Society

Chapter 8

He continued to lead me through the chalice; we passed through a maze of corridors, all of which had labels naming areas which sounded strange and foreign to me. We finally exited the maze and found ourselves inside a room which was not as high as the reception was but double the width.

The hall was lined with long tables joined together and chairs along one side which filled most of the room. On one side of the room was a long metal table which held trays of different food in silver dishes and clear, plastic lids on them. I was thankful it was made of a material I recognised. The room was bright because the ceiling was made of glass panels, but the floor and walls were made of the same black stone as the outside of the building, opposed to the lovely white of the reception. I had to admit I found it even more beautiful.

There were a few different entrances to the room, one opposite the entrance we had come from which occupied the empty space between the end of the tables and the wall. There were another two entrances from where I could see on the other side of the hall and a few people occupied them, seemingly waiting for something.

"This is the canteen, we have all our meals here, but as you can see it's only at certain times, if you try to eat early you don't get anything and if you come late most the food will be eaten. Normally you're not allowed in like this because of those rules but no one will stop you walking about and talking to people in the canteen if you're not eating."

I looked at him pleading for further explanation, feeling slightly confused.

"Normal times for breakfast starts at half eight, it normally runs out within half an hour. Lunch doesn't really exist, there's normally some scraps of food here and there so that's lunch. Dinner is normally at about six at night."

I sat thinking it over, recalling my distant memories of serving food up to my old family.

"I'll ask the cooks to give us something for after because we'll miss dinner."

Dan headed towards the long metal table and I started after him, he walked behind it and opened a door which was barely visible against the black of the walls, he entered and held the door open for me.

The inside of the room, was made of pure white, it wasn't made of stone though, but I couldn't care less what their walls are made of. The room itself was small; it was about ten feet by ten feet. It was filled with cooking utensils but most of them were unfamiliar to me, and there were rows of things that looked like cupboards, but they had glass windows and a light on inside.

"What are they?" I asked as I nudged Dan's arm pointing to the strange structures. He looked at me incredulously.

"They're ovens. You know where you cook food. And stoves, you put food on top or inside it and it cooks the food."

"Really?" How does that work?"

"Are you for real" Dan looked shocked and I recoiled at the tone of his voice, feeling hurt a little.

 "Well, I'm sorry for being homeless and even when I had a home we only had a fire and pots."

"Of course, I'm sorry I didn't mean to offend you."

I turned away as he walked over to a man wearing a white outfit, and a strange hat, the anger that I felt quickly dissipated though, so I turned back and joined Dan with the man.

"Of course, that's fine." The man said, it must have been about our food, he looked at me before reaching out and poking me in the ribs. I grabbed his hand and twisted it round but Dan quickly grabbed me and moved me away from him.

"Sorry about her, she's not used to human contact."

"It's ok, I was going to say there's nothing on her but I can tell she's got a fair amount of muscle" he turned to face me, laughing slightly, " sorry about that, I didn't think about it, how have you never had human contact, dear god?"