Delirium

Lena lives in Portland, Maine, with her aunt, uncle, and younger cousins Grace and Jenny, the daughters of Lena’s late cousin Marcia. Marcia died after her husband, a scientist accused of being a love sympathizer, disappeared. Marcia was indicted in his place and suffered a heart attack soon after. Marcia’s parents, Lena’s Aunt Carol and Uncle William, have raised the girls ever since. Lena has been haunted by this family scandal and her own mother’s suicide all her life.

The results of Lena’s evaluation will be used to generate a list of potential marital matches. It is the final step after a senior year filled with psychological aptitude tests designed to assign a career. Those who score low on these tests get married after high school; those who do well are assigned to a college, and their marriage is postponed until after graduation. The assessors choose a group of four or five approved matches, of which Lena is allowed to select one. She is nervous but has faith in the process.

Carol walks Lena down to the government labs and helps her to practice her answers to the evaluation questions. They meet up with Lena’s best friend, Hana, who is outgoing and seemingly relaxed, a direct contrast to Lena’s shy and reserved demeanor. After Carol leaves, the girls get in line, and when Hana openly criticizes the process, Lena scolds her and wonders how she can be so outspoken. Nurses escort them into separate rooms, but before they are separated, Hana whispers to Lena that true happiness sometimes requires moments of unhappiness. Lena is confused and afraid, and then Hana quickly reverts to her normal self as she walks into her evaluation room.

Lena is escorted into a small waiting room where she nervously changes into a hospital gown. She then enters a larger surgical area where four evaluators are waiting. They ask her questions, and she gives them the speech she has been practicing. However, seeing the surgical tables, tools, and the observation deck above reminds her of her mother, who had three separate curing procedures. None of them were successful, so before they could perform another, her mother died by suicide by jumping off a cliff when Lena was six; she and Rachel moved in with their aunt and uncle after this. Lena remembers her mother telling her that the government could not take her love away as she said goodbye. These thoughts cause Lena to forget her prepared answers, and her more honest answers make the evaluators suspicious. Lena fears that she will receive a low score.

Suddenly, a herd of cows bursts into the room. They are painted with the words “Not cure. Death” and are wearing wigs and gowns. Lena assumes that the prank is the work of the “Invalids,” uncured people who don’t believe that love is a disease and who live in the unincorporated “Wilds” outside of fenced-in Portland. They have been known to protest the procedure in the past. Amidst the chaos, she notices a boy laughing in the observation deck and assumes that he is an Invalid. He winks at her before disappearing as the alarm goes off.

That night, Lena dreams that she is falling off a cliff with her mother dead in the water below. Lena shares a close bond with her cousin Grace, whom everyone believes is mute. Far from having no voice, however, Grace speaks only to Lena, and that night, Lena confides in Grace about what she calls the “Coldness,” a dark feeling that rises inside her sometimes. Later, the news announces that the cows were a result of a shipping mistake, but everyone knows that the Invalids were involved. No one “officially” lives in the Wilds, and no one ever speaks of the Invalids even though everyone is aware of their existence. The cow incident invalidates the evaluations, so Lena is relieved when she realizes that she will get another chance.

Lena and Hana go running after school. Lena has enjoyed running ever since her mother died and is afraid that the cure will erase both her enjoyment of this habit and her friendship with Hana. Although Hana is curious to know more about the cow incident, Lena is afraid to discuss it because the government has listening devices everywhere. They jog to a government medical facility, and Hana persuades Lena to join her in snooping around the parking lot since the guard is gone. They are caught when the guard returns, and Lena is shocked to discover that he is the boy that she saw laughing in the observation deck. She accuses him, but he denies being the same boy and introduces himself as Alex. As they talk, Lena is anxious about speaking with him, because it is illegal to socialize with the uncured opposite sex. Her anxiety persists even though Alex bears the mark of the cure: three needlepoint scars behind the ear. When Hana questions him about the facility, he claims it is designed to process industrial waste and takes them to a beautiful hilltop view overlooking the ocean. When he repeats one of Lena’s answers from her evaluation—her favorite color being gray because of the sunset—she is sure he is the same boy from yesterday. He seemingly hints at wanting to meet her by the beach later that evening, but Lena is unsure of his intentions.

Lena struggles with the decision to meet Alex and doubts whether his subtle invitation was genuine. After dinner, she decides on impulse to go. She lies to her aunt about going to Hana’s house and rides her bike down to the beach, feeling guilty but excited. On the way, she is stopped by regulators, the police force made up of local volunteers and official government employees who are responsible for controlling uncured people. It is illegal for any uncured to be out after 9pm. Lena recalls how the regulators brought her mother in for a third procedure after they caught her crying over a picture of Lena’s father.

The regulators want to verify Lena’s ID in the identity verification system, but one of them recognizes her from his convenience store, so they let her go. Relieved, Lena makes her way down to the cove. She witnesses a beautiful sunset, like Alex promised, but he is nowhere to be found. She feels disappointed and silly as she heads back home.