was impossible.’
‘How come?’
‘Because the ground beneath me was burning.’
‘So you just let the flames grow?’
‘I didn’t let them grow, they were going to grow without me.’
We carried on like this, not fully understanding each other, until she decided she had had enough. She turned her back on me and spoke to the camera. She read the words beautifully:
Resplendent flowering youth, joy and wild abandon
suddenly, this was the outcome
My heart, what pain?
Child, I don’t understand
Why would you do such a thing?
I hear mother’s blood-filled tears
Child, I lament
I cannot, will never comprehend
why you would do such a thing.
I wanted to cry. If I’d known someone was going to write such a shit poem, I wouldn’t have killed her.
In Prison
N o one came to visit after that. I was handcuffed and tied by my feet, like a bear in captivity. After hours of sitting for too long, I began to feel like I’d become stuck to the cold, damp floor, that I had become part of the building. I’d heard people say that prisoners could spend a whole afternoon playing with one ant and eventually were able to distinguish between males and females. But there were no insects here, so I had my hands on my crotch most of the time. In, out. My hands were sticky from semen and smelt like a fish market. I took to wiping them on the soles of my feet until they were black with grime. I didn’t do it for pleasure, I was just bored senseless.
I asked the guard for a Rubik’s cube, but was refused. I said it wasn’t exactly a lot to ask.
‘What would be the point of locking you up if I were to give you a Rubik’s cube?’
He pulled the small metal window shut and I start thumping at it.
‘What’s a Rubik’s cube got to do with my incarceration?’
He ignored me. I asked him again when he came with food.
‘You want to play with the Rubik’s cube. If I gave you one, I would be undermining any sense of punishment.’ He was kind of right.
I started obsessing over my arrest; the blue skies of freedom outside my window didn’t occupy my thoughts much. I could have pushed over the police officer and run. I could have used stones or a kitchen knife to keep passers-by away. They would probably have shot me. Instead, I sat alone in my cell facing the immeasurable void that was time itself. Life’s petty problems (frustrated commutes, tedious work, inconsequential arguments, sexual escapades) were all designed to create a screen between the flesh and time’s inevitable stranglehold. But I was stuck in my cell, with nothing to do, or at least nothing that could keep me occupied for more than a few minutes, and time’s infinite embrace kept leaning towards me. Herculean, invincible, omniscient, flesh without feeling, it listened not to your entreaties, cared not for your sorrows, it was the dirt always crushed, the waves always crashing, it forced itself into every space, drowned you, dismembered you, it pressed on top of you so that its weight felt solid, it dug into you like a quick, relentless bamboo arrow piercing through your nails. There was no resisting it. It was a slow demise. My father’s image came to me and hot tears gathered in my eyes.
In the days before my father’s death, he stayed in a hospital room much like my cell – cramped, dark and moist, the floor like rat skin giving off the stench of nothingness. At one point, having been in a coma for a while, he quietly woke and took my hand.
‘I keep seeing a young man in a white robe sitting over there by the wall. I think I know him, but at the same time I don’t. He is eating a simple apple. Or maybe he is simply eating an apple. Can you hear the chewing? He sits with his back pressed against the wall, his eyes shut, concentrating on the piece of fruit. He will never finish. He is waiting for the right moment to stand up. He will throw the pips on the floor, step on them. He is waiting, but you don’t know what for.
‘He is the angel of
‘How come?’
‘Because the ground beneath me was burning.’
‘So you just let the flames grow?’
‘I didn’t let them grow, they were going to grow without me.’
We carried on like this, not fully understanding each other, until she decided she had had enough. She turned her back on me and spoke to the camera. She read the words beautifully:
Resplendent flowering youth, joy and wild abandon
suddenly, this was the outcome
My heart, what pain?
Child, I don’t understand
Why would you do such a thing?
I hear mother’s blood-filled tears
Child, I lament
I cannot, will never comprehend
why you would do such a thing.
I wanted to cry. If I’d known someone was going to write such a shit poem, I wouldn’t have killed her.
In Prison
N o one came to visit after that. I was handcuffed and tied by my feet, like a bear in captivity. After hours of sitting for too long, I began to feel like I’d become stuck to the cold, damp floor, that I had become part of the building. I’d heard people say that prisoners could spend a whole afternoon playing with one ant and eventually were able to distinguish between males and females. But there were no insects here, so I had my hands on my crotch most of the time. In, out. My hands were sticky from semen and smelt like a fish market. I took to wiping them on the soles of my feet until they were black with grime. I didn’t do it for pleasure, I was just bored senseless.
I asked the guard for a Rubik’s cube, but was refused. I said it wasn’t exactly a lot to ask.
‘What would be the point of locking you up if I were to give you a Rubik’s cube?’
He pulled the small metal window shut and I start thumping at it.
‘What’s a Rubik’s cube got to do with my incarceration?’
He ignored me. I asked him again when he came with food.
‘You want to play with the Rubik’s cube. If I gave you one, I would be undermining any sense of punishment.’ He was kind of right.
I started obsessing over my arrest; the blue skies of freedom outside my window didn’t occupy my thoughts much. I could have pushed over the police officer and run. I could have used stones or a kitchen knife to keep passers-by away. They would probably have shot me. Instead, I sat alone in my cell facing the immeasurable void that was time itself. Life’s petty problems (frustrated commutes, tedious work, inconsequential arguments, sexual escapades) were all designed to create a screen between the flesh and time’s inevitable stranglehold. But I was stuck in my cell, with nothing to do, or at least nothing that could keep me occupied for more than a few minutes, and time’s infinite embrace kept leaning towards me. Herculean, invincible, omniscient, flesh without feeling, it listened not to your entreaties, cared not for your sorrows, it was the dirt always crushed, the waves always crashing, it forced itself into every space, drowned you, dismembered you, it pressed on top of you so that its weight felt solid, it dug into you like a quick, relentless bamboo arrow piercing through your nails. There was no resisting it. It was a slow demise. My father’s image came to me and hot tears gathered in my eyes.
In the days before my father’s death, he stayed in a hospital room much like my cell – cramped, dark and moist, the floor like rat skin giving off the stench of nothingness. At one point, having been in a coma for a while, he quietly woke and took my hand.
‘I keep seeing a young man in a white robe sitting over there by the wall. I think I know him, but at the same time I don’t. He is eating a simple apple. Or maybe he is simply eating an apple. Can you hear the chewing? He sits with his back pressed against the wall, his eyes shut, concentrating on the piece of fruit. He will never finish. He is waiting for the right moment to stand up. He will throw the pips on the floor, step on them. He is waiting, but you don’t know what for.
‘He is the angel of
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