sixty-two

I sat down at the table and picked up a pen. On a blank piece of paper I wrote,

juliette. i’ve been imprisoned in the room at the far end of the east side of the house on the top floor. the one with bars on its windows. please help me.

I signed my name.

I then moved the chair to the window and sat down and waited for her to come out into the garden again.

Early in the afternoon of the next day she appeared, carrying her book. I watched as she entered the maze confidently and weaved her way through into its centre. After an hour of reading she walked out of the maze in the same way. As she was walking underneath my window, I put my hand to the frame to throw out the message. But the window stuck. No matter how hard I pushed upwards, I couldn’t get it open. I was too far up for her to hear my cries.

During the night I finally managed to open the window. I was then reluctant to close it in case I could not get it open again. The wind at night was freezing and I slept curled up in the corner of the hard floor. The room was also beginning to smell of urine and excrement. Juliette did not appear the next day nor the next.

I was growing fainter and fainter. If I had been offered food now, I would not have been able to eat it. The pain of my hungry stomach had been replaced by an odd feeling of fullness, as if it had been stuffed with empty space.

I began to lose track of the passing time.

I continued my vigil by the window. Early one morning, Juliette finally entered the garden again. Without hesitation I threw the message down to her through the bars of the window.

The paper floated through the air like a butterfly to land by her feet. I watched her bend down and pick it up and read it. I signalled desperately to her between the bars. Her face seemed stony, to give away no response. Suddenly she turned up her face in my direction. The sun came out and I could see the expression on her face more clearly. She was laughing. She was throwing back her head in laughter.

I withdrew into the darkness of my cell and lay curled up on the floor in the foetal position. Now the smells of the room, instead of repulsing me, had begun to offer me comfort. Their acrid warmth had become the proof of my existence.