Burning

Task 5

Pamela has nothing to say. Not a single word. It was always her who took prerogative, to fill any silences between us. Whenever we talked, her whole face became a radiant broad spectrum of illuminating light. She found such delight in every small moment of us. Such was the effect I had on her. But not today. Today she sits on the other side, the outside, unwilling to lift her eyes to my own. 

My fingers slide down the glass that separates us…

Look up Pamela, I need to explain.

Today is Pamela’s first visit. To say the visitation room is welcoming couldn’t be further from the truth, it is as lifeless as the inmates. Dirty white walls surround us, reminding both visitors and prisoners of our filthy female souls. The inmates wear putrid green. The colour of life slowing draining away. 

The half inch glass dividing Pamela and I creates a great desire for me to reach out, hold, then envelope every last breath of her. The embrace itself serving only as the most recent memory I would wish to keep as a distraction. All other recent memories are proving hard to erase.

She looks different. She used to be full of hope, for me, for us. Now the hope seems to have been diffused like the last burning of the wick on a candle. Never to be lit again. I have many things I wish to say. Words I’ve silently rehearsed ever since I entered this place.

I’m not sure I ever had a choice.

I want to remind her it was she who invited herself into my life. I never asked for her. Regardless, she appeared, and when she did she was the sunshine after the rain, no, not the rain, she was the sunshine after the dredging, hammering typhoon I claim as my life.

And if I think about it, there really was no surprise we met on an afternoon that seemed to juxtapose every aspect of my existence. The breeze held nothing more than a zephyr, the clouds were scant and the insects were exercising their comings and goings of necessity. I lay belly down on my picnic blanket in the park observing the butterflies skip here to there, I noticed the bees buzz drunkenly, flitting from one flower to the next. I watched the ants march through the jungle of grass beneath. For me it was a rare moment of clarity, allowing myself to unbind from the intricate weavings of a harsh reality.

With earphones in and volume loud enough to block out the rest of the world, I picked at blades of grass and wrought havoc with the tiny black marching ants. How insufferable they must have thought me. One moment going about their business in one direction, not causing any harm, only to be scooped up and unceremoniously flicked far from their original course. Ants always get back on the right track though. No matter the obstacle, intuitively they know the road home.

Mindlessly I sang along to ‘Drop’s Of Jupiter’, trying to understand how I too could be free like the girl in the lyrics. 

Tell me, did you fall from a shooting star

One without a permanent scar … 

It was after the last line I confirmed with myself I was being watched. A stranger was fixating themselves on me a few feet away. Their presence became intense. Hovering, about to pounce. My solitary revelry came to a halt. I should have felt annoyed, such a rare treat these clear moments were for me, I didn’t though. A perverse kind of satisfaction at being the object of this persons hold engulfed me. I willed the stranger closer. I felt the energy shift and swirl around me.

Then. There she was. Kneeling in front of me. Smiling. Waving hello. She looked excited and nervous at the same time. This act had been a leap of faith for her. As she lifted her sunglasses onto to her head the eyes beneath exuded a kindness oozing like chocolate in a fondue. She, the lurker, was not at all what I expected, but nevertheless a welcome treat.

‘That’s one of my all-time favourite songs,’ she said loud enough to be heard.

Pulling my earpieces out, I said, ‘it is my all time favourite song.’ 

I have thought about that day a lot since I have been in here. I often wonder if, like Pamela tried to rescue me, I was there to rescue her too �"just for a little time at least.

I’m not allowed to rap my knuckles on the glass, but I do it anyway. Visitation time is fast running out. With all of my energy, I desperately try and engage her. I want to capture her eyes, her kindness, a little piece of her to hold with me during the long nights. She’s stronger than she was back then. She doesn’t alter her gaze downward.

I’m forced to watch as she reaches for her handbag. Rummaging through, she retrieves a folded slip of paper. Carefully she unfolds it once, twice, three times. I see what it says even before she holds it to the glass. 

I can’t,

I’m sorry, 

I will not return.

I realise then, Pamela left me long ago. She had to I suppose. With this visit, she is casting me out. 

This, my final farewell. 

No. No. No. 

Pamela is all I have. Is it too late to try and love her back?

My chest is heaving and constricting involuntarily, my throat follows suit. The reality of the only person who was willing to show me life is saying her silent goodbye. It sinks deep, penetrating my soul quicker than I can physically cope.

‘Pamela!’ I scream, ‘Pam, look at me.’ 

The guard warns me to keep it down. Tears escape in the kind of abandon my life has never known.

She’s refolding the paper now. Slow, calm. Too slow, too calm. 

Grabbing my side of the phone receiver, the only instrument left to connect us in its own tiny way, I bash it hard on the glass in a frenzied last-ditch attempt…

‘Pamela, look at me godammit! Please, look at me.’

Nothing.

The guard is on me now. Another comes to aid the first. They haul my arms behind my back so fast it feels my shoulders will pop right out of their sockets. I twist my head so my eyes can remain fixed on Pamela even as I am launched out of my chair to be taken back to my cell. 

Pamela remains, unmoving. 

I’m still screaming her name as the two guards drag me kicking and fighting. I have no idea if she hears.

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There are certain words, conversations, moments that stay with your forever. They are like road signs pointing you home. You don’t realise their purpose at the time, but sooner or later they drift back insisting you give them attention. 

Now I’m in prison, the signs visit regularly. Flashing red neon, they are blindingly bright and take residence in all cracks and corners of my cell. Each relentlessly illuminates my reality, corrupting my thoughts and mind. Some signs even scream ‘I told you so’, over and over until I am forced to nurse my face in my hands and lie in the foetal position on the dank floor of my cell. Blocking out. I’m good at blocking out.

Pamela was one of those people who went out of their way to dig the hole and erect those signs whether you wanted it positioned there or not. 

‘Together we shall walk backwards,’ Pamela said, signposting me, ‘and the same time we are walking backwards, we will actually be progressing forward.’ 

We had been together for some time before I told her about all the so called doctors I had seen in my life. She always knew something was up, I think she, as well as I, wanted to put off facing the whole thing front on for as long as possible.

‘I’ve been to see quite the number of psychologists.’ I confessed. ‘They waste a whole lot of time journeying down different avenues of verbal curry. I often wondered if they were talking for their own benefit or for mine. None of them any good. I felt like I was their little plaything. So I gave them up. And no I will not go back.’ 

Pamela was careful after that. Always taking time to asses what she was going to say before she said it. We never actually discussed Pamela treating me as my therapist, but we both knew she wanted to do everything in her power to fix me. Not just for me. Selfishly, she wanted it for her too. 

She thought I didn’t notice when she directed conversations this way or that. Always digging deep into my childhood and into memories of my mother. I allowed her the belief I didn’t know what she was doing. I played her game. I walked as far as I wanted to and when I’d had enough, I’d simply change the conversation. It must have been exhaustive for her, but I felt she loved me with the kind of intensity one only finds after many lifetimes. When you love someone that much you allow yourself to believe.

Even without Pamela, I don’t mind it in here. I have a cell to myself. I don’t get to mix with the others which suits me just fine. Twenty-three hours of each day are spent inside the four walls of my own private little shell of existence. Sometimes I wonder if I built these walls myself, just like I built all the others. These walls are different though. They offer asylum. I have an unused desk, a tiny window to see the sky. There’s a toilet. The bed is hard as wood, which suits. When I sleep these days it usually occurs when I’m on the brink of fatigue from being awake so long. When I do sleep like after having been in such a state, I’m free from thoughts, dreams and reality. That kind of sleep is one of the best gifts I can give myself.

Each day I get one hour of yard time. Just me, a guard and the yard. During the hour, I walk ceaselessly in circles noticing the sun dance and reflect light indiscriminately across the sterile surrounds. It even chooses me to offer its warmth. Sometimes in the yard, I see clearly where my life has traversed. I’ve already walked the circumference of one life and I tip-toed precariously on the edge the entire trek round.

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Pamela and I never did get around to walking backwards. We never had the chance. Like the opposite side of a magnet calm has always found a way to repel me.

There was a phone call. If I had to pinpoint the start of my retreat, that was it.

‘I think you need to take this,’ Pamela held the phone out to me, looking even more concerned than she usually did when she had me-related worries. 

‘Who?’ For some reason, I felt the walls burning down around me.

‘Take it,’ this time with both concern and authority. 

‘Hello,’ 

It was a woman, Bettina. Her voice cracked in a way that told me she was much older than myself.

‘Your mother, she’s not well,’ she said, ‘I know you two are not close, but I just thought I’d let you know she’s not much time. If you want to come and say goodbye, you need to come now.’ 

There was compassion in her voice. I heard it. Hard to believe there’s any kind of compassion out where my mother lives. 

‘Right,’ I said, ‘Okay, thank you for letting me know.’ 

I maintain composure during the phone call. Pamela was leaning on the doorframe watching my every move. There was still so much she didn’t know. I hung up. Pamela, being Pamela, jumped. 

‘What is it? What’s happened?’ 

‘Nothing, everything is fine.’ 

‘Everything is not fine, you need to tell me what has happened.’ 

The walls feel as if they are burning down all around me Pamela. My past is back to pay a visit. It’s been searching for me for longer than you can imagine. It’s here to finally confront me. I’ve secrets I am not willing to share. Secrets, if you must know, I was never willing to share. Not with you, not with anyone. For once Pamela, you were my plaything, and now it’s time to go home.

Of course, I couldn’t tell her that. It had taken every ounce of strength to maintain a facade of normalcy in my relationship with Pamela. She was beginning to relax, I think she even saw us spending the rest of our lives together. I have tried. Tried extremely hard. 

Now this. 

Author's Note

For your final assignment, look at the previous assignments you wrote for this MOOC.

Choose the one that you think would benefit most from a process of experimentation. Perhaps one assignment has a particular scene or two, some dialogue and/or descriptive text that you are not happy with and want to approach in a different way. Perhaps you've been revising one assignment for the last few weeks but the pace or the tone or the way it unfolds is not quite working. Or perhaps there's something you've been writing outside if this MOOC and you want to try shaking that piece of writing up with a structural experiment.

Choose the piece of writing you want to experiment with and find a way to break it open.

Copy it into a new Word doc or text file and begin to experiment. You could try playing with language and sentence structure: new patterns of diction, invented words, inventive punctuation, stream of consciousness narration, addressing the reader directly. And/or you could try restructuring the story itself: move between past, present, and future Ina nonlinear way, or start the story at the end and see what happens when you try to take the reader through the events backward, or try telling the story from an unexpected point of view.

Reviews

[Monroe]

Incredibly captivating, I need to know what the narrator's troubled means of existence stemmed from and how it then ended up with them in prison! I think a few of the bits detailing the life in prison felt somewhat out of place to me, or its juxtaposition to former life of freedom lost on me, but the reflection and dwelling on the relationship with Pamela was spot on. The beginning scene detailing Pamela leaving the narrator was my favorite though, the emotions within the text definitely sticking with me.

[Einstein Noodle]

well done says i! well done indeed ..i like the exploding you did ..and the time changes ..love the ants and her "picnic blanket" scene .. teenie little edit " slowing draining away." ;) you completely surprised me that it was not Pamela who is in jail ..the turn dug me into the read ..love the open ending ..very interested to find out more ... i give you A+ for sure ;)
E.

[Valentine]

I do not know who you are getting these assignments from but I have to say you cracked it with this one. It is very well written, draws the reader in, makes them want to know more about the guy in prison, why he is there etc, Fantastic so far, when do we get to read some more? Valentine

[wordman]

from the little people !

[KWP]

hey V - why thank you - it was just a short piece that I had to crack open from the piece I wrote last week ... it did crack open ... not sure if I will follow it up and write a novel from it the thoughts I was having were pretty grim ...

I do however appreciate you reading ...

PS ... your photo reminds me of my younger mum every time I look at it :)

[wordman]

this is a great story,it`s intence and keeps you interested in reading more