. I wish I could hide how red my eyes are because everyone can tell I was crying. I can only hear my parent’s voices downstairs. I think everyone has gone home.



I walk downstairs and my parents tell me I have to go now. My mom’s mouth is wiggly. She looks like she is trying to smile and frown at the same time. My father’s face is like a rock. It never ever changes. I sit in the back seat of the car. I can hear my mom’s nose sniffle. I think she is crying again.



The car ride to the commissioner’s department is very quiet. I don’t like to ask questions.

We get out of the car and it the sky is black and blue. The sun is almost gone now, and the parking lot has street lights in it. I walk into the office and there is a lady who looks like my mother only with glasses. She asks me what my name is, but my mother tells her that my name is Nathan Bentham. The lady tells me I am right on time. She tells me to go through the red door. My mother tries to hug me and kiss me on the cheek. I am too old for that and I tell her to stop.  I walk through the red door and I can hear my mother sniffle again. I didn’t want to look back but my neck made me do it. My mom was frowning all the way now.



The door shut and I saw a man. He was a tall man with a suit on. He was sitting at a table with a stack of plates on it. He stood up and he walked around the table. He put his hand on my shoulder and told me that he was going to leave the room for a little while. He told me that the plates were all mine to do whatever I wanted with them, but I was not allowed to take them home. I asked him what would happen if I broke one. He told me that I was free to break them if I pleased.



The man left the room. I sat at the table and looked at the plates. They were red. Red was my third most favorite color. The man told me that I was not allowed to bring them home. I was allowed to break them though. I picked up a plate and threw it against the wall. The red plate smashed into a hundred pieces, just like the one from my cake. I took another one and threw it at the ceiling. Breaking the plates without getting into trouble made me feel good. There was a big piece of plate on the floor. It was sharp, but I know that no one would notice that it was gone. I picked up the red piece of plate and put it into my pocket. Then I smashed the rest of the plates all at once. They made a very loud shattering noise that gave me goose pimples on my arms. I really enjoyed this test.



After all of the red plates were broken, the tall man came back into the room. He told me that the test was over. I thought we were going to walk through the red door back to my mom, but we went through the black door instead. Behind the black door was a very dark room. The tall man put something cold around my wrists and I could not move my arms from my back. It felt like my wrists were tied together with cold metal. I did not like the way they felt. The man walked out of the room and it was even darker than before. I called out to him and told him that I felt uncomfortable.



I heard the tall man’s voice like it was on a radio. He told me that I had failed the test. I was afraid. I asked him why I failed the test. He did not answer me at first. I called out again. It was starting to smell very strange in the room.  It hurt to breathe. Before I died, I heard the man’s voice again.



“Live and let live.”



I did not understand.