The day I died, was the day I went to prison.
My life had just begun, or so I believed. It was shocking to me when I found out that i’d be serving time, being me, my obvious crime.
The cell had black grainy walls, tightly compact . Grains below, grains above, I could not see the sun, I could not see the clouds, my cell was very dark.
The grainy walls were porous. From time to time food and water were passed down to me though the narrow holes.
I spent my first days looking up, I was scared and confused.
Why wasn’t I enough? why was I here? who keeps feeding me? where is my mother?
Day after day the cell walls grew tight around me. I could not push anymore! wet faced, and exhausted from trying, I looked on, feeling my hope’s of freedom ebb away.
” this might just be my destiny, maybe I should wait and see,” I thought to myself. Days passed.
I know this because I steadily watched the transitions of night and day through the cracks in my wall.
I could hear crickets outside. One time I tried to whisper to someone lurking around the walls, I was very hot and I longed to feel the wind on my skin, to feel the light of the sun deep in my pores, so I whispered and I waited but no one came.
One day, I sat in my cell and looked around, I never really noticed those grainy walls, they seemed to have faces with shut eyes, they were sleeping.
Horrified, I ran to the middle of the cell and starred at the walls around me, all sleeping faces, then as if on cue they began to wake up, one right after the other, yawning and clicking their lips in reckless abandon.
They seemed calm, their eyes shone in unison,
”Look Lads One of Us!”, they were excited. I couldn’t understand this because I knew where I had come from, I was not one of them,
”My skin is fair like the morning sun and my eyes bright as crystal waters, I am nothing like you!”, I replied with borrowed confidence from a lender I could not fathom.
They all starred in amazement, sheer mockery.
”You? of the sun? then what in Earth! are you doing down here?!”, they stressed the word Eaarrth, as though it was a hidden joke among themselves and burst out laughing. Their voice was loud and eery, like metal scratching on metal surface. It was horrifying, I couldn’t take it. I wanted to cover my ears but I couldn’t , it was only then I noticed I had no hands.
”Look at him, he thinks he is fairer than us, little does he know that he is of the dust and back to the dust he must return, silly boy” they spoke as one, yet it seemed as though they thought differently, it was the most unusual conversation I had ever experienced,
”I am not one of you! I am only here for a time and I will be out just as I came!’. I tried a second time, But their cackling held me down like strong arms placed on feeble shoulders,
” Look at yourself before you claim to be distinguished, before you argue with eyes that really see you for what you are…”
I listened to them, for the first time in the cell I looked down, down from the opening, down from the walls, down at myself, I was brown, like them. A pool of tears formed underneath my eyes and stung my throat,
”No! this isn’t possible, I have always been fair like the morning sun”, my tears fell in uneven streaks leaving trails of despair on my now decaying cheeks, ”I am not one of you”, I said in limp defeat as I sat on the ground, and cried bitterly.
This time they said nothing, they simply watched me, countenance tranquil, a knowing smile on their faces I could feel it. They had me where they wanted me. They had me in defeat, But they never said a thing, they simply stayed still watching me sink. Soon after, I grew weary, eyes sore, soul torn I did what I hadn’t done before,
I closed my eyes and fell into deep sleep.
TO BE CONTINUED…
(13th September 2018)
Msray
© 2018
