Jump

Black walls. Some smeared with something lighter. Bars on the window shaft the light. If you could call it light. Maybe the smears on the walls are evidence of a bad paint job and it's the light's job to highlight them.

This is your environment. Black walls. Bars on a window.

Iron door. Forbidding. Grey. Its window throws light too but it gets absorbed by the black. It is not a positive beacon, this light. It's a Cyclops' eye: something to fear. Something to shy away from. And when it blinks? That's the most ominous of all. Because when this window blinks, as its light becomes blocked like an eyelid lowered, it means something is coming. And that's rarely good.

This is where you are.

Bed. Place to rest. There's no rest to be had here. Resting is for spas, on day beds. This is a day-and-night bed. Day-and-night, night-and-day. A continuous chain of being. Boring. Wasteful. Bare.

These are your surroundings, the place that houses you. You hate it here. You don't know how it happened; you don't know if you'll ever leave alive. It's likely this place will kill you. You think that's what it's designed to do.

Itch. This is a distraction. The only distraction. A thing you can do which is productive. To scratch. Where the scabs are. On your temples. Where the hairs are trying to push through where you were shaved. You try not to hurt yourself with the seeking of relief and sometimes you feel like you're taking it a bit too far but the feeling is so delicious, so exquisite. But you stop. Because it's something that you can control. You can stop it - if you want.

You hate the ennui. You try not to let it in.

Noise. Clanking movement from beyond the forbidding, grey door. Cries. Anguish. Pleading.

Pain. People in pain.

You have learnt not to focus on that when you're lying on your uncomfortable bed in your black cell doing nothing but scratch. You resist the urge to join in the howling although the compulsion is strong. The howl would be liberating - you'd like to join the pack - but there is no chance of liberation here. Not permanent, anyway. You would feel the freedom of letting your voice ring out for the minute it was allowed, the freedom that comes with expression, but would it be worth the gag and the resulting extreme thirst? You think not.

You don't need more challenges.

And you never hear the same howl twice.

Sigh. This is a noise that is acceptable. One that disturbs no-one - no-one outside of your cell. It disturbs you though, as it's a sign of complacency and acceptance with just a touch of defeat. You hate yourself. You hate the fact that it doesn't echo; the cell absorbs it as it does your will to live into its black, black walls.

Time. Time passes but you have no idea of its presence. You tick, tock in your head, as you think about things from the world before imprisonment. Tick, tock, grandfather clock. Hickory, dickory dock. Hey diddle diddle. Cat. Fiddle. Cows and spoon and a dish and a moon. You'd love to see the moon in full but it's always sliced by the bars - they line up like cheese wires. But at least it's still out there. You take hope from the fact that some things are still the same from your life before.

Whatever that was. You like to think you know it from the flashes, in the glimpses you are given, that you recognise things. Names. Things.

Like the moon. Like nursery rhymes.

You can't help yourself but you quietly sing to yourself. Hickory, dickory dock. The innocence of it makes you so sad. The mouse ran up the clock. Visions of mobiles filled with pastel colours and soft, stimulating shapes of clouds and small creatures made of felt, in a sunlit room: radiant. The clock struck one. You imagine a grandfather clock, solid, tall, strong, in warm wood. Polished. Gleaming. The mouse ran down. Little mouse. Furry, warm little mouse. Hickory, dickory dock.

Were you ever a mother? Part of you thinks so because your memories are so vivid but your mind, you wonder - is it still your own? In this black space, things aren't as clear as they used to be, frayed and difficult to grasp and shadowy and difficult to discern.

You don't have the energy nor the hydration to devote to crying. Your body can't produce tears because it's a living husk. It would exhaust you. You fall asleep or you think you do. It is while you think you are asleep but don't know for sure that you hear it.

The sound.

You don't know where you are. You're in a cell but you don't know where in the world. You think you know who you are, who you were? But you're not certain. Nothing is certain. You know that you're imprisoned so that is certain. Maybe there's hope after all in the uncertainty of the certain. You think you've been taken out to sea but you're not sure why. Is it the wind that tells you as it whistles past the rivets of your prison? Is there something in the air? What air? You don't feel like you've been breathing normal air since you've been here. Whatever expands your lungs feels piped in. Didn't people used to go to the coast for the cleanliness of the air? This air that your lungs has to accept, has to work with - it's not from a spa town, with rejuvenating and restorative properties. It reeks of decline and control and your lungs receive it like an annoying guest, letting it in briefly but not letting it stay. It's out on the mat before you know it.

And yet, is there a chance that it will stop, this fetid air? Then what would your lungs do?

The sound again.

It starts as a faint crackle. You fear that the shouting will come again, from the tannoy. It doesn't, this time. The crackle continues. It doesn't grow. But there's something else. It is accompanied by a soft noise, barely discernible. Sibilance. A hiss. You don't like hissing. It reminds you of gas being emitted. Or a snake about to strike. But this hiss? It lacks threat. It has rhythm and you listen. Is it Satan? Your heart leaps at the thought. It would be terrifying but it would be stimulating. Stimulated by Satan. Light entertainment from Lucifer. Punchlines from the Prince of Darkness. Beguiled by Beelzebub.

But if the Devil's here, are you already in Hell? Is that what's happening in this black, black cell? You'd imagined it warmer, Hell, but then you hate the cold so is this a personal Hell geared to you?

Hell cell.

Listen.

Listen.

You focus, stilling your mind from speculating about superstition. It's hard. You take deep breaths. Your lungs complain. You close your eyes and imagine your ears as huge satellite receivers in the desert, tuning into space signals. You remember a mouse once too in the desert, listening in tufts of grass. It was on a documentary. Memory of this settles you. You calm and you listen. The hiss continues, indiscernible, steady, soft...

And then, you catch it. A word! A word tumbles out of the tannoy and your ear grabs at it like a child at a bubble.

Jump.

You're not sure. Did you hear right? Your ears must be thick with wax. You place your finger to your ear and wiggle it, to dislodge a blockage and help get the sound to where it needs to go.

You can definitely hear "jump". But it's not the only word. Your mind thinks of Jane Fonda in legwarmers and headband, full of vitality and wrapped in spandex made with many colours. With big hair.

Jump. Van Halen. You hate Van Halen.

Jump. Pointer Sisters. Better. Is this an exercise hour? You don't want to fucking exercise! You barely have the energy to lift your finger to scratch.

Jump? You want to shout, "You can fuck off! I'm not jumping! Fuck off!" You open your mouth to follow through on the impulse such is your indignation when another word filters through.

When.

Jump. When.

There has to be more and you still yourself like a statue, head turned towards the tannoy, your sense of excitement and curiosity growing. Your blood needs to stop making so much noise! When what?

Focus.

Calm.

Listen.

Jump. When.

Is this some sort of test? Please. Not torture. You imagine spikes, an Indiana Jones-style trial where sharp pointed steel appears and you have to jump in time to not get skewered. Squid Game. You look at the floor. There are no holes. It is solid metal. Isn't it? It doesn't look like there are spikes. Your mind skitters from this and thinks of electricity, of cockroaches, of unexpected noises. Fear Factor. Things that would make you jump. Of bullets at your feet. Like in the Westerns with a six-shooter. You imagine yourself dancing and the creak and snap of your bones, as you try to move and your weak body fails with the exertion, collapsing like a Ray Harryhausen skeleton into a heap.

You must focus.

Jump when the bars...

Bars? Bars!

You look at the window. It's a small thing but so are you. You used to have rolls, padding that rounded out your angles but now, your body is all sharp edges.

When the bars what? And jump? Jump where? Out? Into what? Your heart is pounding now. You're worried that the hissing will end and you won't get the full message. Is something going to happen? You hope, you dare to hope that this may be your last day of black walls and suddenly you're scared, more scared than staying because this is all you've known for so long. You've hated it but what lies beyond? What does freedom look like? What if freedom is another prison? Can you embrace this freedom although your gut fears it? Can you grasp a future when your mind is in pieces?

Jump when the bars rise.

And there it is, the complete message. You listen again to make sure. Are you just hearing what you want to hear? That you can escape? You need to trust the words. You don't know what to trust. You don't trust yourself although you'd never tell yourself that.

What does this mean? You are not sure but you feel, you feel, like you have a choice. A choice! You have a choice! Fuck! It has been an eternity since you've had control of anything (other than scratching) but now? You're being offered something and you can take it, if you want. Your eyes fill your sockets, golf balls in coal holes, widened by the enormity of what could be happening. You could get out. Out. Out of here.

There is noise now outside your cell. Banging and clanging. A disturbance in your metal prison. The message has stopped or you can no longer hear its soft persuasion now the clattering and commotion has started. You wonder what is going on. What is going on? Your eyes dart - from the window, to the door, to the window, to the door. You can hear pops, blasts - guns! Guns are being fired! You're perched on the bed and you rock, wondering what is happening, trying not to cry and fear that the door will burst open and you will die, shot as you rock. What should you do?

You can't sit here! You fret, your feet now following the path that your eyes took from the window, to the door, to the window, to the door, the pacing both placating and intensifying your anxiety. The motion is better than sitting but you hate this! You hate this! What is happening? "This is scary," you want to shout, and "Stop! Stop!" The madness is upsetting and you fight back the urge to sob out your fear and hold your head.

And then the bars raise and the window is a gap.

An escape route.

From behind the door, the noises are growing ever stronger and you hear shouting which is just outside and death cries from who the fuck knows who and guns and blasts and you go to the wall where the window is and it is high but you use the nails you use for scratching your welts to grip the metal wall like crampons on a mountain face and you reach up, pushing off with your feet to get purchase and it hurts, your knees burning and cracking with the effort but then you're level with the gap and is that the sea in the distance? But you have no time to think because the door is rattling with the frantic and urgent pushing of a key in its lock and you whimper as you push with all of your feeble might to get your fragile form into the light and you're dazzled by the day without black, black walls, blinded by the light and you think of Mannfred Mann and a deuce and the door is swinging open and you're so scared of what is behind you and what is in front of you but what can you do? You've got to jump! That's what the speaker said. Jump when the bars rise and the bars are raised and you must jump!

Jump!

As you do (although it's more of a dive), you hear the clang of your black cell iron door opening and a yell and a bang and you feel something hit your leg and it hurts so much like a bastard, searing, but adrenaline doesn't get starved like muscle and it surges you out, down, down, down...

You smack the water and you don't know if the crack you hear is from the impact you make hitting the sea or if you're broken, snapped in two like a twig. And then the water fills your lungs and the cold displaces whatever air your lungs had stored and you feel like you're dying and you are and yet, you've never felt more alive.

Your ears are filled with the muffled indistinct sound of the sea's murmur as you sink and your golf ball eyes in their coal hole sockets marvel at the black, black walls around you.

Black. Swapped for black. Liquid black.

As you lose consciousness, you marvel at how nothing has changed for you. That black is the colour of death as it was the colour of your recent existence. And yet, you are glad you jumped like the hissing voice told you to. You feel lighter, happy. Your last thought as you slip deeper away (before the people on the boat pull you out, back into life, just minutes later) is positive because, you think, at least you chose the way you died, that you were in control of your destiny in your last minutes of your life.

That you jumped.