Comprehensive Notes on Gymnasium Setting, Guard Structures, and Secret Communication

Conversion of the Space:
- The sleeping quarters were formerly a high school or athletic gymnasium.
- The floor is made of varnished hardwood, still bearing painted stripes and circles designating bounds for sports previously played there.
- Basketball hoops remain mounted on the walls, though the nets have been removed.
- A surrounding balcony overlooks the floor, where spectators once sat.
Sensory Afterimages and Historical Layers:
- Faint, lingering scents remain in the air: the pungent smell of sweat blended with the sweet scent of chewing gum and perfume from female spectators.
- Physical fashion of the spectators evolved through distinct historical eras visible in photographs and memories:
- Felt skirts.
- Mini-skirts.
- Pants.
- Spiky hair streaked with green, accompanied by a single earring.
Traces of Past Social Events:
- Remnants of high school dances linger like a palimpsest of unheard sound: an underlying drumbeat, a forlorn wail, garlands made of tissue-paper flowers, cardboard devils, and a revolving mirror ball that dusted the dancers with light resembling snow.
- The atmosphere retains lingering traces of old sexual tension, loneliness, expectation, and an unshaped, unnamed yearning.
- Memories of physical intimacy include hands placed on the small of the back, encounters out back in the parking lot, or sitting in the television room with muted sound while screen light flickered over lifting flesh.

Cot Configuration and Regulations:
- The living quarters are filled with rows of army cots, spaced deliberately apart to prevent physical contact and speech between occupants.
- Bedding consists of child-like flannelette sheets and old army-issue blankets that still carry the scent of the U.S.
- Personal clothing must be neatly folded and stored on wooden stools positioned at the foot of each cot.
Environmental Controls:
- Nighttime lighting is dimmed to a low level but is never turned off completely.
- A pervasive sense of insatiability and longing for the future persists among the occupants.

The Aunts (Internal Overseers):
- Internal surveillance and discipline are enforced by female overseers known as Aunts, specifically including Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth.
- The Aunts patrol the room armed with electric cattle prods suspended on thongs from their leather belts.
- Aunts are denied firearms, as the regime does not trust them with guns.
The Angels and Armed Guards (External Security):
- Firearms are restricted to guards known as Angels, who are specifically selected for security roles.
- Angels are strictly forbidden from entering the interior of the building unless explicitly summoned.
Perimeter Restrictions and Exercise Routines:
- Occupants are forbidden from leaving the interior of the building except for scheduled exercise walks.
- Walks occur twice daily, conducted two by two around an adjacent football field.
- The football field perimeter is secured by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire.
- Angels stand outside the perimeter fence with their backs turned toward the prisoners.
Dynamic of Desire and Psychological Fantasy:
- Although the Angels inspire fear, they are also targets of longing and unspoken fantasy.
- Occupants harbor fantasies of catching an Angel's eye, initiating speech, or trading/exchanging their bodies for favors or deals.

Covert Interaction Tactics:
- Occupants developed techniques to whisper almost completely without making sound.
- When the Aunts are looking away, occupants stretch their arms across the open spaces between cots in the semi-darkness to touch fingertips.
- Occupants learned to lip-read by lying with their heads turned sideways flat against their pillows, watching the movements of each other's mouths.
Exchanged Identities:
- Secret communication allowed occupants to whisper and pass names quietly from bed to bed across the room:
- Alma
- Janine
- Dolores
- Moira
- June