Diallo had tied my hands behind my back and put me in the corner of the room. He stood by the hinges of the thick metal door and kept his eyes trained on the gap between the door frame and the door itself. We were playing prisoner, ironically, and he was keeping watch for when the guard might return. He had ordered me to remain quiet and would turn back every now and then to silence me when he thought I was about to speak. His eyes would burn into mine as he wordlessly brought an index finger to his thin dry lips.
Not long after, I grew tired of the monotony of the game and stood up. I undid the imaginary shackles that Diallo had used to keep me captive, walked up to him and gently tapped him on the shoulder. He nearly jumped out of his skin and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“I’m bored now, let’s play something else,” I said.
Diallo searched my weary eyes.
“Like what, Amanda? What else could we possibly play in here?” he asked.
“Ooh! What about ‘I spy’?” I smiled, and then Diallo smiled too – a little joke between us. We looked around the stark four-square-metre room, bare, save for a narrow bed frame with a thin mattress and a small, metal ablutions bowl. The white of the walls had scattered scratches with droplets of red where I had attempted to claw my way out. There was little to spy in this room, and the game would be over within minutes.
Diallo and I had little of such jokes. It was why he was my favourite. His sister Esi was a little cold and their cousin, Kirui, was moronic and slow-witted. Diallo usually came with them both and we would all play together.
Today, Diallo had come only by himself. I wasn’t pleased with this as I held the maxim “the more the merrier” quite close to heart. Despite my complaints, Diallo would not go back for the others. Because I was unable to leave, I couldn’t go and get them myself either. I, therefore, had to be content with having only Diallo for the company this time.
“I don’t know what to play anymore since you no longer want to be my prisoner,” Diallo announced with a slight frown on his face. I was tired of being his prisoner. I spent my days as someone else’s prisoner and could hardly begin to do the same as a pastime.
“Diallo, I’ve had enough of that!”
Footsteps echoed with a rapid crescendo on the other side of the door.
“Sshhh!” said Diallo, and I kept my chapped lips pressed together. It was the guard.
The little flap in the centre of the door slid open with a screech, and a tray of food appeared. The guard said nothing, closed the flap and went on his way.
Diallo ran over to the tray before I could. “Eww!” he said, and I guessed what it might be. I walked over to the tray, knowingly, and the image of cold rice with sticky bean soup that I had conjured in my mind materialised in front of me. I had grown used to the leathery texture of the food since my arrival here, and often found myself looking forward to the bland, unsatisfying meals, which were also the only indications of the time of day. This was the second meal. The first had come with a cup of what I assumed to be coffee. My stomach rumbled as I grabbed the dark-grey tray with both hands and headed to the space on the floor at the foot of my bed.
A heavy silence invaded the emptiness around me. I jerked my head backwards to survey my little box. Empty. Diallo had left without saying goodbye. I made a mental note to admonish him for that the next time he came to visit. Loneliness set in again. He and I seemed to be bound in an inseparable way – like twins conjoined at birth, with no medical intervention in existence to split them.
I ate slowly, savouring each bite of cold rice and tasteless beans. I dragged out the eating process, as it was one of the few activities that filled the infinite, excruciating blocks of time. Between meals, I had nothing to do and nothing or no one to look at.
I wish I had a mirror or at least a cloth that I could use to shine the metal of the door so that I could see, what I assumed would be a pitiful reflection. Sometimes I would spend hours feeling the contours of my face, trying desperately to transmit an image from the blistered skin of my hard hands to my mind’s eye. I am yet to be successful. I am afraid I am forgetting what I look like. I remember that I was beautiful once. I only remember that I was. I don’t recall what made me beautiful. Was it the shape of my nose? Was it the mystery hidden in the brown of my eyes? The tone of my once perfectly, clear skin? I only mention these as they are stereotypical of beauty; I fail to remember beauty as it once related to me.
I craved the days when Diallo, Esi and Kirui would come. When they didn’t, I would go places. My favourite place to go was my grandmother’s house. It was a quaint, single-storey townhouse with a modest garden in the front and a large manicured backyard with a swing set and a swimming pool. I would knock on the wooden, patterned front door and she would pull it open, slowly, because of her dwindling strength. Her small frame would then appear from behind the door and she would smile up at me, opening her skinny arms so that I could step into her warm embrace.
My cousins would be there, and we would run around the narrow corridors playing “Cops and Robbers” until granny banished us to the backyard, where we would take turns pushing each other into the ice-cold water of the swimming pool.
Sometimes I would go to an open field – bright, airy, and bursting with sunlight. I would walk through the knee-high grass, barefoot, towards the sun. The sky would be a clear azure, and I would be the only one walking amongst the flora of the field. I would stretch out my arms, close my eyes and crane my neck upwards. The warm rays of the sun would bathe the entire surface area of my skin: my face, my neck, my bare arms, and penetrate the thin fabric of my linen dress. A smile would tease my lips, slowly morphing into a beam, and then an eruption of giggles. I would be so ridiculously content. Oh! how I missed the sun.
I scoffed the last spoonful of rice and set the tray back into the meal flap. The guard would return sometime to retrieve it.
“Was that delicious?”
I turned and saw Diallo splayed out on my bed. He had returned.
“I think she enjoyed it.” Esi appeared next to him.
“Yep! The plate is almost spotless.” It was Kirui, staring at the empty tray at the door.
I bubbled up with joy, elated to have a room full of people.
“Esi! Kirui! I didn’t think you would come today. I thought Diallo kept you both away.”
“I had to go back for them because you looked so sad,” said Diallo.
Both Esi and Kirui giggled and made their way to me, pulling me into a tight embrace. The air left my lungs, but a smile remained fixed on my face. At that moment, the loneliness I harboured constantly like a dead weight felt lighter. Esi and Kirui then began to tickle me aggressively. I broke out into bouts of laughter, which were punctuated by cries for release: “Stop! Stop!”, I begged, but they gave me no reprieve. Diallo jumped off the bed to join them, and soon we were all on the floor in tears.
…
My boots cling tightly to my feet as I walk towards the solitary confinement cell of the prisoner on death row. The eerie echo of my steps forces me to pick up my speed. I look down at the prisoner’s supper. Is that supposed to be meat?
I get to the door at the end of the hallway and push the meal flap open. I quickly replace the empty lunch tray with the dinner tray.
I am only ever able to hear the prisoner. I wonder what she looks like. Today she’s laughing hysterically and begging Diallo to stop. There is no one else in the cell.
I close the flap and head back to my post. Of all the prisoners I’ve seen go into solitary, I have never come across one who has fallen so far off the delicate edge of sanity.
I pity her, and all the lost souls that can never be saved.
Read – African Cranes in the Shadows – A Short Story by Patricia Furstenberg, South Africa
——-
The Writers Space Africa(WSA) Magazine is published by a team of professionals and downloadable for free. If you would like to support our work, please buy us coffee – https://www.buymeacoffee.com/wsamagazine
