Michael Seidlinger: The Strangest

“You will split down the middle if you keep like this.”

I mumble, “Did you hear something?”

Did you hear something?

“Down the middle. Two halves are still halves. Can’t walk. Can’t stand up straight.”

“Where’s that coming from?”

Where’s that coming from?

“Did I just imagine it?”

Did I just imagine it?

“This headache …”

This headache …

The pressure has become pain. Everything I say is echoed.

I have to hear it twice.

“You are on your way.”

I’m not just hearing that. I turn around twice, standing in place, looking for the source. I look up at the sky barely seen through the barred single window. I am surprised to see it’s night.

This happens a lot.

The headache has gotten worse: It blurs across everything, and it becomes all there is to do. One time I forgot a guard was talking, asking me if I wanted food today. I meant to say something but instead I thought about whether or not it was a question or a command.

Food? Or Food.

Guard took the tray.

It was food.

“Strange.”

Once more I look for the source. I have trouble understanding that it is coming from outside my cell. Have trouble including anything outside the cell.

“Maybe the strangest.”

I see him from the far corner of my cell. I walk toward the bars, look at them a moment, and, very carefully, making sure not to make a sound, no skin touching either of the two vertical bars, I let my arms through. And I lean forward.

He nods once, “The strangest.”

He is a man of average height, average facial features, short hair, the same sort of disheveled look that happens when you live in a cell.

He is already on the bars, watching me. Perhaps he is who has been listening, watching, reading my thoughts.

I look at him and he looks at me.

He doesn’t give me a name and I don’t ask.

He doesn’t ask for mine. This is clearly understood.

We both stay there for a time, not speaking.

“I’m going nowhere,” I say.

And I am surprised to hear no echo.

He doesn’t say anything at first, looking down at a newspaper cutout, reading it solemnly, and then placing it back down on the narrow flatness of the bars, “Already there.”

“Where?”

“Right here.”

His voice is distinct, different. I have to ask.

“Not that different.” But then he adds, “Yes. Different.”

I look at my fingernails, my scabbed palms, “I am different.”

He says, “Yes,” just because it is probably easiest to just say yes. There is nothing else to say.

I let the silence of the block speak.

Looking at the folded newspaper, “What’s that?”

He follows my gaze, and then says, “Like your books, it is an example.”

“An example?”

“Yes.”

It has been a long time since I have spoken to someone. I cannot recall if I had anything to say to anyone, but between this prisoner and I, something empties out and the plainness of the setting can be seen.

Though we aren’t speaking, it is as if we are still in conversation. We hang on the bars, prisoners on the bars. We have nothing but time.

“How long have you been here?” he asks me.

I want to answer but I don’t have anything to say.

He continues, “It has nothing to do with where we are going.”

“Where are we going?”

“The same place as everyone.”

I think about this. “Everyone.”

“But not you,” he tells me. Points his finger from across the hall, “Not you.”

“Huh?”

He seems calm and I know, deep down, that I am speaking to an honest man.

“What are you trying to tell me?”

“Speak for yourself,” he pauses, “or they will speak for you.”

He recedes into the darkness of his cell.

I remain at the bars, waiting for the thoughts to rush back. But they don’t. Admit it. Admit what? I admit it, all of it. There is nothing to consider.

“How long have you been here?” I ask.

Nothing at first but soon I see him reappear at the bars.

The Prisoner takes his time, but it is not meekness. It is honest, as I can tell. It is straight, but because it is as straight and without evasion, his voice hangs there heavily, as if they could only mean as much as you want it to mean; he applies no other meaning beyond the definition of each word.

When he tells me, he hasn’t said anything.

But I can, I know as well as anyone might know. The Prisoner on the Bars has fully occupied his cell.

Shortly before dawn, after waking up to discover my mind clear, headache gone, unsure of what I felt, I stood and walked in place, worked up a sweat, and looked up through the bars to the night sky.

I walk up to the bars.

There I wait. I don’t call out.

The Prisoner reappears. We talk, not because we are alone, but because there is nothing but talk — talk and routine — in prison, in our cells. There can be more, if I choose to read, or to do what other prisoners do, but I cannot get myself to agree. I can’t muster up the energy to believe. All there is assured is time (a sentence) and routine. Or else, there is madness.

On the bars, the Prisoner and I speak as often without saying

anything.

But it happens. Exchange the most basic of information.

It is the most important of information.

I find that he is the stranger, a man from another border, and he discovers that I am the strangest, which, in meaning, he leaves to me to decide.

“You can speak,” he tells me, “but you can’t speak expecting them to understand.” It is often like this. The block might go silent and during that moment, I will see the Prisoner appear at the bars, observing but nothing more.

If I join him, standing a hall apart, often we talk.

Every line feeds another.

This too becomes routine.

Meurks is right which means I am right. I had a visitor. It could have been her, but it was already set, already mentioned that she would never visit me again. It could have been Rios, but there wasn’t anything in it for him; being seen around me would only increase his odds of becoming a suspect. It could have been a prosecutor, or another member of the media.

But the officers and the guards had already given up on letting them see me. I wasn’t seeing anyone.

If I hadn’t refused the visitor, I would have found out that it was my dad. He had it all figured out. But needed my signature to make it official.

I already figured it out for myself. There would be no signature.

I speak for myself.

It was interesting to hear them talk about me. The courtroom looked like any other room. It was packed, full of flashing lights and people that wouldn’t stop talking, not even when court was in session. The moment I walked in, I was the only one really there. Seats filled, jury in attendance, the number of attendees likely high, I worried that I might lose my voice. I might not have a voice left to use. I was the calmest I had been despite what became of me; or, rather, what would become of me.

I am handcuffed the entire time.

No one sits next to me in my corner.

I choose to represent myself. This information created a murmur across the audience. I look over at the jury.