The Safest Place I’ve Ever Been

I am strip-searched and they find everything.

I am thrown into a cell, but not after a long, clichéd walk down corridors of cells with hands grabbing out and voices murmuring and yelling at the same time. What they are reaching out for is anybody's guess.

"Here's your new cell-mate, Grysia," says the prison officer, as he opens the door or at least that is what I think he said her name was. All I see is a shadow in a grey uniform on a shelf, (could it be a bed?) on the left side of the room. The shadow has matted, greasy hair cascading down over its face and there is no relatable identity visible.

"Great," I say, without a care in the world. What would it matter to me if I had a roommate or not?

"Lunch is at 1pm and lights out at 10."

The door is slammed shut.

I notice that a pile of 'essentials' is in my arms; I don't remember anybody giving me the bedsheet or the flimsy excuse of a pillow or whatever else there is. I drop it all onto the shelf bed on the right side of the room. 'First time I've been on the right,' I smirk to myself. 'Right never gets associated with me,' I despond.

I don't say anything to the thing across the room from me. I've learned that over the years: never look keen and never look desperate, no matter how much you might want a friend. Let them come to you. Then, you can destroy their lives. Not intentionally, of course, but inevitably, if the past was anything to go by.

I feel relaxed in the concrete cold ugliness. Those doors are secure ones. I don't even have to test them. Nobody is getting in here without a key. All of my enemies - locked out.

I smile.

Did they say 'lunch'? I hadn't had a lunch for days.

I breathe in deeply and out slowly.

'Lights out at 10'? No more glaring, strobing, chaotic electric city lights might make it possible for me to actually sleep.

A shadow for a roommate? I could deal with shadows. I laid out the sheet on the bed, propped up the pillow and laid down onto my new bed, taking comfort in every agonising contact with the hard surface, as my body made gradual and full contact with it. I closed my eyes.

'Maybeeeee, you're gonna be the one that saves me?' spat out my memory of the most stable song Oasis ever sang, as the words repeated themselves in my mind.

I sank into a light slumber.

Suddenly, I was flipped over, tied up and bashed with what felt like an iron bar on my lower body. My mouth was covered, so I could not make loud enough sounds to warrant help, as the sounds of the locals blended in with mine.

I turned my face to see what was happening to me, only to see the shadow was my worst enemy and the bar in the hand walloped the last I would ever know of my face.

I would rate my stay there 10/10, exhilarating all the way.