FANZINE

SERGEANT:…She looks like a fucking intellectual to me.
OFFICER: But you said her arse wobbled.
SERGEANT: Intellectual arses wobble the best.

-Harold Pinter, Mountain Language

 
       The first day is, as of yet, an unmarked emptiness. The blue, then gray, then blonde light filters through 
your cell. Your cell mate lies and looks up at the ceiling, sits and looks out at the window, stands and 
picks at paint chips on the wall. 
 
       You stand and stretch.
       Your cell mate reaches up, then down.
       You twist your neck to stretch, then turn your head round back and forth.
       You look at her.
       She looks at you like she's about to speak.
       You lean in closer.
       She speaks.
       She says something whispered to you in your shared language.
       
       You do not understand her words.
       You whisper to her, sorry, but I do not understand your words, in your shared language.
       She phrases her words differently in your shared language. 
       You nod. You get her meaning, though some words remain uncertain. 
 
       An image suddenly appears in your imagination, some word in your shared language, a word you 
haven't heard in years, the name of something in your town, some road, some hollow, something 
beautiful, some word that stirs some deep ache in your heart. 
 
       But as soon as you attempt to gather up this word, this ache, to then assemble it into some 
spoken sentence, its sound blurs into some other word you do not often think about, the counters of 
them soften, and you can't remember either. 
 
       You look at your cell mate.
       You want to tell her what just happened, in your thoughts.
       You think, she knows so many words I do not know, in our shared language.
       You think, I am sure she knows that word I can't recall.
       You think, I don't think she would really understand.
 
       You hear the echoes of the hinges of a metal door. 
       You hear the echoed shuffling of foot steps.
       You hear key rings going, clink, clink, clink, clink, clink.
       You hear the metal slat slide up inside your cell door.
       You hear metal scraping onto concrete. 
 
       In come two metal rectangles in six divided sections:
       1. two small, halved rounds of some stale, porous bread
       2. pre-wrapped, shiny, palm-sized pads of margarine
       3. two gray sausage links
       4. two boiled eggs
       5. a brown plastic cup filled with some watery beige gruel
       6. a long metal spoon that looks like its been chewed somehow
 
       Your cell mate stirs the gruel, says
       this fucking slop
       in your shared language.
       
       You begin your pile with the slop.
       You add the bread and sausages.
       You eat the eggs because the smell of eggs is just disgusting. 
 
       You hear the echoed sounds of other metal slats.
       You hear them, moving farther down the line, then closer to you.
 
       You hear the shuffled footsteps and the key rings going clink.
       You slide your tray through. 
       Mumble something in their language.
 
       You hear the guard suck something back, deep in his throat.
       You swallow, suck.
       You gather spit.
       He spits.
       You spit.
       He shuffles down the hall.
       
       You look out at the window.
       The blonde light is turning golden gray.
       You sit.
       Your cell mate sits.
       She sighs.
       You both look down.
 
      You are still trying to remember that familiar road, or hollow, and its once somewhat 
familiar, now so unfamiliar name. You think of green hills, long gray winding roads, and tall, 
gray buildings, mostly crumbled, breaking, broken walls that were once churches.
       
       You close your eyes. 
       You open them.
       You look toward your cell mate at the invisible curtain of stupidity between you.
 
       The golden gray light is now golden white. 
       You yawn. 
       Your cell mate stands and stretches, squats, and pisses in the pot. 
 
       The pissing sounds like rain.
       It sounds like rain, you say, in your shared language.
       She says, sorry, what?
       You tell her, never mind. 
 
       She stands up from the pot.
       She slides the pot toward you.
       You look back at her.
       She nods and looks at you like, well?
 
       You shift and squat above the pot.
       You piss your softer, lesser stream.
       A thin steam rises.
       And the smell.
       You think about the rain.
       You think about the gentle fog above the crumbled, broken churches.
       You think, nameless roads and hollows.
       Your shared language.
 
       You piss
       your cell mate pisses
             and you piss
             your cell mate pisses
                   and you piss
                         and think
                               and piss
                                     and think
                                           and try
                                           and try
                                                 to piss. 
       
       The guard goes shuffling by.
       Clink, clink, clink, clink.
       He whistles.
       He is actually whistling.
       That piece of shit. 
 
       The golden white turns golden gray turns gray turns blue turns black.
       Your breath makes vapor clouds. 
       Your chamber pot is full.
 
       You tilt the lid 
       against the metal 
       slit and listen 
       to the trickle 
       as it joins 
       the echoed 
                                                                   sounds 
                                                             of
                                                      trickling
                                                    down
                                                the
                                       hall.
 
 
 
 
 
       The second day is marked with piss, the smell thick in the room.
       You breathe it in with every breath, a thick tinge 
 of inevitability.
 
 
 
 
       Your first thought, upon waking is: 
 It's real. I have done this.
 
       Your second thought, upon waking is:
 Fuck.
 
 
 
 
       You look toward your cell mate. She's still sleeping. 
       You lie propped up on your elbow, watching her eyes and their flickered movements.
 
       A fly gets caught inside the room somehow.
       Its little twisting, sputtered path of flight makes your head hurt.
       Your stomach quivers.
 
       There is something in the spreading light that seems to activate the smell.
       There is something in the light that makes your insides active. 
       There is something in the light, mixed with the sad, sick smell that activates the edges
 of a memory
 that you cannot remember.
       
       Something from childhood, the vague sensation 
       of those years when you would lie, in bed 
       and lie 
       and lie
       and look
       and look
       and look without
       real interest or curiosity
       not in the sense that comes 
       from knowing and comparing
       what you know to what 
       you're told 
       to know.
 
       Something about your window, lying in the spreading path of light. 
       The long lace curtains like the bottom of a busy, shifting skirt.
       The distant sound of dishes, scraping chairs, and cupboards closing.
       Smells beginning, stirring, drifting up, being prepared for you.
 
       The sounds and smells that have nothing to do with you and everything to do with you.
       That odd expectant twinge of fear that makes you want to stay
 there 
 in    your bed
 there 
 in    your room
 there 
       locked      forever     in    that 
 
                         sheltered   shadowed    active            
                                                                            passive         state. 
 
 
 
 
 
       The third day is the second day you mark the walls, beginning from a bottom corner 
of the wall beside your bed. Your cell mate marks the opposite wall, working in the opposite 
direction, as apart from you as possible. 
       
       You bend and reach.
       You scrape and squat.
       You reach.
       You gather. 
       Stand, sit, kneel.
       Bend.
       Sit.
       Kneel.
       Stand, sit.
       Kneel.
       Stand, sit.
       Stretch, and pace.
 
       You listen, for a moment, to the silence and the stillness. You imagine stiff 
chairs, metal desks, and pages softly turning. You hear traces of the wind, outside, just 
barely, if you listen, listen, for the whisperings of violent movement.
 
       You hear the echoed shuffling of foot steps.
       You hear key rings going, clink, clink, clink, clink, clink.
       You hear the metal slat slide up.
 
       Your cell mate whispers something to you in your shared language.
       You whisper something back in your shared language.
       
       In come two metal rectangles in six divided sections:
       1. a stiff brown roll
       2. a watery vegetable scoop
       3. a white potato scoop
       4. a skinny pinkish slab of meat
       5. two small blue milk cartons 
       6. a metal spoon and fork
 
       The acid in your gut sucks down. 
       It spits. It spins a repetition, whispering its anger, hunger, and disgust.
 
       Your cell mate whispers something to you in your shared language.
       You whisper something back.
       Half in your language.
       Half, the other language.
 
       You look down into the dark rim 
       underneath your nails down 
       into the darkness
       through these ten 
       small windows in your skin. 
 
 
 
       The fourth day is the first day you get sick. 
       Your cell mate mutters something in a language 
       that is neither yours, nor theirs.
 
             Your mouth opens immediately shuts your teeth are
             chattering beneath your hands your 
             fingers dumbly moving to
             your lips.
                   Your head lurches.
                   You bend above the now 
                   gray hill of rot now
 
                                soil
 
                            fingers 
 
                            flail
 
                                bile
                                  dri   p
                               p     
                                  ing
                                           d o
                               w n
                                               a n
                               d
                               d
                               o w n
                                  th
                                  e
                                    m
                                      .                         
       
 The rot
          now 
 fluid filled
          now 
 indistinguishable 
          now 
 form 
          now 
 consumed 
 the gray hill 
 fog 
 of fluid 
            now 
 consuming 
                  language.
 
       You crawl 
 back to your mattress 
 and the maggots 
 crawl.
 
 
       The pile sits.
 
       You lie.
       You lie.
       You lie.
       You lie.
       You lie.
 
 
             You close your eyes.
             You hear a soft buzz, gentle thuds. 
                   Remember, all the efforts of the human mind
                   cannot extinguish...
 
 
                               You think of green hills, long gray winding 
       roads, and tall, gray buildings, mostly crumbled, breaking, broken 
 walls that were once 
 churches.
 
 
       The seventh day is marked in blood. 
       Your stomach burns with what you think is hunger
       
             food scraps scraped
             a wet gray mound
 
       A new cream scoop of white potatoes 
       joins your ever-growing wet gray pile 
 
             in the corner
             on the floor.
 
 
       The new food wakes the maggots. 
             They come crawling 
             to the surface 
 
 
             like so many sets of small
             white fingers
             scraping.
 
       You kneel in pain. 
       You curl into a little cusp of woman
 
 
             curl into the shape of something
             someone
             not yet born.
 
       
                   You know now what it is
                   the firm, red fingers of your shame. 
 
                         The feeling of them clawing at you
                         through you
                         from your insides.
 
                   You picture saints.
 
             You picture pictures of the saints. 
 
             You picture Catherine of Siena
             holding her white sprigs 
                         of lilies. 
 
             You picture Catherine 
             with her pale hands in prayer 
             knelt 
 
                    over the 
 
                        twisting           
                          clutching
                               mangled 
                        black 
       plagued 
                                      bodies.
 
       You can imagine 
       Catherine's 
       pale fingers
       dipped in red black vomit
             moving up 
             and then into 
             her pale 
             pink 
             mouth. 
 
       You can imagine 
             the afflicted
       gazing up in awe
             half horrified
       into the smiling 
             visage of 
             this saint.
 
 
                   But you cannot imagine 
                   Catherine 
                   curled up in a corner
                         clutching at her stomach
                                     rolling back
                                    and forth 
                                     in pain. 
 
       And you cannot imagine 
       Catherine's 
       sweet 
 white virgin womb
       her sweet 
 white virgin thighs
 
                   stained red 
                   and trickling 
 
                         with blood.
       
 
 
 
       The tenth day is marked in streaks of blood beginning to recede. 
       Dark residue, leaves fallen from some forest in your stomach. 
 
       You have now bled as much as you are going to bleed. 
       You now begin the longer, slower task of drying up. 
 
       The eighteenth day, your nail chips into the wall. You peel it back. The skin shines 
dully in the dull gray light. You look with wonder, this small patch of flesh, still pink 
with pain, still new, smooth, skin that has not yet joined your accumulation.
 
       The thirty fifth, 
       the thirty sixth, 
       the thirty seventh, 
       thirty eighth, 
       thirty ninth, 
       fortieth days are all unmarked. 
 
       The maggots turn to flies.
       The flies drift through the room, climb back and forth across the walls, drift lower, 
crawl less, fall down, twitch, and die.
 
       You lie down and you look up at the ceiling. Your eyes drift. Every now and then, your 
skin feels like its fluttering. Pale scars of plaster, cracked, like little bits of snow. The 
surfaces still white, the walls too high for you to reach. 
 
       You think of stone cliffs, standing, staring, or just climbing into mist, the mornings 
where the mist becomes a wall of white, so thick, yet still so light, a strange, flat sky, so 
thick, so light, a sense of longing, knowing that a light is somewhere deep within.
 
       You feel tender, then, you feel brittle, then, you feel weak, then, you feel sick, 
then, you feel weak, then, you feel nothing.
 
       You feel light, drifting, light, ceiling, light, fluttering, stomach, skin, ache, 
drifting, walls, red, dark, then, red, then, black………………………………………………………………………………….
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………You think of stone cliffs, 
stone, brick buildings, streets, stone churches, tinted glass, light streaks and incense, people 
standing, kneeling, sitting still, stand, kneel, stillness, silence, sky, birds, humming, drifting 
smoke, kneel, stone, light, tinted glass, light, silence, birds, waves crashing, pages turning, 
silence, humming, louder, humming, rattle, humming, rattle, shiver, walls, wind, light, crash, 
light, crash, shattered glass, birds screaming light
 birds screaming light birds screaming bodies standing fallen broken walls torn glass sky flat stone 
 crack waves crack waves crash stone flat sky blood fire blood wall blood wall run run run take 
 shelter run take shelter run take shelter run take shelter run run run run run run run RUN 
 NO RUNNING RUN NO RUNNING SIT STAND KNEEL RUN NO HOME NO SHELTER STAND SIT KNEEL SPEAK SPEAK SPEAK NO WORD NO SHELTER NO LANGUAGE NO NO 
 WORD NO SPEAK NO WORD NO SPEAK NO WORD NO SPEAK NO WORD NO 
 STAND NO KNEEL NO SIT NO KNEEL NO STAND NO SPEAK NO NO NO 
 LANGUAGE NO NO RUN RUN RUN NO RUN NO RUN NO SPEAK NO 
 WORD NO MORE NO SPEAK NO WORD NO MORE NO WORD 
 NO MORE NO MORE NO MORE NO MORE NO LANGUAGE 
 NO MORE NO MORE NO MORE NO MORE NO MORE 
 NO MORE NO MORE NO MORE LANGUAGE 
 NO MORE LANGUAGE NO MORE
 NO MORE no more no more
 no more no more
 no more
 no no
 no
 
 
 
 There is no silence for you, 
 here, 
 within these silences.
 
 There is no stillness for you, 
 here, 
 within this stillness.
 
 There is no sadness for you, 
 here, 
 that is your sadness.
 
 There is no language for you, 
 here, 
 that is your language.
 
 
 Not in this cell.
 Not in these walls.
 
 Not in this body.
 
 
 Not in this cell.
 Not in these walls.
 Nor any streets.
 
 Nor walls.
 
 
 Not anywhere, 
 
 in anything you can imagine.
 
 Not in any prayer ever prayed to anyone.
 
 
 
 
 No silence 
 
 in these silences.
 
 
 No stillness 
 
 in these stillnesses.
 
 
 No silence.
 
 No stillness.
 
 No streets.
 
 No walls.
 
 
 There is no shelter, 
 
 no home for you now, 
 
 but the kingdom of heaven.
 
 There is no language 
 
 to be found 
 
 now 
 
 in the words 
 
 of this world.
 
 
 
 
 No shelter, 
 
 no home for you now, 
 
 but the kingdom of heaven.
 
 
 No shelter, 
 
 no home for you now, 
 
 but the kingdom of heaven.

————————

_{Meghan Lamb currently lives with her husband in St. Louis, where she is a fiction MFA candidate with the Washington University Writing Program and a Graduate Assistant with the Modern Literature Collection. She is the author of Silk Flowers (Birds of Lace) and Sacramento (Solar Luxuriance).}