Stacey's valuables

It had only been a few hours since Stacey had heard her brother explain the new blurring functionality of the security cameras. She had retreated back to her room and was – once again – mindlessly browsing her socials. Naked, on her bed, being spied by the three HD-cameras. She had tried to accept that those cameras were simply there and that she didn’t know who or how many people were watching them.

Her father, mother and her siblings were able to watch those cameras, but Stacey hoped that they had grown bored of watching those cameras. Or, alternatively, that they would grow bored very quickly.

She tried to act as normal as she would do otherwise in her bedroom. In the zoo she would also be naked 24/7 and be gawked at by whomever was walking by. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to find out who was watching them, and had simply resigned to the fact that she didn’t know, and might never know.

As she was scrolling through one of her socials she suddenly heard the doorbell. She tried to listen what was going on at the front door, but couldn’t hear who it was or what was being said. Just a few seconds later the door closed again and no sound was heard from downstairs. She wondered who or what for it might have been, but figured it was probably not for her since nobody walked upstairs and they also definitely didn’t call her to come downstairs, thank god.

Just a few moments later she heard someone walk up the stairs, and based on the way the stairs creaked, she surmised that it had to be her father. Not much later someone knocked on her door and before Stacey could acknowledge it the door swung open and her father was standing in the doorway.

“Hi Stacey”, he said.

“Oh hi dad”

Stacey saw that he was holding some kind of box. It looked remarkably similar to the kind of boxes they had at the zoo.

“I have a box for you that you can fill. Whatever you put in the box you might get access to occasionally in the zoo, like your phone”

“Oh thanks dad!”

“Just so you know, the first 6 to 12 weeks you may not have access to it at all and they stressed that the lid still had to fit on the box so you cannot put too much in it. I’m not sure what kind of box it is, actually.”

“I recognize it. The zoo uses those boxes to keep all the documentation that is specific to any one of the large animals. We, uhm, they”, Stacey said unsure if she should still consider herself part of the zookeepers, “have a single box per large animal. Those boxes are kept in some kind of filing cabinet near the enclosures”

“Well, you better start filling it, I want it done before dinner”

“Sure dad”, Stacey said.

As her dad started to walk away Stacey suddenly said; “Dad, wait!”

“Yes?”

“What about my phone?”

“I told you, Stacey, you can put that in the box as well. Just don’t forget to also add a charger”

“But, today is Saturday. Do we already know when I’ll be going to the zoo? I’m not sure I could do that long without a phone!”

“Well, I remember me saying that you might only have access to it in the zoo occasionally, and that you might not have access to it the first 6 to 12 weeks. So at some point in time you’re going to have to get used to not having a phone anyways?

“Right”, Stacey said as her father walked out the door. She realized her father was right. She had chosen to be a zoo animal, and zoo animals didn’t typically have - nor use - a phone. This was one of those things that she might not have fully thought through upfront.

She looked at her phone, her whole life was in that device and she would be surrendering it to that box. Unsure as to when she’d be able to use it again. Stacey tried to think of all the things she had to do before she would be able to put her phone into the box, but she couldn’t really think of anything.

The past few days she’d only been using her phone to look at all the updates people were posting, but that wasn’t really without any meaning or specific intent. She decided to make one final post on her socials telling her friends and whoever else was following her account that she’d not be online for a while, but that everything was alright and that people should not worry about her.

After making that post she quickly turned off her phone. She didn’t want to read any of the replies that would surely come in after she published it. She put the phone in the box together with its charger.

Stacey looked at the box; she had used this kind of box daily. Whenever there was a new weigh-in for a chimp, it was to be written down on the weigh-in chart that was kept in the box. Whenever an animal was given some kind of medicine, it was put on the medicine chart that was kept in the box. Of course the zoo also had a computer system to keep track of all of this, but the computer system sometimes had glitches whereas the old-fashioned chart-in-a-box system was basically foolproof. Except for when employees had an illegible handwriting - a minor detail.

Now, however, she was to fill it with whatever valuables she wanted to keep on hand. It was tough, the box was maybe 5 cm (2 inches) high, so she had to be really picky about what she should choose. The exhibit was to be a ‘permanent exhibit’, so she also didn’t have a clue how long she was going to have to live with the consequences of the choice she had to make in the next three hours or so.

She looked around her room. The most important thing, her phone, she had covered. But what else would she definitely need? Stacey decided to also add a few photo frames of her family and her friends.

In the past, Stacey had kept a diary. Especially around life changing events, like when she went to a new school or something. This could definitely be thought of as a life changing event, and so she figured that perhaps she wanted to keep a diary again. Stacey found an almost blank notebook and figured it would suffice as a diary. On top of that she added a bunch of pens, just to be sure there would be enough ink to last a lifetime.

Lastly, she’d try to see if her laptop would also fit in the box. It might just fit in the box if she removed everything else, but there was no way that the laptop would ever fit together with her phone and photo frames, let alone its charger. Stacey let out a sigh, and decided that the few things she had collected probably be all that she’d need.

She tried to put the lid on the box and concluded that it fit quite easily. Stacey looked at the closed box; this was yet another part of who she was, her identity so you wish, that she had to part with. And in this case she’d be fully dependent on someone else to ever get it back.