A Room Full of Strangers

I woke up, slowly trying to focus on the naked bulb above me. In my nebulous surroundings I saw a party of people in a uniform of white shirts and black stripes tied with chains; in my futile efforts to pick myself up, I fell back onto the pool of saliva that had dripped through the night! I realized that I was lying face-down on my stomach, breathing in the rancid residue that coated the floor; it smelled like death. The prison cell was a hollow cube on concrete, one way in with no windows, thus I had no idea how much time had passed or if it was night or day! Disorientating by design, the cell held me captive between a group of criminals that seemed like predators ready to pounce on any new prey in the cell!

As I came to consciousness, I figured out a well-built man sitting right opposite of me, staring right into my eyes! The way his eyes squinted when he glared at me, reminded me of a pit-viper's slit like pupils; they spoke of indignance and fury boiling in his body like lightning on a pitch-black night. Even though i didn't know him, i guessed that he was wrathful and filled with the exasperation due to the torture in the prison. His voice was harsh and had a guttural British accent that ached my eardrums! He went on to initiate small talk with another prisoner who was sitting with arrogance and gave off a vibe of haughtiness. Stolidity ran through his blood and he was completely devoid of pain caused by the friction between the rusting chain and his wrinkled skin! Thin wisps of hair straggled up his sunken cheeks like etiolated vines desperately seeking daylight, skimpy looking beard. Looked like he was an old inhabitant of the place; this hell was his home.

Here I had no rights. I could not leave. I could not refuse the poisons that were served in dented metal plates that made my mind slow to the point of stopping to cease every emotion. Bed is a mattress on the cold floor with a single blanket for warmth. There is no rest from the screams of others, the ones driven crazier by the hours of persecution. We no longer belonged to the community of humans; we had descended to a level where we were treated like animals.

Crazy is crazy and the constables were the worst for carrying that stigma. Two men fought in the grimy corners of the cell for the last cup of foul smelling and tasteless boiled water! One of them had a tongue soaked in the taste of blood and the other revealed an articulate blade, sleekly placed in the middle of his mouth! A fist was brought violently at the little man’s face and his nose snapped into grotesquery. This was normal in a place like this, a place so cold and so relentless.

In the midst of this fight, I glanced at a young lad with unimpeachable onyx- black empty eyes sunken in a sea of tears. He cried as if his brain was being shredded from the inside; emotional pain flowed out of his every pore. From his mouth came a cry from so raw that even the eyes of the strangers around us were suddenly wet with tears. His nails were filled with dust and mire with specks of blood, probably he tried to scrape the concrete walls beside him! When he looked at me, I could see through his pure soul that was caged between the iron bars of this cell.

Looking at a new guest enter with clinking handcuffs, revolting between the constables was dragged towards our room, he growled like a beast- shattering me!

In this room full of people, I was alone, very alone. Unaware of their names or personalities I could only make assumptions, however, in the pursuit of discovering them, I would lose myself!

Imprisonment leaves you with yourself. All alone with insects for company, and that's when the other part of you starts to speak, blathering, arguing with thoughts, screaming for attention. And that's when prison breaks you, leaving you to break yourself. Until there is no more you, but a shell, a hollow, reverberate one, without life.