Girl in an Empty Cage

by Graham Wilson

  Part of her want to fling everything aside, walk outside into bright sunlight, begin a new life where each day belonged to her and her alone, do as she chose; laugh, sing songs, dance in the rain, let bright sunlight sparkle in her hair and soft clean air wash her skin, to leave behind this this world on the inside of a mad empty cage.

  And, at the same time, in another part of her being, she yearned for the man whose picture she held, to touch his face, feel the roughened skin, stubble and the fuzz on his neck, to sink her face into the hard muscle of chest, feel his steel sinewed arms wrap around her.

  She could not have both but she wanted them both. Part of her mind was trying to speak above the noise, saying she could and must choose, she had the power to take control and make a choice.

  She had seen the pictures of Rosalie as she surrendered to brutality and abandoned future hope. She had tried to flee and failed. In the end took the only way of escape she could see. Susan recognised the waste of that choice, the waste to Rosalie, the waste to Mark. She saw she was treading the same steps, walking the same path.

  It was like two birds sat perched alongside each other in her head. Each was calling out in a language all its own. One was like the bright winged parrots of a tropical jungle, showing glimpsed colour flashes as it called to her with raucous squawks. It spoke of flying free amongst trees. The other was dark, like the ravens and blackbirds of her childhood. It moved through shadows and dark spaces, roosting in a shadowed cavern. It spoke in a soft, musical voice of other world things, unknown and unseen but yearned for. When she looked up the voices became muted but remained, unceasing. Both were clamouring for the ownership of her soul, saying she must choose them.

  She wished that Vic was still here, he was a loyal friend to Mark, he would know what to do. She wished Vic could wrap his own arms around her, still the endless noise of dull screaming that filled her mind.

  But he was not here and only she could choose, all the great weight of this decision and its consequences rested on her and her alone. She put the photo out of sight, she longed to look some more. But it was only the palimpsest of a presence, the faintly captured image of a thing long gone, a person whose soul had gone far past this place of innocence, overwritten time and again with violence and its consequences, so only faint traces of the original remained.

  Perhaps she would allow herself to gaze upon this picture again when her soul was less troubled, when she could just see it for its goodness, not see all that had overtaken it since that long ago time.

  She would hold the picture and stone side by side tonight; use their power to drive away crocodile dreams. Instead she would hope, in the few days left to her before the final curtain fell, that she could once again see the world with clear eyes.

  For three days Susan vacillated between a desire for bright freedom and a desire for dark oblivion. She held the stone and the photo both next to her skin; she refused to surrender to the call of the crocodile ringing loudly in her ears. She snatched only brief times of sleep, fearful that if she slept too deep or too long that she would lose control of her ability to choose. And yet choose she could not, these dual presences sat side by side, calling in her mind, neither would yield to the claim of the other.

  Her parents, Anne and David came to visit, she pushed the weight of choice aside and talked to them as if every day was a new tomorrow and her future was an open place. She sought to be herself of old, to laugh and tell jokes, to savour each moment as a thing of value.

  She could see that Anne was full of distrust for this false brightness, her distress sat more heavily and openly than Susan’s did. Her parents marked their discomfort better, though in their minds she sensed distrust for her furtive and frantic shards of brightness, it was the Susan of old, but not quite.

  She found it hard to eat or concentrate with this weight of choice, she felt her clothes loosening despite her swelling belly. Her face staring back from the mirror grew more gaunt and haunted as each day passed. All the while these two beings fought for control of her soul.

  On the final night she reached for the picture, to look one last time, knowing she must choose, she hoped this picture of boy Mark would guide her. She was sure it was there, alongside the stone in her pocket. She touched nothing, she reached inside and felt all the places and spaces on her person where she could have left it, still nothing. She searched her cell, moving and putting everything aside, systematic as she checked, sure she could locate it, but nothing was found.

  She remembered having it out, alongside the crocodile stone, in the visitor’s room today when her parents came, perhaps it slipped from her grasp when it was time to return. She banged her cell door over and over, until the warder came grumpily. She asked if she could check the visitor’s room, believing she had dropped her photo there.

  They went together. As she opened the door she knew in a glance it was gone. The bins were emptied of the chocolate wrappers and tissues of the visit, the floors were fresh mopped, the benches fresh wiped, the disinfectant odour lingered. The warder told her that the cleaners had driven away minutes before taking their bags of rubbish with them.

  At first she felt a surge of disappointment, but it was replaced by relief. It was over, choice gone, the bright bird of hope flown away with a last raucous shriek. The noise in her head was stilled at last.

  It was an omen; again the hand of destiny had again spoken. She returned to her cell, her mind calm. An option had vanished, her choice was gone. She ate dinner with renewed vigour, her mind clear in its empty space. She climbed into bed, stone set aside, knowing that on the morrow the torture would be ended.