by Quinn, Fiona
I made it through my first day, and that’s about all I could say. How was it possible for prisoners to stay sane day after day, month after month, year after year? I paced my small cell and thought about the books I had read — The Man in the Iron Mask and The Count of Monte Cristo. Their plights were unfathomable.
I compelled myself to drink from my tin cup; the water tasted metallic and tangy. I was glad the toilet was handy. My body held on to nothing. I cramped terribly and my fever spiked.
Now what?
I forced my mind away from my physical distress. If breakfast came at 6, then I could get up at 5. I could do an hour of meditation, and at seven I could do an hour of yoga…if I got up at five, and I gave myself eight hours of sleep, then I should go to bed at nine o’ clock. How do I spend the last three hours today? I decided I would try to tell myself stories for an hour after dinner, and then I’d send Reiki energy to those I loved and was thinking about. I could do this for two hours each night.
When the bells tolled nine, I hung my clothes to freshen in the air and laid naked on the shelf sandwiched between the lumpy mattress and the old wool blanket. I pulled out my memories of the captives, prisoners, and cast-aways that I had read about as a child, I tried to cull through the ideas for strategies that might help me. I remembered reading in some diaries written by early-American settlers captured by Native Americans, that there were tribes who would sing until they fell asleep. This sounded like a worthwhile plan. It would keep my mind in check from the wayward scary thoughts and feelings that I tried to push aside. And so I decided to sing myself to sleep, too. Watching the brilliant stars twinkling against a black velvet sky, I tried to sing, but the notes dried up in my throat and came out as fever colored moans.
Thirty-Three
The sun slanted through my Cyclops window. Bird calls brought my thoughts back to the surface. I was damp with sweat. I counted the church bells – five o’clock. I bathed in the ice-cold water from the sink and dressed. My body wanted nothing more than to curl back up in a ball, but I was determined to get on a schedule. I was calling today Tuesday.
If this were Tuesday it was Biji’s day. She came from Punjab in northwestern India. This morning I used the mantra, “Satnam Waheguru” – God, wonderful teacher— from the Sikh tradition for my meditation hour. Then came the oatmeal. Sigh. After yoga, I attempted cardio but my body revolted in the worst possible way.
My head was heavy and my stomach ached. I lay on my shelf, miserable. I thought about my medicine cabinet at home and how lucky I had been to have ibuprofen and Imodium. Three more hours to kill until the exercise yard.
Laying here wasn’t helping. I wandered over to my window and watched the German shepherds patrol.
Last night I sent Reiki to Beetle and Bella. They felt anxious to me, but I think the Reiki calmed them. While I was working on Beetle and Bella, I remembered Mr. Miller training me to handle dogs.
“Dogs,” he had said, “will read your mind far more easily than your gestures or your words. You have to think clear thoughts and the dog will follow.”
Now, of course, my dogs were trained to follow hand and voice commands, but Mr. Miller was right. If I was thinking with clear focus, commands weren’t necessary. Then came the flash of inspiration – a two-fold idea.
First of all, it had occurred to me that the only true obstacles standing between me and freedom were the guard dogs. I could probably sleight-of-hand a set of keys from one of the guards and shadow walk myself out of here, at some point, but the dogs wouldn’t be fooled. They needed to be under my command. What if I sent them Reiki, and worked them energetically until I was accepted in their pack? Was it possible to bring them under my command with thoughts alone? If it just took up some of this god-awful time, then it would be worth the effort.
My mind went to a story I read about a man who worked in a canning factory. How did it go? He’d choose one person to focus kindness on …Something. No, I didn’t remember. But the gist of the story clung to my consciousness. He would send out his happy thoughts and the person in his focus that day became joyful.
And that led to the second part of my idea. If sending thoughts could theoretically work on dogs, could it also work on people? Like the man in the factory, spreading joy. What if I created Reiki energy in my cell, filling it with love and light? If I manipulated the Reiki energy to form a ball, and when someone opened my chute or door, they would be engulfed with kindness. What would that do for the person? Over time, would we develop a relationship? Could I make a connection and get some help — even though I couldn’t speak to them? Well, that too was a worthy, time-consuming experiment.
In my head, my words sounded as desperate as my feelings. Right then, I just wanted to make connections enough to get a toothbrush or some soap. I wasn’t sure how to maintain my hygiene or how I’d get healthy again under these conditions. I went over and dunked my head under the faucet; the frigid cold exploded my blazing headache. I scrunched my eyes tight against the pain.
It was approaching two. I had been gathering energy with the thought that it was a gift for whomever took me out for exercise. I filled my thoughts with kindness, and friendship and as the door swung open, I let the energy flow like a tidal wave. The guard from yesterday stood with a look of stunned surprise.
I stood with a smile. “Ejercicio?”
“Si, ejercicio.” And he gestured me out with an unfathomable look on his face.
My hair was still wet from my sad attempt at getting myself clean. The guard pointed at my head. I grimaced and pointed at the sink and gave him a shrug, and then mimed brushing my teeth and gave another shrug. He frowned and gestured for me to go down the hall.
The day was warm and the bright sunshine soon dried my hair. I combed it as best I could with my fingers, but it was matted and well on its way toward dreadlocks.
As I walked around the yard, I tried to get a feel for each of the dogs that I could see. Which one was the alpha? And I recalled what I had read about the “Hundred Monkey Phenomenon” in a book by a guy named Keye. In 1950’s Japan, some macaque monkeys lived on the island of Koshima. Scientists taught a couple of them to wash their sweet potatoes in the water before they ate them. Other monkeys on Koshima would watch the first couple, learn, and soon they imitated the behavior. After a hundred monkeys learned to wash their sweet potatoes on Koshima, all of a sudden monkeys on neighboring islands started washing their sweet potatoes. Yum, sweet potatoes. I kicked at the hardened ground. I’d like to eat a sweet potato — steaming hot with lime and pepper…oh, or cinnamon and butter… Anyway, the point of the story was that monkeys on the other islands had not observed the washing - they just up and started washing their sweet potatoes out of the blue.
I wondered what the critical number of dogs would be that I would need to train to be part of my pack before all of the prison guard dogs simply got it and understood. Or if they’d even behave like macaques.
In theory, if I could train the alpha, then all of the dogs should learn. I thought that I’d found him, too. He was a massive dog - a Belgian Malinois. He stood as high as my waist. I sent pictures to him of me petting him calmly. All I did the rest of my exercise time was pet Alpha in my mind.
The guard startled me when he came over. He had an odd look in his eye, and I rubbed nervous fingers up and down my thighs as I walked behind him. Back in my cell, he slipped a toothbrush into my hand. My eyes flew open; a grin stretched across my face. Amazing the gratitude that swelled in my heart over a freaking toothbrush.
***
The five o’clock bells rang in Wednesday. This was Nana Kate’s day. She was a Lutheran who thought that idle hands were the tools of the devil. Nana Kate wouldn’t have made it 24 hours in here. It was going to be a challenge to figure out how to use Nana Kate’s tools to make the day go by.
I meditated, but only for a half hour, then I gathered energy for the breakfast lady. She must be over a hundred. I was glad to send healing energy to her poor arthri
tic body. Grandma Oatmeal opened the chute, and I sent her the energy I had been gathering. She stood with the little door open for a long time after I had pulled my tray through. Finally, I heard her sigh, and the chute closed.
“Mmm. Yum. Gray slime,” I said sarcastically. Shit. I was talking to myself. Crazy train, here I come. I took a bite of oatmeal and started to cry.
After forcing down my last bite, I gathered energy for Ave Maria when she came to collect my dirty plate. She too held the door of the chute open for a long time after I passed her my tray. Then her hand came back through the opening with a tiny, pink, plastic rosary.
“Catolica,” she said.
“Gracias,” I replied as the chute closed.
Outside my window I saw Alpha patrolling the eastern fence with his handler. I decided to spend the afternoon with him. I sent pictures of me to him, and in my mind’s eye, I sat down to scratch behind his ears and rub his belly. Soon, I received the impression that Alpha had been in a fight with another dog, and he was wounded. His skin had been pierced by the other dog’s fangs and his shoulders were sore. I watched carefully, and yes, he limped slightly. His handler seemed oblivious. I sat down on my shelf, making the hand gestures and saying the phrases that allowed me to remotely connect to Alpha and send him Reiki.
It took a long time and patience. As I worked, the sun set behind the trees, and my cell dimmed. In my own body, I felt my intestines unknot a little, making the cramps less intense. As for Alpha, he was unsure of the energy. Then I felt a shift and the energy flowed smoothly; he seemed to welcome it, to drink it in. When I was finished, I walked over to my Cyclops, and in my imagination I pet him some more, sending him the image of me in my window. I swear he looked up at me as he walked by.
That night, I picked my six people to send Reiki; I’d focus on each one for twenty minutes. I made sure to start with Nana Kate, since it was Wednesday; Spyder, of course; and Mrs. Nelson, since I was worried about her; and as always, I ended with Striker.
Tonight’s songs were American folk tunes, not that I’d ever heard Nana Kate so much as hum a note, but it seemed to fit with a Wednesday.
And so went my week. Awful. Grandmother Sibyl came and sat with me in my dreams last night.. As she walked over to my rock, I looked down and saw that there were enormous paw prints from a wild cat circling round and round me. The cat must have come while I slept in the sun. I scanned the horizon but couldn’t see the leopard. Out of sight, yes, but always on my mind. A shiver ran through me.
Grandmother Sibyl handed me a bowl of tea and told me to drink it down. It tasted strongly of bitter herbs. I felt my gut untwist and the fever lift. As I rested my head on Grandmother’s lap. She calmly stroked my hair.
“You are a good girl,” she told me. “Thank you for sending me healing light, it was unexpected and most welcomed.”
I nodded. I was too comfortable to talk.
“You know, little one, you have many skills. I see that you are trying to use them. But I also see that you are afraid to unsheathe your knife. If you are to fill your belly, you must hunt. You must be brave.”
Brave. I thought I was probably all out of brave. And still, for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why the hell Maria wanted me down here in prison. The best I could figure, they planned to use me to get to Spyder. God I hoped that wasn’t so. Spyder… are you okay?
Thirty-Four
Grandmother Oatmeal brought me a comb yesterday and tweezers. I didn’t have a mirror so I couldn’t pluck my eyebrows, but weeding the hair from my legs was a time-consuming blessing. And untangling these rats’ nests from my long hair would take hours, and hours, and hours. Thank you, Grandma Oatmeal.
As I ate my gray-glue breakfast, trying to think nutritious thoughts, I remembered stories of the holy men who traveled throughout India with their begging bowls and nothing else. They would probably feel very grateful for a bowl of slimy oatmeal. I couldn’t bring myself to a place of gratitude. I could barely bring myself to swallow this crap.
I tried to do yoga this morning. But my fever had returned, making my head clang. Making me greasy with sweat. I stank. What would they do with my body if I were to die? Would they let my friends know so they’d stop searching for me? I needed a way to get safe water. Maybe with time I’d build up immunities. There was a depressing thought.
I forced my mind onto last night’s dream. I knew what Grandmother Sibyl was asking me to do; she wanted me to walk behind the Veil. I wasn’t sure how in the world that would help…Possibly I could gather some information, but I didn’t have any photographs. I had never tried to just pull up a vivid image in my mind. I stood at the window, my fingers wrapped around the bars as I stared at the cloudless blue sky. Maybe I could go behind the Veil with someone, like Ave Maria, if I was looking at her. Ave Maria did have a shimmer – there must be something horrible happening in her life. I still thought she might be a prisoner, too. Okay, think practically. If I went, I would have no support; I’ve always had support before. What if someone touched me? Very, very bad consequences, but then no one has touched me since Gray Mustache on the first day. And after I went behind the Veil, I’d need to sleep for a long time. Well, that wasn’t necessarily true. I slept for days after I’d been injured; I slept for hours if I just gathered information. So, what was the problem there? Sleeping offered me respite from my reality.
Alright, say I went with Ave Maria. What could I hope to gain? Maybe she’d go to her own cement cell and sit on her own wooden shelf - that was the worst-case. Best case? I’d get the name of the country and maybe even the town. So what? What would I do with that information? Maybe… maybe… I’d discover a way to escape.
I closed my eyes and sighed. “I’ll go.” As soon as the thought whispered through my mind, I swear a hand patted my shoulder.
That night after I sent my tray back through the chute with Ave Maria, I looked her in the eye and asked the Veil to open to me, to let me go with this woman. Quickly, I felt the tug from my center as I was pulled from this plane. I draped myself over my sleeping shelf and left my body.
We pushed the cart down the corridor together, opening the chutes to collect the trays. At the end of the corridor, we put the trays and empty food buckets on a dumbwaiter and sent them down – I assumed to the kitchen. At the bottom of the stairs, we pulled a key tied to a piece of rope from her skirt pocket and let ourselves into a small room. After washing the filth and sweat from her hands and face, we hung her soiled apron on a hook and sank onto the bench. The cold cinderblock wall felt good against her throbbing head. We closed her eyes and rested – bone-weary, drained and numb.
Warm lips brushed her cheek. “Are you okay, Elicia?” Oh, Ave Maria’s name was really Elicia. My exercise guard crouched in front of us with a worried frown.
“Yes, Franco.” She felt happy to see him; he was her balm. Elicia twisted a slender silver wedding band around her finger, then placed her hand in his. We left the building together.
At an interior check point, they signed a timesheet. We moved to the guardhouse at the gate; I could feel the hard-baked yard through the holes in her shoes. Elicia moved her head, and I was able to see the other prison workers. They all looked exhausted and unhealthy. Alpha sat at his handler’s feet, looking keenly at Elicia. His nose went up in the air, sniffing, making Elicia nervous, and we moved to hide behind her husband. Franco responded by wrapping a protective arm around us.
Once the gate opened, and the workers swarmed free, Elicia and Franco walked hand in hand, silently up the road. We moved south, closer to the bells as they chimed out a fresh hour. A rusty blue pickup truck slowed; we clambered onto the back bed and Franco yelled, “Gracias,” to the driver. Franco and Elicia travelled in silence; Elicia from sheer exhaustion. She didn’t feel sick to me; she felt worried. Worn down by anxiety. The truck pulled up to an unpainted cinderblock cottage, with a metal roof, the edges made lacey with rust. The door and windows opened to the warm evening air.
We s
logged through the rickety wooden door, Elicia gave an old woman — her mother, I think — a kiss and moved into the only other room, where a child lay in the middle of a rumpled bed.
“Pablo, Mommy and Daddy are home, my love. How was your day today? Were you in much pain?” A tiny black-haired boy, his eyes huge in his little face, felt heated to our touch. Pablo didn’t answer; he crawled into Elicia’s lap and wept. The feel of Pablo in her arms was tragic. My heart told me that this little boy was dying.
Elicia lifted her legs so that she could cradle Pablo with her whole body. Wrapped together, they fell asleep. When she slept, I returned to my body. I learned nothing about where I was except there was a village to the south. Supplies? Discovery more like. I’d need to stay north when I escaped. So Elicia, Franco, and a very sick Pablo…
Thirty-Five
Come morning, I postponed my morning meditations until after yoga, so I could do healing work for Grandma Oatmeal and Elicia. I was rewarded for my efforts when Elicia passed me a bar of soap. I still hadn’t been given a shower, and I had to use toilet paper to take care of my monthly needs. I gratefully used the soap to wash the stickiness and black filth off my skin under the trickle of cold water. This made me feel human again. Almost human. While my fever seemed less of a problem, keeping food down was still a big issue. I don’t remember ever being this physically weak. If the opportunity came for escape, I wasn’t sure I could take it.
