Meghan: What?

I took one look at the inspirational posters and bright camp uniforms and ran the opposite direction.
Unfortunately I was immediately caught by the cheery counselors that guarded the perimeter.
“You’re going to have a good time!” they said happily as they dragged me back to the milling pod of trapped college students.
“We have to get out of here” I whispered as I was deposited back among the herd. My friends nodded unanimously.
“NO TALKING!” a loud voice boomed over our heads.
We looked for the source, perhaps there was some authority figure we could kill to escape this disaster.
“PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!!” The voice continued, “YOU ARE HERE ON LOAN FROM YOUR COLLEGES TO HAVE FUN. AND FUN YOU WILL HAVE. NOW GO TO YOUR CABINS.”

I looked up from a map of the camp grounds at the pounding on our cabin door. Jasmine and Sarah waved at me to see who it was so I creaked it open. Nailed to it was a cloth bag dripping with what looked suspiciously like blood. I yanked it from the door and brought it inside. We gathered on one of the extra beds and I poured the bag’s contents out. It had three tiny dolls and many scraps of paper. I spun one of the bloody dolls on my palm, confused. It was a tiny figurine of the Disney princess Cinderella. Jasmine picked up a little princess Jasmine doll by her head and groaned. Sarah poked the Sleeping Beauty doll that remained then picked up a laminated card that had fallen from the bag. She read:
“Welcome campers! It’s your first day, so we thought we’d have a little scavenger hunt! Each of you has been assigned a figure and a puzzle. Unscramble the puzzle before everyone else and win a prize, lose the contest and there will be dire consequences. Have fun!”
I rolled my eyes, “Psychos.”
We started separating the words that came with the dolls into puzzles. Jasmine ended up with what looked like a kidnappers note in cut out newspaper letters. Sarah had well scripted directions, but mine was missing. I looked everywhere and finally found one sticky, blood stained word under the bed.
“Plant.”
“What?” Jasmine asked as she loaded shells into a rocket launcher.
“It just says plant. What does that mean?”
“No idea.” She clicked the last one in place, “See you later.”
“But—“ but she was gone.
I turned to Sarah, “Try a garden or something?” she suggested with a sad smile.
“Thanks.” I said as I left, wondering why she looked so sad.

After asking directions from many a counselor, I made my way to the camp director’s forbidden garden. The plastic happiness in their eyes seemed to wilt around the edges when they spoke of it, the last one I talked to practically begged me not to go. But with a stupid hint like ‘plant’ what else was I supposed to do? As the foliage grew denser and looked more gardeny, I dropped to an army crawl along the loamy earth. When I had crawled for what seemed like miles I reached a peak and looked over the hill down on a cabin surrounded by a small garden. The camp director plodded slowly down the rows of his garden, wearing old grimy clothes and a sun hat. He paid particular care to a row of new shoots close to the cabin. As he made his rotation around the house I sprinted down the hill as quietly as I could and pulled at one of the shoots. Up popped the strangest looking vegetable I’ve ever seen. Its head was bulbous and striped, tiny squinty eyes glared up at me in the sunlight, and its little limbs wiggled. I just stared at it, gaping. It stared right back for a second before its mouth cracked open. I knew either a bite or a scream was coming and I wrapped my arms around the thing’s head to keep it quiet. I heard the director coming and ran into the nearby forest. When I was clear I let the radish beast go, sitting cross-legged and watching it attempt to walk around me. It was very top-heavy and kept falling over, which was adorable, but I didn’t know what to do with it. Pretty soon it started chewing on my jeans and looking at me with pleading eyes; it was hungry. I popped it in the front of my jacket and went in search of radish food. After I had been walking for a while I came upon a lavender bush and the thing started squealing. I broke off some of the flowers and fed them to my radish baby. It squeed joyfully and started glowing. I frowned down at it in confusion, then fear as it started growing. And growing, and growing, and growing… It burst from my sweater in an explosion of fabric then stood before me as a full grown uber-radish. Its full throated roar shook the leaves of the jungle that surrounded us and I clapped my hands to my ears. Somewhere far away a camp director realized that one of his plants was missing. The uber-radish lowered its head and I climbed aboard, clinging to the leaves that topped its tuberous form.
“FOR PONY!!” I cried. And we rode off into the sunset to free my brethren from the tyranny of camp.













“So that’s it.” I concluded as I settled back further into the psychiatrist’s couch, “What does it mean?”
I looked over at her chair to find it empty.
“Mrs. Stevenson?”
“I’m over here dear,” she said as she held up a syringe to the light and flicked it with a fingernail to get the air bubbles to rise.
“Ah… What are you doing?”
I quickly sat up as she squirted a threatening stream of liquid from the syringe
“It’s a new medication I’d like to prescribe you, I think it would help.”
“With my dreams?”
She smiled at me, “With everything.”
Shit, I knew that smile. I stood up quickly and practically fell over the back of the couch in my hurry to put something between us.
“No, really, it’s okay, I don’t need any meds.”
Her heels clicked ominously on the tile, “I’m a doctor, and I think you do.”
She rounded the couch and I sprinted around the other side, slipping a little on the floor to slam into the door. I scrambled at the handle as she stalked toward me and was relieved to feel it give under my fingers.
I stumbled into the hall screaming, “Mango, mango, MANGO!!!”
I looked down the empty hall in horror, where were…?
I heard a nasty thwacking sound behind me and turned to find Doug standing over a fallen Mrs.Stevenson, holding a baseball bat. Jasmine knelt down to check her pulse.
“No go?” Doug asked me sympathetically. I shook my head, breathing hard from the adrenaline.
“Can we please change the stupid safe word?”
“No.” Jasmine said, “It entertains me.”
I groaned, “Now what?”
Doug consulted a notebook covered with scribbles, “There’s a neurologist in Thailand who’s supposed to be…medically flexible?”
“To Thailand?”
“Thailand!”



-M