The Death Toast

The Humour Sect

The Humour Sect

About ten hours after the horrifying-to-stare-at prison warden was around, the long-awaited sound of the whistle was heard throughout the ward and then every other thing followed. The dim lights of the old wall bulbs came around…one…two… and then it was on; the doors were automatically made open and then suddenly the lost voice and restlessness of the inmates was back. Each of them rushed out of their little cells, unlocking them from their entrapment – both the physical, entirely dark, tiny confinement hole and even the more disturbing hole of the mentally-twisting trauma they were facing alone, pinching them. And now, there were out and free from their claustrophobic thoughts, for at least the next few minutes.

Dale remained there just outside his own cell watching miserably as the others ran out. His eyes glassy with tears and his mouth agape. With only days there, he had discovered that this wasn’t a place where you come to serve a life sentence, it was a place where you came to witness the worst of torture, the depths of pain and terror that a human can feel.

‘Are you okay, bud?’, Pierson asked with his hand on Dale’s shoulder. He definitely didn’t look okay, he was crying. ‘Oh, common. Don’t do that, please. Let’s go’.

‘Eh, boy. It’s okay’, the other three men who had been arrested for the death of the minister joined him. ‘Dale, let’s go eat’, Tristan said as they all moved themselves out of the cellhouse.

Everyone had taken their seats in the dining room with their meals in front of them, listening to the instruction from the prison guard, not the same one as the previous warden but with the same brick-face, as callous as that of a cannibal.

‘Eh! All of you move to your tables with your tray in one single row without making a sound, set your trays on the table and then sit with your hands by your sides. You have all got twenty-five minutes to finish your meals and you better make it count! Scumbags! And I better not here anything but the sound of knives and forks scrapping on the plates. And if I catch any of you trying to smuggle food back to your cells, Oh dear Lord! You will be locked for so many days that you will lose count and I will make sure you suffer and writhe in pain for every second you spend down in the special isolation cell. Now, eat’. No one dared stare back at him, each and every of his words sounded real and scary enough. ‘I will be watching you!’, he said and walked out with his heavy soldier boots proclaiming his departure.

Of course, there was murmurings everywhere across the dining room and then momentarily, it grew louder. Most of them were still talking about the death of the infamous or beloved Crusher, depending on the person but he was well-known anyways and people could not stop talking about him. That was how it always was. When someone had just been killed in The Death Toast, it always stayed as the subject of the conversation for a week-long before they cleared it off their minds.

‘Wo! I think the food is the only good thing in this place’, Tristan said, grabbing his fork and knife ready to devour the entire meal. It was a tray filled with oatmeal, milk, sausage, fried potatoes, toast and coffee.

Dale kept staring around with tears still falling off his shaky eyes and then at his friends, already finishing up their meals and emptying the plates.

‘Common, we were not able to eat this kind of rich food back in Gollogher, remember? Eat, eat’, Tristan said and Dale could not imagine what exactly could make him scared enough to worry him and make him stop being jovial. He had always been the fun-exuding machine of the set right from time.

Dale’s mind went back in time to about four weeks ago. At that time, they were all still out of the prison, living in Gollogher. Dale and the other four members of their comedy crew also known as The Humour Sect had travelled to Reckdette for the first time in their lives from their slummy state where they had been performing every night from club to club, making people laugh and enjoy themselves. Then, they had gotten the invitation to visit a festival in Reckdette which was like the heaven of Dexter, it was completely different terrain unlike the rest of Dexter. Only the richest and most influential people lived there and across every street and district passed across, all that could be felt was surreal comfortability. Surreal for any ordinary citizen in the country privileged to get their way into the state.

It was surreal for The Humour Sect as they cruised around in their old Toyota vehicle from the hotel that they had lounged in to the night clubhouse where the extravagant show was taken place. It had always been the dream of anyone of any career or taste to make it to Reckdette and settle there.

That night, they had done their best to entertain the audience, so well that the organiser of the event had called them. ‘Hey, you guys did pretty well tonight. For me it was the best performance of the night, everyone loved it, I think you guys might just have a chance to perform again and earn a spot here in this club every night’, Mr. Milikan had said and smiled at them as he watched their reactions of surprise and shock. ‘I will give you feedback in the next three days. Have a good time, guys’, he had said.

‘Thank you so much, sir. We appreciate it so much. We will be really happy if we were allowed in the prestigious Cravat Clubhouse, it’s a dream come true’, Michael had replied. ‘Goodnight’, he said as they watched the man leave their hotel room before they let out their shouts of intense celebration, renting the air with wild jubilation across the night, drinking bouts of alcohol and having a good time. It was their life, what they were made to do, ever since they were in Gollogher and ever since they had been little. Having experienced horror once in their lives, hustling to survive each day on the terrorism-stricken streets of Gollogher; they came together and they found happiness in making other people happy. Despite the news everyday about the despicable gory things and the new havocs that the Order Of The Quppis’ terrorists sect had wreaked somewhere in the town, scaring the helpless and hopeless masses of the state, they had march over to their local clubhouse to watch The Humour Sect: Michael, Pierson, the ever-comedic Tristan, the beloved Barry and the youngest of them all, Dale tell the most hilarious jokes and do the most interesting things that they have heard or seen in their lives with the new one better than the last. It cleared away worries and fears more than alcohol and apart from jokes, they performed and did an all-round entertainment package across the night. They were probably the most loved people in the entire state of Gollogher.

That night while they were in Reckdette, some policemen had told them to pull over and stop which they did without hesitation. With smiles and laughs still beaming on their faces and the best country music – the type that Barry usually performed back in Gollogher playing loudly, thumping in their eardrums as they did their usual karaoke to it at the same time, the buzzkill came along.

‘Put your hands in the air. You’re under arrest!’, one of the policemen had shouted at them.

‘Is everything okay?’, Dale said, already scared.

‘What’s wrong, officers?’, Michael who was in front of the wheel asked, unsure of what to expect as he lowered the volume of the music player.

‘I said put your hands in the air!’, the police man shouted again.

‘This is a prank, right?’, Tristan still managed to stay, smiling despite the stern faces on the faces of the berserk policemen. He still remembered talking with one of these same men the night of their performance, chatting with him and now he was looking like a dragon with smoke buzzing out of his nostrils. It could only have been a prank, he thought. What happened afterwards proved him wrong.

The men got really furious for taking them as a joke. They rushed at them and dragged them violently out of the cars on the bare streets, they were whipped repeatedly with heavy rods making them scream endlessly. From there, everything happened so fast. They were handcuffed and they were told they were under arrest for the assassination of the minister who had been shot some days before then. It was like a very funny dream, playing out for the five local entertainers from Gollogher. They were announced on all the TV stations about the arrest, stating that the men who had been arrested some three days ago for the same offence had been proved innocent, and that these ones were the real culprits.

The people of Gollogher, young and old, male and female all stood up against their arrest, clamouring their clean hands and complete innocence concerning the case. In Gollogher, there had always been a need for such protests and ecstatic riots every one or two months, there was always a need for that local lawyer or activist to go on their local radio station and cry out for justice or for peace or for stability or for all. This time it was all a different affair, posters with the pictures of the five men were on all walls across the state. Graffiti were drawn everywhere across all the districts and slums of the state. # JUSTICE FOR THE HUMOUR SECT, #RELEASE THE HUMOUR SECT. Everywhere was noisy, full of advocates, full of voices clamouring as it always did. Everyone was out, holding placards and waiting at the gate of the governor. ‘Those guys are innocent’, ‘The Humour Sect cannot hurt a fly’, ‘Let justice be made’, ‘Release them for us!’, ‘They know absolutely nothing about it’, ‘Let the real killers be imprisoned’, ‘They are not meant for prison!’.

From dawn to dusk, every man was outside with their voice unbroken, singing endlessly their protest song of radicality, ever-energetic, as loud as they could get, hoping that for the first time they will be heard. After one week of their intense protests, the government of the state came out and said there was nothing that could be done about it and that the case was above the reach and power of the state. They declared that all the protests should be stopped in earnest. The unrelenting masses turned their eyes against it and set out again the next day and just as they had expected, fire was opened on them and three people lost their lives.

The Humour Sect could not see any of that, they were detained, tortured brutally for denying their alleged murder and they were later charged to court. A lawyer was appointed on their behalf who gave really candid points that had convinced almost everyone that they were indeed not guilty of any murder. He had shown documents of the time that the group arrived in Reckdette which was one day after the minister had been killed which meant they were not even present in the vicinity and possibly didn’t know anything about it. He had also mentioned the fact that the media had beforehand, mentioned the arrest of some five other men who had been proven guilty for the offence. Despite these points and the others mentioned, none of things was answered to by the prosecution lawyer and no attempts were even made to negate them.

Instead, the judge had just stared up into the eyes of the five men who were all so sad and full of grief and had their eyes clamouring for their innocence. The judge looked away. The script had already been written and this was only the acting, he thought quenching the pity he had for these men whom he, as well as everyone else involved, that they were completely not involved in the case at all.

‘The court has made its decision concerning this case and this is my judgement. Without fear or favour, the five alleged criminals: Michael Bergman, Pierson Plummer, Tristan Klyce, Barry Schlesinger and Dale Eagan are proclaimed guilty for the planned assassination of the Late Minister of Defence, General Chuck Hawthorne. They have hereby been sentenced to life imprisonment in The Boorbunk Bay!’, he said and he hit the gavel for the final time. Although there were many shouts across the room, the most conspicuous cry was from a woman sitting at the back, a pregnant woman who was carrying Tristan’s baby. The five men were handcuffed and led out of the court.

The next day, they were all loaded into a bus and taking to a place where they weren’t sure they would ever make it out of. All their hopes and dreams had been capriciously shattered like a really ugly nightmare, they were going to be taking to the jail for committing a crime that they never knew had even occurred till the day they were captured. Dale could remember all of them sitting in the large police van that was specialised for carrying the worst criminals to The Boorbunk Bay, all of them crying so bitterly. They never thought they who had made people laugh and been so happy as well living in one of the detestable places to live, could cry so bitterly about something. Only Tristan wasn’t crying but he looked more sober than the rest of them, he looked away thinking about something, probably thinking about Gollogher or about the future of their lives or their careers, probably about Samantha and his unborn baby (preferably son).

All those thoughts seemed to be the one they would only have to cope with till the end of their lives but reaching there proved that there was nothing like the most extreme type of evil or fear or calamity. They experienced The Death Toast and they discovered their lifespan might be as short as the next four weeks.

Dale was struck out of his thoughts when the prison officer yelled from the other room, ‘Ten minutes more!’. Dale quickly picked up his fork and knife, knowing fully well that he wouldn’t be able to eat again until the next six hours.

‘Hurry up, Dale’, Barry said as he stood up from his seat, ready for work.

The next four hours was going to be spent working. Thankfully the five of them were good with certain menial jobs like sewing, repairing shoes and so wouldn’t need to labour under the sun like most of the rest of the prisoners in a dumpsite. All of them were walking about with spades, pushing refuse back endlessly and trying to clear the large expanse of land, coping with the killing smell and the flies as large as birds.

Dale and the rest of them were taken to a different place, where they were to sit behind sewing machines, shoe-mending equipment and thousands of materials to be worked upon and mended.

‘You are not allowed to talk or stand up! You know what’s going to happen to you if you are caught disobeying my orders’, the officer who assigned them there said.

Dale with his mouth muted, gave a huge sigh and picked up the first cloth to sew. Barry and Pierson were far apart in the room, concentrating on their clothes only while Michael and Tristan were in another room mending tons of torn, old footwear.

With only the sound of clunking machines in the room, Dale focused on the clothes, stitching the sides up, placing it in place with shaking hands. There was no window in the room, leaving them full of sweat all over their bodies.

With about six hours in work, the Officer who seemed to have forgotten them there signalled them to stop. Dale managed to stand up with his back aching him badly.

‘Hey’, the man who was working next to him, called to him. ‘Are you okay?’

‘No, not really’, Dale replied, bending his back hoping for some relief.

‘This is your first time?’, he asked.

Dale nodded, gritting his teeth in discomfort. The bending only intensified the pain.

‘Oh, don’t worry. You would get used to it. I am Peter’

‘Dale. I and my friends just arrived here last week’, he said.

‘Oh, yeah. Where are your friends?’

Dale pointed to the two men walking up to him. Pierson seemed to have the same back issue as his walking was not very straight.

‘Hello, my name is Peter’, he said as he shook the hands of both of them.

‘I am Michael, thank you’, Michael was surprised that people could get so polite even in there.

‘Pierson, nice meeting you Peter’, he said as he shook his hands.

‘Let’s go’, he said.

Dale expected the appearance of terrorists and the worst criminals, as Boorbunk Bay was said to contain to be, beast-looking, huge with tattoo all over their bodies and the most obscene curse words spouting out of their mouths, fighting with each other all the time. So far, everyone had seemed silent, obeying the orders and being quite friendly with one another. Or probably they were just a menagerie of wild animals held under the tough restraints of The Boorbunk Bay that have been managed to be tamed. He remembered himself standing in the most uncomfortable room in the house to be in, and hearing the sporadic shouts of bullets from the other room as The Crusher was being killed. The way all of them had suddenly started hurling towards each other, beating themselves up with hate and raw fierceness. Dale had stood there breathing hardly, realising the snare that they have been brought into.

After eating the other meal which they weren’t sure to call lunch or dinner, preferably ‘the last meal of the day’, they all went back to their jailhouse but in a larger room where they were allowed to rest and maybe talk to each other before they were locked up until the very next day.

‘So why were you all brought here?’, Peter asked.

‘We were wrongfully charged for killing the defence minister’, Dale said.

Peter nodded. ‘I saw the news on the front pages of a newspaper last week but I honestly think that you should forget about the wrongfully that you put there’.

All of their eyes opened as if to ask what he meant by that.

‘It’s really not going to help. It would not change anything at all. Once you are here, you are here. You’ve got to take it like that. Nothing is going to change’,

‘Really?’, Pierson asked.

‘Yeah, this is my second year. I have been pretty lucky to have stayed here for more months than expected. I know many people who had come here and stated their wrongful arrest but they are never able to protest about it. They get picked in The Death Toast and they are killed immediately’

‘The Death Toast? That’s what it is called?’, Barry asked.

‘Yes, and it is the plague that this place is cursed with. The fear that comes with the term is enough to kill, nothing is as fearful than being in that room knowing that one of you in the room is going to get killed and that person could be you. I have felt it many times but it is the one aspect of this dangerous place that I am yet to get used to’

‘Oh my God! So, you mean there is no way to get out of here? We are all going to die here one day in the future?’, Barry asked, coming to the horrifying realisation that the only fate they have come to complete is death.

‘Hey. I don’t want you to think about it at all. Be calm and enjoy every time you spend here’, he said and sighed. ‘You know, there is actually a way people make it out of here. It’s called The Redemption, it’s like the other side of The Death Toast. It’s done every month and it involves every prisoner across all the wards. They are all brought into a large hall, about a thousand people and then just like the other game, one person is randomly picked and then he is released and then he is sent out of Dexter Islands’

‘That will be one thing that anyone who achieves would never forget. Leaving Boorbunk and then leaving this entire messed-up country’

‘Exactly. Leaving this country at any rate is almost impossible for anyone. Only the top rulers of this country could go out. It’s the number one prayer of the rest of the masses and only a miracle can make it happen, only a miracle can make you walk out of the shambles of this country and shout freedom but here in this prison, I think there is a silver lining in this really dark and smudgy cloud’

‘And we are going to be randomly picked? Everything in this place seems like a really bad joke. We die capriciously, we are saved capriciously. Like our lives are sort of counters on a draft board’, Tristan said and giggled uneasily.

‘That’s exactly what we are, in the real sense. The probability of any of us leaving is about a one out of a thousand. On the other hand, the probability of getting shot and torn apart is about one in a hundred. It is one in every ward’, Michael said.

‘There are fifteen wards in this place and we are in our own different separate worlds. It’s like we are the only ones on this bay but we only get to see more people on that day of The Redemption. One person is killed every month from each of the wards and once you are able to escape it when it’s your turn, you look forward to the next four weeks until it is our turn again’, Peter said.

‘That’s quite a lot of things to take in’, Pierson said.

‘There is a superstitious rule that most of us here follow; the more you think of dying, it would happen but it’s usually the other way round for The Redemption, if you think you are going to be saved, you probably never will be. So just come here and focus on the present moment, I think things will get better if you can simply do that’, Peter said.

‘You know that’s not easy, that’s not possible’, Pierson said.

‘Yes, it isn’t. It is a feeling that all of us struggle to keep up with, the fear and the hope are the two things that we have to struggle to surmount in the depth of our minds. Most especially, the hope of The Redemption, there is no way that I or anyone of us goes to bed knowing fully well that there is going to be a redeemed person the next day and not pray for themselves to be the person. If we don’t get picked, we feel really disappointed and we can only watch the lucky person scream with tears of joy leaking right from down his heart. It is the hope and dream of everyone here’, Peter said.