I don’t know what I’m doing here. Come on! Really?
The jangle of the warden’s key is slowly but surely driving me crazy.
I’m only two weeks into a six-month sentence. Two eventful months. I don’t know how I will survive.
I don’t know if I am surviving. But strange to say, I have reason to be glad I’m still here.
The day I arrived, there were four bunks in the cell. Only one was occupied.
I have trust issues. You would too, if you had my family history.
I was actually relieved to meet my roommate. Sure, she was strange. Everyone in here is strange. But she was nice and I liked her. Poor Belle!
I remember the first time I saw her. She was sitting in the corner as I entered the cell, holding my sheets and pillow close to my chest. I was nervous. Not at being locked up. I’ve been locked up before, but I never had to share my cell.
Belle was holding a little tea cup and singing.
She didn’t look up.
“Hey!”
No reply.
I looked around the room. There was a framed picture of a strange-looking animal. Ha1f-man, half-bear. She followed my gaze. Her eyes settled on the picture and she smiled. “Hey! My name’s Snow. What’s yours?”
She just hummed to herself.
I began making my bed. A bell rang somewhere beyond the door. It seemed to interrupt her thoughts and she looked at me.
“I’m sorry. I was singing to my friend. She loves to hear me sing. She’s delightful. You’ll like her. Her name is Mrs Potts. She’s just the best little teapot”
Hold up! Did she just say teapot? NO!
She was quite talkative once she got started.
“I’m a miscarriage of justice,” she said. “I’m here because I fell in love. I got 18 months for being in love. That’s why they put me here.”
“Did you kill him?”
“Kill him. Heavens no! I love him still.”
What a whacko!
Her name was Belle. According to her, she married a beast, and will probably be moved to a place for the clinically insane. She talked to the cutlery. She talked to her clock. She had put in a complaint that they took her candelabra away. His name was Lumiere. He was French. Imagine!
I suppose she was seriously ill, but I considered myself blessed to be sharing a cell with such a gentle soul. And her chatter was distracting.
Then Red arrived. She went down for breaking and entering.
You soon learn that everyone in the joint has a story. And everyone is innocent. Red was not as crazy as Belle was, but she too saw herself as a victim of the system.
All she ever said about her crime, was that he had big eyes and big ears. He deserved what he got. She was only trying to save her granny.
The fourth guest of the state to arrive was Goldilocks. I assume it was her street name. She had unnaturally golden hair and she looked a little young to be in the system.
Young as she was, she was as hard as nails.
That first day, she just walked into the room like she owned it. She tried out all of the beds, climbed onto Belle’s and fell asleep. Pre-teens! Who needs them!
We didn’t argue with her. She was only a kid after all, and I have to admit she was kinda scary. You develop an instinct for that kind of thing in the joint.
I wasn’t wrong. It turned out they tried for as an adult. She was in for a triple homicide.
We left her to herself mostly. Sometimes, in the joint, survival is about knowing when to talk and knowing when to shut up.
Goldilocks got a job in the kitchen. That’s where she got the blade.
The night Belle died, I wasn’t there. I had called a guard. I needed to relieve my bladder. When I came back Belle’s lifeless body was lying in a pool of blood on the floor. Nobody knew who’d done it, but Red was blamed. She had a blade under her pillow.
They took Red away that night.
I didn’t do this, she said. She looked at me, and I just knew she was telling the truth.
I was left in the cell with Goldilocks.
I spent three more sleepless nights with that maniac.
I knew she’d go for it as soon as she could lay her hands on a weapon. I thought I had more time. She was confined to the cell.
I didn’t think she’d try to kill me with her bare hands.
So how am I here, telling you this tale?
Hey! I forgot to tell you my bad.
I’m in here for faking my own death.
How do you like that?
