Last week’s WOTD freewrite was disastrous (why can’t that word pop up?). This week I am hoping for better results. The word we are stemming from is Quiescent…
ergo sum peccatore
I last confessed twelve years ago. I don’t know, I guess I felt there wasn’t much point in the thing. I believe–I still believe, mind you. I don’t know what people would do without belief. Can you imagine a world where the only thing you had to believe in was a voice on the TV humming at you eery night to explain the news and what was causing all that news; all that violence? I had to stop, you know, after it happened.
No, now I am not saying that I did it. I wouldn’t say that, because I did not do it. Don’t go telling me you came all the way down here to stare at me through this thick plastic and hear me say I done did something I didn’t. You won’t hear it. Not from me. Not ever.
No, I stopped watching the TV.
They have it on here almost all the time. There are fights in the rec room once every few days because somebody gets riled up about a show or says something about a character somebody else likes, and just like that they are fighting and the TV goes off and the two idiots (though from time to time its more than two) get put in the hold where they are supposed to ‘cool off’. Tell me this: how do you cool off in a place that has to be at least 118-120 in the pitch dark? Way I heard it the pipes run behind those walls. Not the good kind either. Not the kind that brings cool water or the air ones people are supposed to be able to climb through and escape. No, these are the nasty pipes that come from down deep, rising out of whatever it is that powers this place.
Did you know we ain’t on the grid? Can’t be. They can’t risk power failing and all of us getting out into the world. Treat us like we are boogey men come to getcha! Still don’t explain where the power comes from and why it smells so damn awful down there and especially why it gets so hot.
What was I talking about? Oh, yes. I stopped the TV stuff straight off. I went and got me a good spot in the library and learned to take joy in reading. It’s different, you know? When you read the words they come out as slow as I want them to. That gives me time to think about what is written down there. It also kills time for a lot longer than that TV. The big part of it is it doesn’t poison my mind. Since I’ve been on books I’ve come round to a more relaxed way of thinking and talking and acting. I have become quiescent in my old age. I have learned that in spite of my innocence I have long been a sinner, so perhaps this place is what it needs to be for me for as long as that may be.
Yep. 19 years in this place. First three were easy. I still had appeals. After that it started to settle in that I was never leaving here. Few years after that still is when you started coming around. You need to understand that I cannot give you what the stories refer to as ‘closure’. I mean I suppose I could, but it wouldn’t be proper. Why? Well because I did not do it.
Saying I did wouldn’t make it true. All you’d ask me after is why and I wouldn’t have any sort of answer that made sense. It would be one more lie built on the last and maybe that is what you want right now, but I promise you the lie is hollow and you’ll be hungry for the truth before long.
I hope you find it. Once you do you’ll be like me. quiescent. Only you’ll be out there where the world keeps changing and asking you things and I’ll be in here with my books and my three walls and my three meals with nothing more to worry about than what I have to look forward to.
What’s that? Why the next story, of course.