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Slipping Away
by Sharon Sees Midnight, breathless. I am floating floating floating. I am free. The day I first arrived, I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t speak. My back against the cracked concrete walls, I fixated on nothing but my trembling hands, a hangnail on my left forefinger. I couldn’t feel the stone-cold floor against my legs and I couldn’t hear Big Jane’s cackle three cells down and I couldn’t see the mold growing between every crack on the wall--a web of pain and loss and regret and time wasted. One, two, three freckles on my left palm. I know nothing else. I know nothing of fists, nothing of scratching, nothing of screaming, nothing of blood. I know nothing of anger, nothing of hatred, nothing of revenge, nothing of power. Look at these hands. Look at these hands. I pick at a callous and tell myself to forget. The worst part was the hiding. I hadn’t expected it. You stare at the body and you know that you’ve won and you’ve proved that you’re stronger. Smarter. Better. And now what? Now you run. Now you’re scared. You do all this planning and preparation and then what do you have? Congratulations, you did it! Take a look at yourself- aren’t you proud? Yes, very proud. Now hide from who you are. And that’s what I did: that night, I ran. I whisked through the wooden front door, still hanging wide open; I stormed down the rickety porch steps. I faced the dark, quiet street and the peaceful breeze brushing my cheek. Onward, it said, nudging me forward. And so I followed the wind. That’s when my hands started trembling—they haven’t stopped since. In a panicked haze I drove 300 miles north; somehow I landed in the woods in New Hampshire. For six weeks, that’s where I stayed--cooped up in my rusty red car, the one my father bought for me when I was sixteen. Ah yes, my father. The man with the perpetually messy hair and a gleam in his eye. I wondered if he’d be proud of me too. And then I stared at my hands. It wasn’t long until they found me and took me away. I hadn’t hidden well; I was too agitated to stay in the car. I would pace around the highway by the woods and stare at my hands and tell stories to myself—shh, Carolina. Calm down, calm down. Remember that time you tripped during the school play in third grade? I would laugh to myself. And remember that time you went to the beach with your friends? I would smile and nod. Shallow breathing. There you go. Remember that time you won that award? How about that time when you started college? Happy thoughts. Good. And remember that time when you flunked out of college and remember that time when your parents kicked you out and remember that time you got fired from your job and remember that time you lost your apartment and remember that time your father got cancer and remember that time no one cared to even tell you and remember that time he died and you cried and remember that time you killed a stranger just to get back at God I remember, I remember. And I stare at my hands. And so I sit here each day, intoxicated by the sickly sweet aroma of bodies and sweat and the realization that I am not strong, I am not smart. I have nothing to be proud of. I just listen to the clock as it ticks and it tocks. Coward, it says, hanging from the wall. Coward. “Carolina,” the prison guard snaps at me today. I see his pasty skin and slimy mustache from behind the crusty iron bars. He has always kept his head held high, spitting on the gates as he saunters by. I wonder if he knows he is a coward too. “It is time,” he says. I notice a strange, solemn tone hidden beneath his words. Sure, buddy--now you have a heart. He clutches my arm and leads me down the prison corridor, slowly passing each inmate and cell. There is silence. Pure silence. Not even Big Jane lets out her usual cackle. Step, repeat. Step, repeat. The guard and I enter a small, dark-lit room, lined top to bottom with gray stone. Am I shivering? I am shivering. Yes, I am shivering. Step, repeat. Step, repeat. The guard leads me to the chair in the middle of the room, a single dangling lightbulb hanging above it. “Carolina Dodge, Prisoner 00324. First degree murder. Be seated. Thank you. Now, don’t move.” And I stare at my hands and they are no longer mine. They are the chair’s. They are God’s. They are the hands of my guard and my inmates and my victim and my father and my sins and I am strapped in and what have I done what have I done what have I done And suddenly- Midnight, breathless. I am floating floating floating. I am free. |
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