Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Start (01/16/06)
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TITLE: Less Is More | Previous Challenge Entry
By Val Clark
01/19/06 -
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Jodie. Her face flashes before me, almost demolishing the remnants of my resolve.
I have never experienced such an utterly complete finish before and thus, except for the moment of birth, such a thoroughly new start.
Clichés tumble down like broken bricks. One door closes, another one opens. But I know there will be no opportunity when the next door opens.
I strip, as ordered. With mocking smiles, careless eyes scrutinize me. I do not look in the spotted mirror. I do not need to. I am well acquainted with each jutting rib, tiny sagging breasts, collar bones an anorexic model would be proud of.
Fear stripped the fat off me faster than any diet. If I die before my time, I will consider myself lucky.
A woman in a white coat examines every part of me. I give her a sample of my urine, but that is all. I long to empty my bowels.
Later, under their pitiless gaze, I try to dress gracefully; to retain some shred of dignity. But even that is denied me. I am too slow. My fingers fumble at the buttons as they mock me. The fabric, rough and thick, already chafes against my skin.
The door opens. Not the one I came in, but one in the opposite wall. Before and behind me footsteps ring out an authoritative tattoo. My heart takes up the beat. I fear it will burst in my chest, but it is the smell that overwhelms me, causes me to falter in our relentless march. A jab in the back sends me stumbling on. The stench of human excrement, sweat, menstrual blood, boiled cabbage, penetrates every pore. Coats my taste buds.
We stop. One member of my entourage keys in a number and the first gate rises like a medieval portcullis. Another presses a thumb on a pad. The second gate ascends. After a phone conversation the third gate slides to my right. We pass through. I steel myself against the crash of gates sliding home, but there is silence.
My three companions form a triangle around me.
It is nighttime and the corridors are poorly lit. Behind the bars I can feel them silently watching. They can see me. I can’t see them. I don’t want to see them, ever. I hold my head up. Bite my trembling lip into submission. Quiet taps and susurrations eddy around me. I reach for meaning and find none.
‘Silence!’
When we stop I can hear my breath, shallow and fast. I lock my knees together lest the vertigo of my feelings overwhelm me and I fall. I taste the bile, bitter at the back of my throat. My head aches and my eyes itch from forcing back the tears. I must show no weakness, yet I feel palpably weak.
The door swings open with a creak and I almost laugh out loud at the theatrical cliché. I step inside and bars meet bars with inexorable certainty.
I long to use the toilet but the light from the corridor is brighter now and penetrates to the far wall of my cell. In the cell across from mine another inmate watches, expressionless. During the trial I at least had some privacy and a flush toilet.
Innocent until proven guilty.
I shrug out of my beltless trousers and sexless underwear and sit on the icy cold, solid stainless steel, seatless, lidless toilet. Less is more. I look for non existent toilet paper. My shoulders shake with laughter at the irony of it. Less is more. I guffaw into the hard, thin, stinking pillow and smother the laughter. The tears finally fall. Eventually the hysteria subsides. I blow my nose on the end of my shirt and curl up under the thin blanket.
When sleep comes I am jolted awake with visions of Jodie, new born, sucking eagerly at my plump breast, long artistic fingers pluck at my flesh. Her hands grow. They are grasping a bloody knife. She drops the knife and faints.
I carry her to the bathroom, ease her onto the shower floor, and seal our fate.
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