Lies

I wonder if there is an anger hiding inside, an ague beyond the slightest shivers. Tell me, wise doctors, is everything black and rotting inside my bones?

The shadows eat up the answers. Most are thin, black, lifted easily like a veil in sunlight. Not these. The shadows on this wall never leave.

I sit in the middle of the cell, legs crossed, eyes closed. The silence hangs in the air, no screams, no shouts. Maybe today will be a good day.

Lies.

The silence is filled with whispers of the lives that have been taken. The walls look convenient, but I know the second I touch them, the darkness pulls me in. Gnaw at my neck. Tear the skin from my arms. The world wants us expelled, but they don’t allow us to die; the shadows leave like they never committed a crime, but the next day they come back, and repeat.

I stay right where I am, in the middle of my dark cell, too tired to break, too alive to be dead. I have been here for 113 days. I stare at my fingers, at the bars, at the dead end beyond the bars and eventually, there is nowhere further to look.

Time slips under our noses. It tells us there are still numbers to count, that life will eventually sprout out of a barren field. So why are all the numbers unglued? They land on the floor one-by-one.

Splat - on and on again, and you know the waiting will end soon. By a peaceful death or a slit at the throat, no one knows.

This world has no compassion, that I know. The drops of water leaking from the ceiling will never grow warm. This torture will never be forgotten without something to take it away.

Death will come. The void between a nightmare and a daydream, between every emotion that ever existed. You feel nothing at all. No pain, no anger, no sadness. How I wish my numbers would fall off quickly. That I will soon be a soft whisper in the clouds.

I wait. Everyday I sit on the floor, hold my own hand and wait. But there is no Sun to tell me if a day has passed. The water continues to drip ever so slowly. As the sound nibbles away at my sanity, I start to wonder why those who deserved to live had to die, while those who want to die are forced to live.

When those seven tornadoes crashed, the sky erupted in white flames no one had ever seen before. That was the moment I knew the countdown had begun, that it would only be a matter of years before we would have to face our crimes.

They did it. I did it. Who did it?

Humans did it.

We ruined all that mattered just for the riches and pleasure.

Now, the Earth isn’t orbiting. It’s sinking; I can smell it even from underground - the smell of a forest burning far away, the scent of toxic water seeping into the last underground aquifers like poison.

Light is hard to find in a place like this. But if I squint really hard into the darkness, there is a small glimmer of light - Pierre, the oldest guard. He only does rounds here about once a month. I heard him yelling to a cocky guard about kicking a prisoner once. When he stopped by, he would nod and slip me a slice of cheese. Eventually I accepted that he was the closest person I had, though he probably did it out of pity. The cheese reminded me too much of the times I watched the Sunrise while eating breakfast, so I decided to feed it to a rat. I hovered the cheese just over its nose, trying to be gentle. But the small creature scurried out of the cell - frantic, scared.

I hated that rat. It disgusted me. It abandoned me when I was just trying to be nice.

Lies.

I hated that rat because even animals are scared of me. I hated that rat because it still remembered how to escape a place where survival isn’t possible.

Now no life shares this cell with me anymore, and it’s just empty all the time. But I understand now, that’s just the way things are. I eat the cheese and don’t think about the Sunrise. I sit quietly in my cell and don’t wish for the day things may change.

Right now the guards are doing their daily patrols, always at random times, always whispering underneath their huge helmets as if I wouldn’t hear. Their job is easy, their tempers horrible. I hate the clank of their metal armour and the screeching drag of their swords on the stone floor.

My own voice plays in my head - all the things I tried to forget. It’s like my own mind is built to torment me, to remind me that however bright the future is, it will always be stained with the ugly past.

Happy is a calculated lie so you get to wear frills and lace and a memory of a smile when they murder you in the dark. Over and over again, it’ll never stop. It only gets worse, everything just gets worse.

I want to dissolve into one of the corners and pretend I was never here. All I can do is rock, back and forth back and forth like a maniac and still refuse to believe that I’m crazy. Every day I run the marathon of survival, no finish line, no prize. No one but me, running in endless loops.

The shivers. They spread from a tiny twitch of my toe, to the quaver in my breath, until my bones start thrashing and blood is drawn in slow drips. Even so I am completely still on the outside.

The teachers used to call me a quiet child, but inside my head, there were always voices talking over one another. I think they were supposed to be thoughts, but to me it always felt like splitting into two and talking over myself. When you’re alone a lot, it just happens. I still keep the darkest voices to myself, store the most painful emotions somewhere behind my ribcage.

But how long before they grow too heavy?

I want to laugh at myself for throwing questions in the air and expecting something.

Please let there be anything.

CLANK. When my eyes snap up I see only metal and stone.

It is boring.

Lies.

It drives me mad.

The same dirty tray, every day, never washed but never different, slides onto the stone floor through the gap between the metal bars. The guards that bring food are either old or middle-aged. I can tell from the scars on their hands. The hardness in their eyes — toughened by years of this job. Years of watching people slowly go mad. Today’s guard is no different from the res-

his eyes.

My heart splutters. His eyes are soft, and impossibly blue. So blue compared to the grey I see all day; so blue it makes me think of the Sun, the clouds, the warm wind on my cheeks - all the things that are long gone.

The tray is at my feet - filled with something I can’t recognise. Sometimes it’s a slop with brown bits, other times it’s buns stuffed with a bitter paste. We are all required to be seen to take one bite so we don’t starve, so we can continue to choke on our own madness. Every meal reminds me of the world’s cruelty.

But today, I am reminded of something different - I am reminded of how close a nightmare and a daydream can get, yet still be completely different. He reminds me of a willow tree - a symbol of all the good times, a symbol of life. I am wildfire, burning on rage and pain that has metastasized.

I sit next to my food, a green bowl of slush but make an effort to pick up the spoon. His eyes are kind, sparkling when this cell is so dark.

I remember what the people in uniforms said as they shoved me in here.

“Here you will be protected from troubles in the world outside. Don’t worry, the government and professionals will take care of it, ” they said.

Liars, I said.

Those organisations do nothing but find ways to grow their affluence, bring more glory to their names. Here I cannot do anything, futility is driving me mad. How can kindness in such a place be anything but my own hallucination?

I sink into the ground, green slush forgotten, summers and warmth gone the way the dripping water goes - dripping, then nothing.

Help me?

Someone?

Nothing.

My head is curled into my chest, eyelids like heavy weights pressed against my eyes. Silence follows, no sound from behind the bars. My heart sinks into a dark pit. I was right. No blue eyes ever existed and the last of the numbers have started to slip.

“Christine.” A name is whispered beside my left ear, like a ghost in my dreams even though I am too awake.

The name sounds familiar, warm, a single word.

A single bolt of lightning down my spine.

Dear gods.

It’s my name.