‘Time to go, Joe. Officer Dicks stands in the now open doorway to freedom. I hesitate and contemplate this fact with some trepidation, oscillating between a feeling of excitement and one of utter dread. I suddenly feel as if I am standing at the top of a precipice, parachute attached and ready to jump, but tortured by the overwhelming fear that when I jump the chute won’t open. After dreaming of this moment for years, endlessly counting off the days, over and over – ever since I came here, in fact – I am now gripped with a sense of terror at the thought that the time has actually arrived.
Bill, my soon-to-be erstwhile neighbour, notices my sudden reluctance and smiles, nodding sagely. ‘Hard, isn’t it?” he says. ‘You spend all your time waiting for your release only to find that when it comes down to it, you don’t want to go. Much as you hate to admit it, this dump has become your home, and the lads, even the warden, bless him, well, they’ve become family:
A sarcastic quip in response to this last remark dies in my throat. It strikes me that this motley bunch of miscreants with whom I have co-existed for the last five years have indeed come to mean something to me and that in spite of myself, I will miss them. Like a worn-out old coat that you can’t throw away, we have moulded together, an unlikely yet close-knit group, not particularly fond of each other, perhaps, but comfortable in the familiarity of each other’s presence. Bill, with his weather-beaten, pock-marked face and his infuriating habit of whistling the same tune over and over again has become like a brother to me. He may irritate me to screaming point several times a day, and no doubt if you were to ask him about me, the feeling would be mutual, but we have grown used to sharing a fag and talking about nothing in particular. It suddenly dawns on me that he understands me in a way nobody else ever has and I never have to pretend to be something I am not with him. He just seems to know what is going on in my head and doesn’t question it, but rather accepts it philosophically. I realise there is something comforting about waking up every morning to the sounds of Bill moving around his domain next door.
Sighing, I take a last look around the walls of my cell. Not much to look at because I never really bothered to decorate it, my mind determinedly focused on the temporary nature of my stay. Even so, it is amazing how we unwittingly leave traces of ourselves wherever we go, stamping our self on everything we touch. There is the rubber mark on the wall above my bed, made by my throwing a small ball at it every day, an activity which grated on Bill’s nerves but which helped me calm my own. Then the wall against which my bunk stands is spattered with writing: the lyrics of songs and the lines of poems that I have struggled not to forget. Wherever I look, I see things that are familiar. They define me in some way and give me my identity by which others recognise me. Out there the unknown waits to engulf me, and the loneliness of being marginalised by society; I will be branded by the fact that I have done time – just another bad apple.
It occurs to me that we convicts spend all our time cooped up and trapped, longing for the Moment we will be free again, not realising that there is a perverse freedom to being inside: a freedom from all forms of responsibility. Your accommodation, food, clothing and essentials are all provided free of charge. There is no need to work and you can spend all day reading or just doing nothing if you want to. Such luxuries are hard to come by on the outside because out there you are forced to fend for yourself and perhaps for others in an unforgiving society, and it’s tough. Out there, you must face life. Here, you can turn your back on it, and that seems cosy and appealing to me right now.
Reaching the door, my threshold to freedom, I look over at Bill and say wryly: ‘I’ll be back before you know it’