Detention

He knows the routine by now. The steady footsteps of the guard approaching along the corridor signal breakfast. Bananas and bread. The same everyday. Two bananas and a half stale baguette, left without a word between the bars of his cell.

Everyday he takes the bread and leaves the bananas.The guard never removes them and they rot where they sit, growing blacker every day. He likes them there. They comfort him. He keeps track of his days in here by counting their blackening remains..The higher the mountain of rotten bananas, the longer he's sat in this cell. They’re his decomposing calendar, his prison diary of mould, decaying alongside him.

Every morning the footsteps stop outside his cell and every morning he sits up and looks to the door. Every morning he holds his breath and waits, trying hard not to plead with a god he he knows isn't there. Waiting for the footsteps along the corridor. Waiting for the sound of the key turning in the keyhole. Despite himself he trembles with anticipation, trying not to hope lest disappointment crashes down around him yet again. He mouthes the words to himself, "Turn, damn you, turn." All else evaporates. The whole universe suddenly revolves around a small iron key hanging on a guards belt in a corridor outside a cell.

In those few seconds, all that there is slams into that key and that door and that keyhole. It holds the answer to his unwilling prayers. Ashamed, he offers god his soul if he will "just open that fucking door." What would he give, now, just to hear that key turn? Sobering how ones world can be reduced to something as simple and mundane as the turning of a key .

His silent mantra continues in his head, as if he could bend it to his will by desire alone. "Turn.turn turn turn turn turn turn turn. Damn you, turn."

Right now, to him, its life and death. If that door opens at this hour, he has a visitor. Just a turn of that key and he can spend a precious hour out of this stinking box with its rotten banana calendar and mountain of empty water bottles and piles of garbage and torn paperback novels and scrawled prayers to jesus on the walls. If only that key will turn, he can touch another person. He can hear another voice and he can make it through another day.

Occasionally it does. and the door swings open. Light floods his cell. He's on his feet reaching for his shoes before the guard steps inside. A visitor means conversation and contact, the chance to talk and be heard and to be listened to. It means news from the outside world. It means a precious cargo of food and books and cigarettes. Essential survival tools until he can make it out of this nightmare. Most of all it means some news on his son who he hasnt seen for months.

But usually it doesn’t . Most mornings the footsteps don’t stop and the key doesn’t turn and the cell door doesn't swing open. The guard leaves more bananas and bread to blacken on the window ledge and walks on down the corridor.The outer door slams shut and he is alone. He lies back on his mat and listens to the retreating footsteps. He chokes down a wave of disappointment and steeles himself for one more day of bitter, angry loneliness..... until tomorrow.