Goatie 25

I kept my eyes on the door. Aware she was behind me, growing like a wave on the sea, but it would be me that left no trace when she was gone. I had to keep her out of focus or her true self would be revealed. My teeth chittered. ‘Who are yeh?’ I asked.

A clicking noise. ‘Earth and water. Alpha and Omega.’ I recognised her laughter as that of my ex-wife. Her voice was so identical I felt the overwhelming urge to turn and laugh with her. I’d a hard-on. The kind of poker I hadn’t had since I was thirteen that jumped into my hand and left me breathless with longing to be touched. I squeezed my eyes shut and bit on my bottom lip.

A playful tone and she purred, ‘You want me to help you with that? Take you in my mouth, like Boner? You were jealous. Admit it.  All the world over, male gods seek to control nature. Female gods are nature. The womb and the seed world over have grown empty.’

Her fingers circled my around my head. I willed my body not to flinch from her touch. Not to pull away or her talons would plunge into flesh.

‘Do you not wonder what we whisper on the beach? Why we bleat and those that have ears turn away and refuse to hear?’

‘Nah,’ I croaked. ‘I mean, no thanks.’

The digits on her hand tippy-tapped on my head, with tranced breath she played a childish tune. ‘All will be forgotten. Suddenly the world is new. Transformed. Poured into the kernels of yesterdays. New clay for old.’

My head was louping. I studied the bed opposite, the chair and the toilet and sink. The faint medicinal smell mixed with ammonia. Blended into silage of which my putrid body played its part.  I’d grown overly familiar with my prison. Droopy Eyes was gone for how long I didn’t know. Neither did I know how to get moved back to the general prison population where it might be safer.

I looked for things I could break. Fling the beds up in the air. Haul the sink from the wall. Disembowel he stainless steel toilet. Perhaps even cover myself with my own urine and shite. Like the IRA blanket boys of the 1980s. Thatcher didn’t blink. But I wasn’t so sure I was up for it.

Droopy Eyes had control over my medication. I wondered if she was slipping me something to make me hallucinate. Maybe she’d been lying to me about Archie and Boner dying. But remembering her touch made my skin prickle and go cold.

The key in the door made me scramble to get up. The bare sole of my foot slipped on the mire of sickness and I tumbled against the plastic chair.

The trustee bringing in dinner—potatoes, sausage and gravy—treated it as if I’d fallen off the bed. Unfazed. He’d seen it all from guys hanging themselves to jerking off. The warden behind him didn’t even bother looking in. I’d have had to fling a hard turd to attract his attention. He banged the door shut and locked it.

I didn’t feel hungry. Dinner was the usual squashy mess made to look unappetising to save Tory taxpayers’ money. But I knew if I was going to go on hunger strike I’d need something substantial inside me.

But when I took the first mouthful, I felt ravenous. Remembering when I used to get two portions. Now when I got one portion, I felt cheated like a kid with Granny’s apple pie. I remembered I didn’t even like apple pie much, but that wasn’t the point. It was making sure your brothers and sisters never got more than you. It was baby bird and the selfish gene. I wondered if it would be sore, starving?

Bobby Sands took about forty days and nights. But then he got elected MP. And had a hit book of poetry and his music was played on the streets with dustbin lids. As I chewed ersatz sausage, I tried to think of some kind of slogan. It had to be something pithy and snappy. My mind was stammering, shunting thoughts together like steel wagons on a train. And there was no way of stepping off. My fingers trembled as I put the finished plate down and poured water from the beaker.

The cell door opened. I sprang to attention, but it was only the medic Tadpole head checking up on me. I was glad to see him. He’d the medication at the ready, and in his rush, was focused not on me, but on the next task. I tried to think of something to say to keep him in the room with me, but I was all out of words, like we were on a first date.  He was already turned and making his way to the door, when he casually mentioned, ‘The Governor wants to see you.’

‘Whit for?’ I asked.

He didn’t bother answering. I was still captive. But I gloated that my hunger strike had worked, even before I started it, and gone on saving hard turds by my bedside like favourite beach pebbles. I was willing cut a deal. Any deal, to keep me away from Droopy Eyes treating me as her favourite pet.