A Dark Night

She cannot see, nor hear irrefutable physical evidence of it, not yet anyway, but, she knows it is there, violence, pain and horror are all on the horizon. She struggles to explain to others outside of her profession, how she can so abstractly determine near future trouble. The best and easiest understood explanation she can offer, is the comparison with the sudden migration of animal life from a particular geography that is about to be inflicted by natural disaster. It is a honed and cultivated instinct she and her colleagues possess, detecting subtle changes in the surrounding ether. The air all around her is storing an ever accumulating charge of current. She folds her arms, leaning over the guard-rail to survey the landing. Two groups of prisoners, on opposite sides and ends of the landing appear high, but, not high in the usual manner for prisoners, rather they are high in concentration, engrossed in whatever is being said or plotted. The rest of the prisoners who are not involved with either group, are standing at their doors, smoking while doing the same as she, surveying their environment. She looks through the mesh to the landing above and below her, the scenes are eerily similar. It is going to erupt, of that she is positive. The only questions are; when, where and which faction of the wings different gangs will strike first against their rivals. She watches as one prisoner on her landing climbs the guard-rail to talk through the mesh to prisoners above, while another honkers onto his knees and leans out onto the mesh to speak to a gathering below. She pushes away from the guard-rail, and slowly begins walking along the landing. ‘What are they saying to each other? Is the time and place of battle being determined? Or perhaps terms of peace being negotiated?’ She wonders to herself.

She is almost half-way along the landing when, ‘Are yis right lads? Let’s fuckin’ give it to them!’ The war cry echoes around the wing from the landing below her. The frenzy is immediate, the air all around bubbles and fizzes, the way ocean water does when a shoal of fish swiftly alter course to avoid predatory attack. The noise is deafening, howling, the desperate bellows of prisoners giving expression and form to something very disturbing that is lodged within them. She turns, everything is in slow motion. She looks ahead of her to the recreation rooms at the end of the landing. Prisoners are smashing windows using sweeping brushes and mops. Others are ripping phones from the walls. She looks through the mesh above and below, the scenes are similar except on the ground landing events are taking an even more sinister turn. Two of her colleagues are backed, cowering against a wall, absorbing blows from; sweeping brushes, mops, fists and feet. One of their besiegers casually steps forward while retrieving two blades that are tucked between his lower back and track-suit bottoms. His movements are so swift one would only have to blink to miss them, the stripes cause their cheeks to peel away from their faces like slices of undercooked pizza. The horrific sight initiates her gag reflex. Her heart is beating so fast and hard, she feels a mighty throb in the veins of her temple. She spins around on her heels to escape the landing, but, sees that the class office is under-siege, and prisoners are blocking the gates with the rubbish bins, erecting make-shift barricades and soon to be bon-fires. She becomes aware she has caught the attention of an idle group. Out of fear she mistakenly makes eye contact, which prompts their approach. Their advance is tentative at first, but the violence infecting the wing soon gives them momentum. She turns and runs, but is forced to halt once she notices the gangs in the recreation rooms have spotted her. Panicking and facing pincer traps no matter where she goes, she sees the cell of which she stopped outside is empty. With baying mobs deranged with blood-lust closing in, she split-second calculates before diving into the cell, banging the door shut. Her whole body is pressed against the heavy steel door for good measure. The lid of the observation hatch lifts up; malicious eyes lock on to hers. Her pursuers punch, kick and hurl abuse, but soon realize without a key their efforts are fruitless. They taunt her, making light that she is not to leave and they will be back soon. She is still pressed against the door, pushing with all her strength. She embraces the door, allowing its cold steel to cool her.

Her eyes are closed, her damp hair sticks to her heavily perspiring face. She continues her embrace with the door, waiting for her breathing to regulate. A sound close to her causes both her heart and mind to stop. She is not alone as previously believed. She detects the faint breath of another. Her senses pick up on the obscure vibrations of another soul. Slowly and filled with dread, she opens her eyes. He is sitting on the toilet, boxer-shorts and track-suit bottoms around his ankles, a curious thought of how child-like that is ricochets through her mind. A Nuts magazine is ironically being held in position to cover his genitals. Both their eyes meet, each mind is racing to analyze the absurdity of the situation.
‘Eh, d’yeh mind?’ He said with a wry smile.
‘I had no choice, there’s a…I need to,’ she reaches around her waist, feeling her back for the radio. It is not there. ‘Fuck,’ she whispers, her heart is ahead of her mind, it is pleading in prayer. She slowly steps away from the door until her back is pressed firm against the wall adjacent him. He calmly reaches for the roll of toilet paper at his feet beside the bottles of bleach and disinfectant. He un-rolls a handful, reaches between his legs and wipes himself. He stands while pulling his boxers and tracksuit bottoms up to his waist. He turns, flushing the toilet. She flinches as he steps around the small concrete partition. He turns the facet on the sink, lathers his hand with a small bar of soap and rinses. He dries his hands using a small towel that is draped over the concrete partition wall.

‘So, miss, to what do I owe the pleasure of this unexpected visit?’
‘There…there’s a riot, its bedlam…I was trapped,’ she hesitates, struggling with her breath and the panic in her mind.
‘Ah I see, so the lunatics have finally taken over the asylum have they? Well it was inevitable I suppose…Fancy a cup of tea? Or coffee perhaps?’ He asks while pouring water into his small travel sized kettle.
‘No I’m fine…I wouldn’t think I’ll be here all that long. It’s only a matter of time before we…they regain control of the wing,’ she said, posterior still clamped to the wall.
‘Well I should hope so, I’ve only six slices of bread, a couple of chocolate bars and a packet of biscuits to eat in the Peggy,’ he said while milking and stirring his tea. The lid of the door’s hatch shoots up again, the same pair of malevolent eyes peer through. A foot repeatedly strikes the door, catching his attention. He meanders over, placing his ear to the gap between door and frame. ‘Shocks, we’re after takin’ the landin’, wha’ the fuck are you doin’ harborin’ fugitives?’
‘Me sir? Harboring fugitives? Never! I’ll have you know I was on the jax minding my own business, when said damsel in distress took it upon herself to find sanctuary in this Peggy,’ he replies.
‘Well you’ve a screwess on yer dinner-plate now, wrap the head off her, then rape the fuckin’ hole off her!’ The thought of sexual violence causes an ice-cold chill to course through her central nervous system.
‘Now you listen here, you boys have fun out there, and leave me in peace to my own affairs in here,’ he said before walking away from the door. She can see the confusion in the eyes before witnessing the expression change to amusement. The lid slaps the door, closing them off from the landing once again. She can swear she hears laughing becoming more distant on the other side of the door.
‘Come my dear, sit, recline, get comfortable and rest until your rescuers prevail against your accusers,’ he said while delicately sipping from his piping hot cup of tea.
‘What I need is to signal my colleagues that I’m trapped,’ she said as she rubs her arm, exposing the nicotine patch above her elbow. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out his pouch of tobacco, and, flings it across the cell to her.
‘I admire your convictions but I reckon at a time such as this, you may be forgiven for indulging yourself,’ he said with a warm smile. Holding the pouch in her hand she hesitates.
‘Fuck-it!’ She said as she rips the patch from her skin, and rolls herself a smoke.

She places the roll-up between her lips and throws the pouch back across the cell to him. She pats along her trouser pockets, searching for the familiar bulge of a lighter, forgetting she had discarded all smoking related paraphernalia.
‘May I?’ She asks almost embarrassed.
‘You may,’ he answers as he tosses her a lighter. She lights up, sucking so hard and long the roll-up burns unevenly down one side. She holds the smoke in her lungs for as long as she can, before expelling it. Her head lightens and her blood cools. She takes another hard drag before throwing back his lighter. Feeling more calm and at ease she steps further into the cell. The walls are not filled with pornographic images as is the norm. Above the counter-top where meals are eaten, the wall is filled with certificates of completion in educational and personal development courses, along with a few personal pictures of her new cellmate. He is much younger, a teenager she would guess. He is surrounded by warm smiling people, she assumes must be family. A person who is pictured most is a frail white-haired lady, she assumes to be his mother. At least half the light entering the barred window is obscured by stacked books.
‘You like to read?’ She asks while taking another hard drag from her smoke.
‘I do, very much so. It’s one of the few pleasures I’m allowed,’ he said while picking tobacco and spreading evenly on a paper skin.
‘Is that your mother?’ She asks as she nods her head in the direction of the only framed picture, the centerpiece of the wall.
‘It is, she passed recently,’ he said as he licks the cigarette paper.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she says awkwardly.
‘No, you’re not, but aren’t social conventions wonderful?’ He answers with a humorous grin.
She shrugs and takes another pull of her roll-up. ‘You’ve done an awful lot of educational work; the leaving cert, all the personal development courses and even some open university. Well done, using the time to better yourself. If only more would do the same,’ she said as she takes the last drag of her smoke before throwing the butt into the toilet.
‘Well, while serving a sentence it helps to have a hobby, my hobby is myself,’ he said before lighting his own smoke. They are interrupted by the sound of cheering and drumming all around the wing. ‘Ah the sound of victory, it’ll be a very short lived victory but a victory all the same,’ he said.
She attempts to answer but her mouth is parched, dry as bone. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve anything to drink?’ She croaks.
‘Tea, coffee or water from the tap, but I don’t advise drinking it until you’ve boiled it first.’
‘Do you mind if I help myself to a cup of tea?’ She asks meek.
‘Of course not, help yourself,’ he said, motioning to a spare cup and the box of tea-bags on the counter-top.

She boils the kettle, puts a bag in the cup, leaves to brew. ‘Would it be okay if I rolled another?’ She asks. He smiles, drinks the last of his drink, reaches into his pocket and retrieves his pouch of tobacco.
‘Here, I’ll just leave it on the counter-top, work away anytime you feel the urge.’ She rolls another smoke, lights it, and picks up her tea. As she sips her attention is again brought to the wall of certificates.
‘You must be in a-while to have completed all of them; on paper you’re better educated than most people on the outside.’
‘This is my fourteenth year,’ he casually replies. His candid answer causes her to swallow hard as she realizes his sentence.
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘Please, save the social conventions for when you’re back on the outside. To save your mind the anxiety of wondering, when I was sixteen I got in a fight out on the road, it got out of hand, I pulled a knife and you can guess the rest…I was lifed-off six weeks after my seventeenth birthday.’
‘Jesus, I’m sorry I don’t know what to say, never do to lifers.’
‘You don’t have to say anything, it is what it is. Sit down, have your smoke, drink your tea and gather your thoughts.’ She sat at the end of the bed, the furthest possible seat from his, under the window. As she sat drinking her tea and smoking her roll-up, a thought occurs and she cannot contain a giggle.
‘Please share, I could do with a laugh,’ he said, standing to boil the kettle.
‘It’s nothing really, more nerves than anything else, but, I was just thinking. I wasn’t supposed to be on today. I normally do D-wing, but the prison is short staffed, and a few of us were rang for cover. If it wasn’t for the fecking mortgage I’d have told them where to go…typical of my special brand of luck really!’ She gushes in another bout of nervous laughter.
‘I know how you feel, me mam always told me, “If you didn’t have bad luck, you’d have no luck at all,” and she was right.’ His answer instigates more spontaneous laughter from her. ‘I’m sorry it’s mostly nerves, and partly the way you said it.’
‘It’s fine, kinda nice to hear a woman’s laugh around here for a change,’ he said while shooting here a reassuring smile. ‘So trouble with the mortgage aye? I hear that’s quite a common dilemma out there these days.’
‘Auh, don’t get me started, fucking thirteen hundred a month and the other-half’s been unemployed going on a year now.’
‘Ouch, thirteen hundred, that’s got to hurt the sky-rocket.’
‘Means a lot of fifty-pus hour weeks if I fancy some disposable income.’
‘Jaysus, d’yeh not be Alan Shattered?’
‘It kills me, and to think it’s my taxes that bailed those bastards out only for them to hold homeowners hostage!’ She hisses with disgust.

They sit and chat while drinking tea and smoking roll-ups, occasionally falling silent at the rounds of whoops and cheers, coming from prisoners out on the wing. ‘God, what am I going to do?’ She said aloud to herself.
‘Where’s your radio?’
‘I leave it clipped to the back of my trousers, they always tell us not to, I guess now I know why. It was either snatched or fell when I was running.’
‘I see, well I’ve an idea as to how you might signal your colleagues’.
She gives him a sly grin, ‘you sly dog, have you got a contraband mobile?’ she said unable to contain her excitement.
‘I wish, there’s only three on this landing, and, only one of which I’ve access to. Unfortunately today was not my day to hold it. No my plan is, it’s only this wing that has declared war right?’ ‘I’m not sure to be honest.’
‘Well never mind, all we need to do is, make an S.O.S sign out of the bed sheet, with your name and officer number on it, and hang it from outside the window. There’s a hole large enough for when I need to swing a line to one of my neighbors.’
She stares into space, digesting the plan. ‘Oh my God that’s brilliant, so simple. Even if they’re slow to re-take the wing because of hostages, all they’ll have to do is cherry-pick up to the window and cut through the bars,’ she jumps to her feet ecstatic and hugs him tight to her. ‘Thank-you,’ she whispers in his ear.
‘No bother, let’s get to it,’ he says while folding the blanket, and taking up the sheet underneath. ‘I’ve a red marker somewhere in that pot-noodle container,’ he says pointing at the container on the counter-top. She finds the marker and begins to scrawl the large S.O.S letters, before writing her name and number in clear bold letters.

Once she is finished, he takes away his books from the steel window-sill, revealing an entire section smashed free of Perspex between the bars. She rolls up the sheet and begins to feed it through, when she feels the towel wrap around her neck. The loss of air is frighteningly sudden, as she is pulled backwards and lifted up onto the tips of her toes. The shock combined with the lack of oxygen causes her mind to scramble. She cannot even think enough to panic. She sees orbs of light dart across her vision like shooting stars in the night sky. When she reaches the point where she can hang on no longer and is about to pass out, she is flung onto the bunk. Sprawled on the mattress she frantically gasps for air. The sudden influx of air allows her mind some limited function, beginning to register the situation. With her second deep breath she attempts to prop herself up, but is met with a swift hard punch to her right cheek. She falls back, again she clambers to sit-up, this time she is struck above her left eye, falling once more, the back of her head smacking against the wall, causing a dark curtain to tumble down her vision.

In the distance she can make out a vague sound of whistling. She does not recognize the tune, but appreciates its soothing melody. The more she focuses on the tune, the more conscious and cognizant she slowly becomes. Her mouth is dry as bone. She slashes her tongue around the inside of her palette. She licks her lips, from the right corner of which she tastes the bitter flavor of her own blood. The taste gives her yet more clarity, enough to will her eyes open. She opens them just barely, seeing through a veil of eye lashes. She sees he has his back to her, whistling while preparing tea. Her heart stops, momentarily engulfed by fear. She wills her lungs to draw breath. Eventually they accede. Quietly and subtly she draws breath, gathering her courage. She is all too aware of how desperate her situation is, and it is not very likely to improve. She must act, an opportunity were he presents his back while she has the element of surprise will not present itself again. She braces herself as she draws quiet breaths, rising slowly. She launches herself forward like a torpedo, crashing her shoulder into his lower back, sending him hurtling forward face first into the wall. Caught by surprise and flustered by the clash with the wall, she wraps her arm tight around his neck, locking a vice-like grip. She clings her body to his back as he thrashes around the cell, side to side at first, then back and forth. She listens to the panic in every desperate croak he makes. She feels his panic in the violence of his body’s trembling. He suddenly rushes backwards until they clash with the wall. Keeping her lodged between him and the wall, he begins to lash his head backwards, trying to connect his skull with her face, but, her vice-like grip does not allow enough room for his swing to gain any serious momentum. In one last desperate effort, he frantically drives his elbows back into her body. All she can do is absorb the agonizing blows. The sudden and mounting pain causes her grip to loosen just enough for him to whip his head backward. Her nose explodes with blood. They both crumble to the ground. He crawls away, picking himself up from off the floor, as she uses the wall as a crutch to climb back on to her feet. He runs at her, raining down punches that send her flying back to the ground. He takes a moment to catch his breath, before driving his foot straight into her jaw. The curtain descends upon her once again.
Every droplet that pours down onto her face has the intensity of a punch. She feels each one on her forehead, before proceeding to roll onto her closed eye, and, streaming like a tear down the side of her cheek. Her first sense is the pain of pins and needles in her arms and hands. As her consciousness increases, so too does her pain. Her head throbs, her face vibrates with swelling, and she cannot breathe through her nose. She dreads opening her eyes again. She curses her luck at having survived, only to face more pain and suffering. The droplets falling onto her face eventually cause enough irritation, to warrant the opening of her eyes. The cell is much darker; she assumes it must be night time. From out of the corner of her eye she sees occasional flashes of amber light, which diminishes as quickly and suddenly as it appears. Her sight adjusts to the darkness; she spots the source of her most current annoyances. She is lying under the sink, the droplets escape from the pipe connecting the sink to the wall, which her hands are tied to above her. She tries to wriggle them free, but they are unresponsive. Frustrated, she changes tact, by wriggling her toes, thankfully they submit. Once again she wills her fingers to move, but the elevation will not allow the blood necessary for the communication between brain and limb. She kicks her leg against the floor to help better position herself. She hears the scrape of plastic against concrete, as he slides his chair away from the counter-top. He stands towering over her, a rolled cylinder of tin-foil dangles from his between his lips; he carefully holds a rectangle sheet of foil parallel from his chest.

‘Awake are we? T’was quite the scare you afforded me earlier,’ he said before flicking the flint of the lighter, igniting its flame. He smokes the fumes rising from the sheet.
‘Well if it’s any consolation I’d have rather died than face any further assault and wait to be raped,’ she spits with venomous sarcasm.
Her comment causes him to adopt an expression of hurtful indignation. ‘Such a beastly and cowardly act, which I never have nor ever will be guilty off!’ He declares righteously.
‘Then why in God’s name are you doing this to me? You know the wing will eventually be taken back, holding me hostage will only buy you so much time.’
He takes a seat at the foot of the bed, smokes another line of heroin, before placing the cylinder and sheet down on the bed.
‘Have you ever heard of, “The dark night of the soul”, per-chance?’
‘I’ve heard the phrase, sounds poetic but I’m ignorant of such things.’
‘Well partial credit is in order. The expression was coined by a mystic Catholic priest, in his poem of the same name. In general the term is used to describe the most severe of spiritual crisis. The experience of…no, experience is the wrong word. The trauma of the dark night, usually manifests in the form of strong doubts regarding religious beliefs and dogma in its most trivial form, and, the considered plus realized conviction that "God" does not exist in its most severe. You see, for those of the Judeo-Christian variety, who tend to be inclined toward such beliefs in deity, the idea of God being one big hoax is the greatest of all agonies, and why?’ He glares at her with the asking of his question.
‘I don’t know,’ she shrugs, weak in mind, body and spirit.
‘Because for them, the absence of God is the absence of hope and justice, and, hope my dear, is what makes mankind human. Without hope and the humanity it instills, man is just a mammal alone, an impressive mammal, but mere mammal all the same. When you take away hope from a person, you deprive them of their own humanity. This is a most heinous of crimes, even when perpetrated upon those already guilty of heinous crimes,’ he stops to indulge in another smoke.
‘But what the fuck does it have to do with me!?’ She screams with all her might.
He bore a wide grin, ignores her and resumes smoking. For the first time during her ordeal, her emotions overwhelm her, she begins to sob, not because of her physical pain, rather because of the sense that something important, perhaps the most important part of her has died. Her hysteria reduces to pathetic whimpers; again, he places the foil cylinder and sheet carefully down on the bed and leans forward.
‘You see my dear, when your crisis forced you into this cell; you felt some brief respite from calamity. That diminished somewhat, but you still had hope. As I put you at ease, that hope increased some-what. Your hope increased to its zenith, once I provided you with a realistic and achievable means of rescue. In short it would have only being a matter of time before your hope climaxed into a tangible reality of freedom, safety and security…then I stole it all away from you, just as society and its systems has repeatedly done to me, and a multitude of others like me. My entire sentence I’ve been a model prisoner, jumping through hoop after hoop that the I.P.S and the parole board put in front of me. Every year I climbed over obstacles and every year they announce new ones. After fourteen years of impeccable behavior and achievement, I am not even permitted a lower level of security; all the while forced to endure the lie propagated by the media outside that lifers can be released after seven years. And for what? A crime I committed when still only a boy. Oh how many dark nights I’ve been forced to endure… and how I’m so tired.’
‘So this is some sick kind of twisted experiment in forced empathy?’ She asks, drained and confused.
‘Oh it’s so much more than that,’ he stands up, lifts the mattress, retrieves a bundle of A4 paper sheets, a sharpened toothbrush handle fashioned for stabbing, and, another toothbrush with two razor blades welded to the head where bristles would normally be. ‘This is my manifesto, and this cell is my platform, upon which I will preach against the failings and hypocrisy of a society which extols values and principles it refuses to exemplify.’
‘What the fuck are you talking about!’ She roars with all the anger and hate she ever contained within her. All he does is laugh and admire his work.
‘You see my dear, faith has drawn us together. In having hope consistently denied to me, I’ve learned to reject and despise it, and, accept my faith of dying in prison. You are right though, the wing will eventually be returned to its rightful masters, but, not before they come to my door to negotiate your safe return. You’ll be gagged and tied to me of course, and I will make my very reasonable demand. That I be interviewed live by R.T.E news, to read my manifesto and highlight the plight of mine and others like me. Then, in front of a million viewers, I will slash your jugular, denying you the clemency society denies me and others like me.’

As she absorbs his confession, she is surprised by her lack of immediate terror or dread of any kind. She meditates perfectly for the first time in her life. Her mind is completely still while she watches the lighters flame. After some minutes pass, she lifts her eyes until he is fixed within her vision.
‘May I have some?’ She asks serene.
He is utterly surprised by the unusual and unexpected request. He is lost for the necessary words to form a response.
‘Please, my head and face are killing me, and since I’m to die here, I may as well know what it feels like.’ He hesitates and ponders, until a charming smile adorns his face. He slides off the bunk and honkers down to her level. He places the rolled cylinder of foil between her lips, and rolls the black tar-pool across the foil for her. She sucks deep and hard to capture its noxious smoke. After one line her physical pain begins to dissipate. After the second, her mental pain follows. After the third, all the spiritual anguish she had ever carried with her in life transmutes into total peace.
‘Thank you,’ she gushes with an enlightened smile.
‘You’re very welcome my dear, the least I can do for my sacrificial lamb…a heroine doing heroin, the ironies in life never cease do they?’ He said before returning to the foot of the bunk, to smoke in comfort. Through her haze she watches him. The more he par-takes of the smoke, the more prone he is to slip into narcotic stupors, becoming limp in body and mind. Whenever he drifts off to one of his frequent trips into the abyss, she props herself and gnaws with her teeth at the binds. She is aided by the pain relief of the opiate, and is sure to still herself once more upon every return trip he makes back to reality. She waits for him to smoke again and drift off. Every time she patiently waits for him to make his descent before returning to her own work. Once her hands are free, she leaves them to rest by her side, allowing normal circulation to resume. Soon she can wriggle her fingers, and then lift her arms up and down as well as side to side. Lastly, she is able to clench her hands into solid fists. Satisfied her grip has returned, she crawls around to the toilet, grabs a bottle of bleach, and pops the cap. She slowly stands, creeping to the bunk and hides the home-made blade in the back of her trousers, before placing the stabbing implement down the front, resting against her belly. She aims the bottle of bleach at his bowed head, and waits. As he comes through the stupor, he slowly raises his head, opening his tired eyes. Even the heroin cannot completely quell the liquid hell fire burning them and their sockets. He screams, struggles to his feet, wildly swinging blind punches. She stands back, watching with great delight his heightened state of distress. She waits until he can punch the air no more, and pants pathetic panicked breaths. She takes the jabber from the front of her trousers, tightening her grip on the implement of death. She takes a runner’s stance and a deep breath of air. She lunges, driving the article into his throat. The force of her assault is so great that they fall, sprawled onto the bunk with her on top. The blood spurting from the wound in his neck saturates her face. Only when his body ceases to twitch, does she pull herself off him. She picks up the S.O.S sign, and hangs it from the window. She makes a roll-up from his pouch of tobacco, takes his lighter along with the foil cylinder and tray. She sits cross legged under the window. With the full knowledge of the many more dark nights ahead of her in life, she begins to smoke in order to feel some semblance of peace, something she may never know again.