The Death Toast

Not a place for smiles

Not a place for smiles

It was already seven weeks that The Humour Sect had spent in there and had experienced the freedom of another prisoner from another ward. They were the most popular people in the ward, the most interesting, the most beloved.

Everyone had a reason to laugh, everyone had a reason to forget every other worry.

‘You guys are really rare, you know. We usually don’t get people like you in here. You all don’t deserve to be here.’, Peter said.

‘Thank you’, Michael replied.

‘Hey, you know you’d never told us how you got in here. What did you do? ‘, Pierson said.

‘Wo. That’s quite a story’, Peter said. ‘I was just like you. Young, trying to find a way to survive in this country, hoping for a bright future. I got out of Tifftam college where I studied Genetics, then I got a job in the high school I had gone to, teaching Biology and then four years into it, I got arrested’, he said. ‘The men told me that me that my details matched that of a certain bank robber with the same height and when they tested our blood samples, it was exactly the same too. I couldn’t say too much. I was taken here after the judge had labelled me guilty. So, I left my wife and child, I had been here ever since’, he said with a different cold tone.

‘Oh my God!’, Dale exclaimed, putting his hands over his mouth.

‘Yeah, exactly. That’s what happens when you come here. You find someone with a worse story than yours. A lot of us here have ridiculous stories of how we got in here’, he said, his voice shaking as he looked really sad.

‘So does it mean everyone here is not guilty for any offence?’, Barry asked, moving his hand through his full blonde hair.

‘Well, I don’t know. I can’t tell but it seems so. We just get in here and take it as fate’, he said slowly

‘You must really miss your family’

‘Yeah, of course I do. It’s not really easy for me to keep my mind away from them, from my daughter everyday’, he replied and clenched his chapped lips.

‘It’s okay’, Tristan said warmly as he patted the shoulder of Peter.

 ‘You know it’s not. I might never see them again’, Peter said.

That night, they had all slept with heavy emotions in their minds, unable to close their eyes on it, unable to do anything that would help them. The truth was the absence of hope could only bring sadness and nothing else. Dale could only barely feel the pain of not having a family because he never had one, the only family, the only brothers, the only people who had cared about him enough and showed him enough love were The Humour Sect. As he thought of this on his steel bed facing the wall that the bed was hanging from, tears burst out of his eyes as he hugged his blanket more and closed his eyes in utter despair.

His mind reminisced, ravaging through the heavy loads of refuse that his life had been before he met them. The hammer, the man, the blood, the heavy thump on his head, more blood, black and white, black and white. . black and white, black, white, black, black, white and then he heard the sudden stop of a vehicle in his presence.

He managed to keep his mourns down as he remembered his twelve-year-old selves on the dirty roads of Bets, in the hands of those men. He opened his eyes and shut his eyes again, his body shaking and his eyes bleeding tears in response to the terror that the memories were displaying, that the present was posing. A lot more troubling was even the future; the dark empty future that he was going to walk through. Without a lamp. He had thought that all these days were forever gone but here he was, alone with himself, battling with his shadows. The Humour Sect had been his life, his happiness, his life. The men had been his brothers, his comfort, the only people who loved him like real family. He couldn’t fathom the kind of agony that his mind would bleed from if any of them ever left, ever died.

The Death Toast, The Death Toast!, THE DEATH TOAST!, The Death Toast!!! The DEATH!!! TOAST. DEATH! DEATH! His brain echoed endlessly making him jerk around with his teeth and his fists clenched like he was combating an inner demon.

Meanwhile, four cell rooms away, there was Tristan awake also, reminiscing the words of Peter: It’s not really easy for me to keep my mind away from them, from my daughter every day. The last thing the doctor had told him about his own child was that it was a boy.

‘It’s a boy’, the doctor had announced after looking into a scanning machine.

He remembered shouting really loud and then going to the side of Samantha and kissing her cheek. He had shouted again, it was not like he was bothered if it was a girl but he and Samantha had earlier had a bet if it was going to be a male or female. He had won the bet.

He smiled as he remembered it now. He had taken her home and had cooked and they had both eaten. It was only few days later than he and the rest of his friends had gone over to Reckdette and then from nowhere was placed on him a label that would change his life forever. He remembered himself again speaking to her just before he left for Reckdette.

‘By the time I am back, it will be to carry you with me to Reckdette, so that the first things Moses will get to see in his life are chandeliers and painted houses and good food. And I will be by your side watching him grow’

She had laughed and then said. ‘Andrew not Moses’, she said.

‘Wow’

‘Yeah. That’s like win-win, right?’

‘Yeah, win-win’, she said and laughed again.

‘Hey, common we’ve got to go. We might miss the plane’, Michael had said after pressing the horn.

He had hugged Samantha tightly. ‘I will be back before you even know it’, he said and kissed her forehead.

‘I love you more than you even know’, he said and left.

‘I love you too’, she replied and watched him get into the vehicle.

They waved at each other as the car zoomed off. While in the car, he had prayed that the show had gone through perfectly so that what he promised her was going to come to pass, so that they would all live in Reckdette, earning huge pays just like other well-known entertainers who had started in the other under-developed states like Tifftam, Gollogher and Berrist.

His mind went further to the point when the organiser of the event had come over to their hotel room to tell them about the chance they had to make it in Reckdette. Tristan’s mind had gone over to his unborn child and he had hurried to the telephone.

‘We did it! We did it!’, he had shouted over the telephone and even felt happier to hear the shouts of excitement he had heard from Samantha. ‘We will be returning in the next few days’, he had said. He had planned to get a really expensive ring in one of the luxury shops in the town the very next day. He had planned to propose to Samantha when he was back in Gollogher during one of his night comedy shows, in front of every other person. He had call her out just as he used to and then get her to finally marry him but plans could not have been ruined in any more devastating fashion.

He was here now in his cold room with no tears, just thoughts full in his head, making him sick. He got up from his bed and walked over to the shelf to sit. He could hear the snoring sounds from the other men outside his own prisoner.

‘God, let there be a way’, he had said silently, he had prayed with his hands tightened together against each other. He didn’t even want The Redemption, he wanted something miraculous to happen that would send him out of there back to Samantha and Moses. . .Andrew. . .Andrew Moses. Leaving Dexter Islands even sounded more scary than dying, it meant goodbye to both of them. It was like goodbye to a part of your body, of your soul that made you complete, that you couldn’t really function without. Dale managed to sleep but Tristan couldn’t, he had stayed on his bed closed his eyes but then he would open them again.

‘Wake up, wake up, everyone. You have only fifty minutes to straighten yourselves out and make yourselves presentable!’

‘Number eighty-nine, number ninety!’

‘Move in one row, collect your food trays and sit with your hands by your side. I must hear no word but the scrapping of plate with your fork and your knife. You have got only twenty-five minutes to finish up!’

‘Five minutes more’

‘Leave your trays on the table. Put your knife on the left side, fork in centre and spoon on the right.’. ‘Knife on left and spoon on right! How dumb can you get?!!’. ‘Arrange yourselves in a single file and you will be led to work’

‘Work time is over. You will be having a ten minutes’ break in your separate cells’

‘Lunchtime. You know the rules. You wouldn’t want to break the Strict Code of Silence!’

‘Straighten up, it’s time for work. It’s time to pretend your respectable citizens of the society, earning his way with good hard work!! You had better wash those prison clothes very well, or else…’

‘Time’s up. It’s time for dinner. March into the hall in a single fine. Let there be decorum. Hey, you! Stop there!’

‘You wait in your usual waiting room. In the next few minutes, your cells are going to be opened and you’d better get in and lie your head before it is shut. Or else you might just get to lie your bodies in a place that I believe is more fitting for you, outlaws!!’

Then, the final whistle. Then the final run to their cell room, then the lights out, then the next day.

Then, the entire itinerary would repeat itself. The same itinerary enclosing them in the same place, shutting them from the most important aspect of their lives.

Day after day, light on after light off, whistle after whistle. However, once in a while the prisoners are given a free day to do whatever they want to do; a privilege only given to the most well-behaved wards. Since the demise of The Crusher, there hadn’t been any case of violence recorded in the fifteenth ward. His gang seemed to have stopped their action, Djovaag had been the fuel to the team or maybe the complete subservience among the prisoners was because there hadn’t been a call to do otherwise, probably when it was the next time for the deathly ceremony to be conducted.

‘Tomorrow, every one of you would be having a free day but until then, let there be silence!’, the loudspeaker shouted and there were shouts of excitements everywhere. But it suddenly subsided, not complying to the silence rule could mean cancelling of the free day at the last minute.