No Space for Time

It’s been a long day, I think as I lay my head flat on the concrete, arm jammed against the wall. I close my eyes against the sterile brightness of the light-tiled ceiling and make myself breathe, in and out, one breath, two breaths. One Mississippi, two Mississippi. One second, two seconds.

It’s been a long fucking day. I open my eyes, fighting a yawn and still counting my breaths, and stretch my right arm up towards the ceiling. This is one of the longest so-called days they’ve kept me awake--or at least, one of the longest times they’ve kept the lights on. And sleep almost never comes for me when the lights are on.

One Mississippi, two Mississippi. One second, two seconds. I can practically count like this in my shallow sleep by now, but it’s good that I’m awake and that the lights are on at the moment, or I wouldn’t be able to do--sixty seconds!--this. I bite carefully at my left middle finger until I taste iron on the tip of my tongue, and then I lift my head and draw my finger down the wall to which I am pressed close. One thin, already dried little mark from my blood, a little shivering line joining dozens and dozens--hundreds, and thousands, hundreds of thousands--of identical inch-long lines on the wall.

Soon I’ll have to find another section of the wall on which to make my marks. I had started off in the corner nearest the door, trailing long streaks of blood onto the wall every time I snapped into panic at having forgotten where I had been counting. But that had been a reckless waste of space. And I have since gotten better at counting. Now if I were only taller I could use more of the wall, but the only higher places that I can reach are the surfaces above my bed, and I’d prefer to save those. For what, I don’t know. I’ve already fully covered as much as I can reach of the wall with the door, and almost all reachable surfaces of the walls to its left and right. How much more space will I need before I’m done with recording my time?

Just when I’m beginning another round of counting, the ceiling switches off and I’m swallowed by this room’s version of night. I immediately crouch and feel my way towards my bed, slipping under the cold covers and squeezing myself into the corner. I could keep counting, but I need to go to sleep as fast as I can. I never know how long they’ll let me sleep. They like to switch up the schedule to disorient me, and it does, which can ruin my concentration. It did very well the first month (?) or so that I was here.

But I’m smarter now. I’ve found more of myself now. I’ve never had a brain for numbers, but as long as I remember the four syllables in Mississippi and how hard I need to pinch my skin for it to bleed, I’ve got enough of a brain for time. That’s all I have, that’s all I’ve been given. When life gives you nothing but lemons. When life gives you nothing but seconds.

And if my seconds are correct, if they are anywhere close to correct (please, please let my count be close) then this should be close to my last week or so here. I might be off (so far off) because I lost time to my initial frenzy and I still lose time to dreamless sleep, but if my seconds add up, if my neat little army of blood-minutes on the wall is enough, then I’m almost done. I’ve been good, and now I’m almost done with these days, days of minutes, two hours, fifteen, or twenty. And I’m almost done with these nights, nights of nothingness, of the ringing of my own ears, of the word Mississippi skipping across my tongue, meaningless and uncountable.

One, two, three. I’m counting sheep. I’m almost there. I’ve been good. I’ve served my punishment. I’m maybe just days, maybe minutes, maybe even a countable number of seconds away. One two three. I have to sleep, now.

And with the darkness blanketing me I’ve gotten good at sleeping at once. I am a parrot with a rug draped over its cage. I am the parrot who whispers all day but only remembers one phrase. And I am only days away from freedom. I know this. I have to know this. I have to.

I never know when I’ll wake. I never know when lights will hiss above me and I will blink crusted eyes open. I never know how long it will be before I am counting each breath and each spoonful of colorless food that manifests in front of the door after each sleep. The same room. The same lights and same routine.

But this time the lights wake me and I am the parrot unveiled from its cage and things are different. There is no bowl of food on the floor and there. Suddenly there are no breaths from me because. There are no seconds and no minutes. Anymore. The walls are nothing but wide slate gray. Clean stiff gray. There is no pattern of lines on my walls, there is no forest of blood marks. There is no trace of the hours that I have been in this room turning the numbers one to sixty over in my mind again and again. There is no time, there is no me. There is no me. What am I if I’ve forgotten everything in order to keep track of time and now even that is no longer mine? What am I now if life has taken away the only thing it had given me?

I choke on the grit in my throat and fall out of bed. I scrape my hands at the walls. I beg. I tear at the faceless concrete hoping to reveal the days I had so carefully traced over it. I can feel animal whimpers on my teeth. My walls press in on me while I shudder from one wall to the next, tears salting cracks in my skin, fingernails bleeding as I rip them at concrete. I’m nothing now. But I’ve been good. My time was almost done. I’ve been good, I’ve done my time!

And it’s done with me?

I can barely notice that I am rubbing fingerprints into the floor, disorganized marks, ugly unlike my stiff soldiers of minutes once standing proud on the walls. In some distant region of my brain I know that I’m screeching, howling, lowing without breathing, an animal from another dimension, while I collapse in the middle of the room and rip out the hair I had convinced myself to stop plucking once I started clutching onto my Mississippis.

And then--then--I drag myself into existence and notice a tiny slip of paper under the door. My screams jab my throat as I freeze, bloody fingers still digging in my scalp.

A slim slip of paper folded in half. Almost like it could be a fortune from a little twisted cookie. A fortune. I stutter, hands and knees forcing themselves towards the door. I breathe but I’m not counting. I breathe but there are no syllables in my throat.

My hands aren’t mine as they cut themselves on the crisp sides of the paper. My eyes aren’t mine as they lock on the paper. I am not mine as I unfold the paper. My fortune.

My time.

Done?

I breathe. No seconds pass.

You’ll need all the space you can get to keep track of the rest of your time.

And the lights shut off.