I wrote this as a First Person narrative because that’s how it turned out. Although it’s certainly not autobiographical it’s based on personal experience sanitised as fiction. I originally intended it to be a ‘building block’ in a novel I was writing. I didn’t make use of it until my next novel when significant aspects of it found a their eventual home.
The narrow corridor was gloomy, two floors below ground and dingy. Damp hung in the air. Not a pleasant place at all, which I imagine was the intention. They’d taken off the shackles now, but my bare feet were cold and I could taste the blood again in my mouth where they’d hit me with the sticks. I’d lost a tooth, could feel the broken edges with my tongue, but there wasn’t much likelihood of seeing a dentist any time soon.
The guard pushed me against the wall, held me there with his bulk while he fiddled with the keys. Two more guards were just behind me, biding their time. I knew they’d wade in again if I gave them reason to do so. They didn’t like me and I had the bruises to prove it.
The metal door had a small hatch with a sliding cover, on the outside. He swung the door open revealing a cell lacking any windows; lighting being provided by overhead fluorescent tubes behind metal grills. A low metal bench, just about wide enough to lie on was fixed to the rear wall, riveted in place. A stainless steel toilet, lacking a seat, jutted out from the wall alongside the bench. Not entirely dissimilar to any number of police cells I’d been in, but this was supposed to be a harder regime and on that basis it didn’t disappoint.
No bedding. No creature comforts. The walls were whitewashed brick with numerous obscenities, names, expressions of defiance scratched into their surface.
I was all set to walk in, but he pushed me anyway, sent me staggering across the tiny space into the far wall. I sat on the hard bench, looking at him. I could have used a blanket, but there was no point in even asking. The floor was cold. They’d taken my shoes and socks, not returned them. Add that to the list of things it wasn’t worth mentioning.
He was still there, filling the doorway. ‘I’ll be back, arsehole,’ he said. ‘Suicide watch.’
I laughed at him. They must have known how unlikely that was.
‘You remind me of someone,’ I said. ‘A taxi driver I killed a few years back. God, he took some killing. That fat neck, see. Just like yours.’
He balled his fists but stayed his ground. It would take more than that to tempt him inside this confined space. I wasn’t concerned. I’d be seeing him again. I had plenty of time.
He left, slamming the door. It was cold. No shoes, no socks, just my underwear. No blanket. I didn’t expect anything different. Killing the doctor had annoyed them all.
I hadn’t intended to kill him. Not that day. I rather liked him, actually. He shouldn’t have mentioned my mother. That annoyed me. Annoyed me enough to stick his ballpoint pen in his eye. It went in a long way. I held his head, tightly, even when they were hitting me across the head with their sticks, kept on pushing. He never made a sound, but when they finally dragged me off him I could see he was dead. I know what dead people look like.
Gulliver Smith 