I walked the prison yard.
I walked the perimeter of the fence, looking for something. I looked for something I couldn’t find. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I believed I would find something. The belief gave me the courage to get there, but when I asked for more, when I hoped and truly believed that there’d be more to be found, my search yielded nothing. I walked the perimeter twice.
I found only what I expected to see.
By the third time I stopped walking and I sat on a bench. I watched the prisoners living. They all fit into society, each with their own groups, acting and building themselves up to fit what they had asserted. They asserted themselves, and various taboos, rituals, and categories intricately divided their society. They believed in these even though many didn’t think much of it. They placed value in both their social group and their performance.
They hoped to survive but in trying to survive, they became deeply invested in something that could show them that it meant nothing.
They ignored me but I couldn’t ignore them.
I watched as the group turned on a prisoner. It wasn’t just anyone; moments before the attack, the prisoner had been treated like a leader. Others followed him. Yet he wanted something else and based on what he believed he could attain, he reached for it. And he collapsed — his role collapsed.
The group cast him as an outsider. Society sees you not as the person you are but as the impression you’ve made. The straight line stitched across our foreheads are instantly seen and assumed; no chance to explain why that line might be there, or what sort of infliction might have occurred. Because of it we are no wiser. No more understanding of who they are and who we are.
We merely move on, seeing with a filter, the people for what they looked once. Not who they really are.
This is me, they might shout.
But people only hear based on memory.
I watched and saw but it was, maybe, like skimming the online feed. There was so much and yet it alluded to nothing.
I found nothing. When I returned to my cell, I had seen that after awhile you can get used to anything.
The Prisoner imagined that there would be people watching as we are led to our deaths. Is that indifference? I retract the question. There is no room for questions. Honesty is what we share. Conversation is our only category.
I ask him about an alternative.
Suicide?
I disagree.
Living and choosing not to live isn’t the question.
We are alive, he said.
I agreed.
I added, We are free.
He agrees.
But the contradiction hangs there, as concrete as can be.
We weren’t discussing our incarceration. I wasn’t discussing my actions. We were discussing our being. The life we lived is back there, the lined blurred; we talk about what else.
We talk about our routines.
We do not talk about our past jobs, our life prior to this. We talk about what else to do with the days we have. We talk about the smallest details.
His plan is like my plan: There is really no plan.
The genuineness of it had to do with the feeling and actions that would occupy these last days.
We speak about the most we can do. It isn’t much, but it will have to do.
I am no more conscious of the tragedy than when I want more from these last moments. I will not describe those desires here, because they go against what I feel, which can be assumed by you, if you desire.
We have both acknowledged this, the Prisoner and I.
The only genuine thing that can be assumed is that death will come.
In the calmness of our respective cells, we work on our routines, waiting. We wait for our turn. We wait for the same end that everyone must face.
Him, the stranger.
And I, the strangest.
Society held and society sought an act.
I don’t look for any genuine answer; I have found mine.
For all I have known, and will know, this is adaptation.
Nothing more.
These are facts. I spell out the words, my actions, my hesitation, everything that makes me who I am. I might have wanted so much more.
I shouldn’t feel anything. I am a man. I am a man that walks a line.
I shouldn’t be happy. I shouldn’t be sad.
It just so happens that my line crosses theirs. My line needs to cross theirs in order for theirs to be believable. This is what I tell myself.
This is what is said. This is, perhaps, what I’m supposed to say. But there is nothing to forgive because I cannot believe in my apology.
If the Prisoner said, You can be saved.
I would say, “From what?”
~ ~ ~
For a line to exist, it would first have to be crossed.
About the Author
MICHAEL J. SEIDLINGER is the author of a number of novels including The Laughter of Strangers, The Fun We’ve Had, and The Face of Any Other. He serves as Electric Literature’s Book Reviews Editor as well as publisher-in-chief of Civil Coping Mechanisms, an indie press specializing in unclassifiable/innovative fiction and poetry.