Inside

Inspired by a comic by Phil Craven

He stands in his patch of light, created by the sparse strands of sunshine that filter through the barred window. So many endless days have passed; his only mark of time is the darkness that floods his cell when night falls.

Yet, he’s lost count.

It could be his twelfth day or his one hundredth and twelfth day, for all he knows. The watery stew in the small bowl pushed through the slot at the base of the thick door; that could be his seventh or his sixty-seventh meal in prison.

He knows that his sentence will outlast his will to live.

The cell is dark but for the one square of brightness that he stands in. The window, really a barred hole in the ground, is made in such a way that he cannot see out, but he is provided with enough light to see.

Enough light to see… To see what, precisely? The depressing, dank stone walls of his cell? The rat that sometimes scurried across the floor?

He has named the rat Charles. Occasionally Charles brings him a leaf, a twig, a small token of the world that only Charles can see.

Today, Charles brings him a small gold coin. He kneels and picks it up, lank hair drooping over his ears, and holds it up to one wasted eye. What use is money in a prison cell? What use is anything, now that he’s been condemned to die in this darkness?

Charles sits back on his haunches and watches him for a moment, motionless but for his twitching ears. The man considers the coin carefully, then slowly places it on a makeshift shelf made of a jutting stone in the wall.

Satisfied, Charles scampers away.

There is a soft scraping noise as a small bowl is shoved through the gap under the door. He crawls over to the bowl, wondering if maybe he deserved this.

.-xXXx-.

More days pass. Outside, autumn has begun, but he does not know this. Day after day, an endless cycle of light and dark, that is all he knows.

He sits in his small patch of light, staring blankly at the cell wall. Charles brings him a crumpled golden leaf today.

What use is this, he shouts at Charles. What am I supposed to do with this?

Charles twitches his nose and scampers away, and he does not reappear until winter.

.-xXXx-.

He has grown a beard now. He lies on the cell floor, wasting away. His shirt is in rags.

He can’t remember his own name anymore, let alone what day it is. His long, pale finger traces endless circles in the dust as he stares at nothing.

Is this how I am to die, he wonders, raising a wasted hand to rub his jaw. Bald and toothless and ugly – a backwards baby?

The bowl is forced through the slot again. It knocks into yesterday’s bowl, which in turn hits the bowl from the day before that.

He turns his head as Charles scampers into the cell. Something bright glints between his jaws.

He reaches out and grabs Charles around the middle. Charles squeaks in alarm and drops whatever he is carrying; it lands with a clink on the stone floor.

He grips the rat, who is cold and wet to the touch. A crazed look in his glazed eyes, he glares at Charles, and then, with an action he thought beyond him, throws the rat against the opposite wall.

Charles squeaks loudly and scurries away. His long, pink tail disappears behind him as he squeezes through a crack in the stone.

On the floor, the man looks at the ceiling, then rolls over and exhales one last time. His watery eyes loll back in his head; his heart is finally at rest.

His skeletal figure lies motionless on the floor; barely covered by the rags he once called clothes. The pale winter sunshine lies over his jutting ribs and hip-bones like a blanket.

The keys to his cell glint a few feet away from him: Charles’ final gift to him.