Lines

Tick.  Tick.  Tick.

One line.  It’s all it takes to understand how long you’ve been there.  How long you’ve been in chains, separated from your loved ones, and how long you wish to be free.

But that’ll never happen.  After all, a life sentence is for all your days on the big round ball known as Earth.  Who knows what’ll happen in the afterlife?  Who knows how things will become?  Is life imprisonment still a thing in the afterlife, or can you finally be free, like you are finally free from the flesh and bones as your mortal body rots?

But who knows what’ll happen?  Who knows if those ticks will ever mean anything?  They are just lines, after all.

Just like how stuffed animals are cotton and string.  Children don’t understand the real world.  They have to put meaning into a ball of cotton.

So why do I write lines?  Why do they mean so much?  Why do I go through the trouble of hiding a sharp rock to just write lines in the walls?  What do they mean?

I don’t know.

“Back in your cell, Johnson!”

A sharp whistle blew, breaking the eardrums of every prisoner within a mile radius.  I cautiously walked into my cell and sat down on my bed, the sheets that same dirty colour as my clothes.

I took out Virginia.  It’s what I name my rocks.  It might seem weird to name rocks.  But these rocks have a huge purpose, a huge meaning to me.  If I were to lose them, then my life would be forever gone.  Just like the jail cell I was currently sitting in.

Scratch.  I dug the sharp end of Virginia into the wall.  Scratch.

Today was the 3rd.  Marking the thirtieth anniversary since my conviction.  Marking the thirtieth anniversary since I had seen my family.  They don’t want to see me anymore.  They think I’m inhumane.  Well, what kind of person doesn’t let a father see his daughter?

I looked at the walls.  Too many lines, too many to even count.  More than the stars in the sky, more than the grains of sand in every beach on Earth.  More than the children in schools, more than the adults in work.  More than I could ever count.

A lot of people ask me why I do it.  I'm in here for the rest of my life.  There’s no point of marking up the walls.  I’m never getting out of here.

Well, I don’t know why I do it.  They mean something.  It might be a simple habit in a sea of hurt.  It may be a calendar, so I can know what day is what.  It might be so I know when my daughter’s birthday is, so I can remember to sing a special song through the cracks of my cell, hoping that she can hear it in her home far away from here.

But those are just a sense of false belief.  I have habits of brushing my teeth and making my bed.  There’s a calendar on the wall of the cafeteria, and I always know what day it is.  There’s really no point to writing lines.

The other inmates say that lines are stupid.  They say that it’s really just math and art, things that they hate.  Lines are useless.  They always have a defined beginning and an end, something that no one wants.  Especially me.

I know what my life is.  I know what I’m going to be doing in a week, or a year.  The best part of life is not knowing what’s going to happen.  The side of adventure, not knowing what might happen.  That gives life ups and downs.  High risk, high reward.

But here, I know what will happen.  I know every part of every day.  Every meal, every whistle blow, and every cold night is planned.  Every single thing is the same.  Day after day.  Night after night.

I’m beginning to get sick of it.

So why do I write those lines then?  If I hate lines so much, why do I do these things to myself?  Why do I torture myself just for a small line in the wall?

I don’t know.  I don’t know anything anymore.

And that’s why I left when I had the chance.

After all, earthquakes don’t just come everyday.  It was the anniversary, and I woke up in the middle of the night.  Rumbling happens a lot, but not this loud.  And I usually couldn’t feel it in my bed.

The tremors were enough to make me cry for my mother.  The ground was shaking up and down.  I was under my bed, ready for the release of death.

And I heard a crash.  Louder than anything.  I got out from under the bed and looked around.

My walls were gone.  At first, I was in despair, for I had lost all of those lines.  It was like I had lost all of those days I spent in this cell.  I would have to live them out again.

But then I sat up.  The cold night was chilling.  The walls were gone, and I had an easy escape.

So I did.  I didn’t want to be stuck doing the same thing everyday, writing the lines every night.

I said goodbye to the prison and jumped out.

I was on the first floor, so I didn’t die when jumping off, but that would have been better than being stuck in a cell, wishing for my daughter to just come back.

I landed on the ground.  And I ran to my house.

It took days.  I had to steal.  I had to do horrible things.  But it was worth it.  Because I saw my daughter on her bed, playing with her dolls, through the window.

I had always told her that dolls were a waste of time.  They were just cotton, and they didn’t do anything.  They didn’t feed the family, and they didn’t get any money.

One of her dolls was in a box, while her other two were on the bed.

My daughter started to cry, and she picked up the doll in the box and threw it in the garbage.

And that’s when I realised.  The simple things can mean different things for me or you.  My daughter saw her toys as her family in a time of trouble to her actual family.  I saw those lines as something, but I still didn’t know what.

But I didn’t have to.  My lines are what I am, and I don’t care about what the others say.

They’re special to me.