I take up my pencil as I hear footsteps approaching the door.
The door is openend and I throw down my pencil.
Saturday, 2 August 2008
Thursday, 31 July 2008
Forty-First Day
This is my penultimate day, unless they decide to keep me longer. It was grimly satisfying. They didn't interview me, speak to me, it was a day like so many others in the last forty. It encapsulates in twenty four hours the last six weeks of my life.
I haven't been able to think about anything but tomorrow. If they let me leave, when will it be? Will they bother to keep me until a minute to midnight? Where will they let me out?
In fact, I'd love to claim that I spent the day examining some higher purpose, or reflecting on those lessons I have learned over the last six weeks. That in a rejection of all that has happened I will go out and fight for freedom, that I have come to know my 'true, inner self'. I don't think it has been like that. The last six weeks have been boring - very, guilt inducing -when interrogated, and frustrating - in short but extreme bouts. I don't think that there are any take-homes from this.
I wonder what they do to those they don't treat so gently.
I haven't been able to think about anything but tomorrow. If they let me leave, when will it be? Will they bother to keep me until a minute to midnight? Where will they let me out?
In fact, I'd love to claim that I spent the day examining some higher purpose, or reflecting on those lessons I have learned over the last six weeks. That in a rejection of all that has happened I will go out and fight for freedom, that I have come to know my 'true, inner self'. I don't think it has been like that. The last six weeks have been boring - very, guilt inducing -when interrogated, and frustrating - in short but extreme bouts. I don't think that there are any take-homes from this.
I wonder what they do to those they don't treat so gently.
Wednesday, 30 July 2008
Fortieth Day
- Can I ask you a question, Sir?
- Go ahead.
- Why am I here?
- You are being detained in accordance with English law on suspicion of involvement with terrorists cells operating…
- I know, I know. But that tells me nothing, does it? If you ask a waiter what is on the menu, surely you would want to here something more than “oh, a wide variety of original and tasty dishes, prepared using only the best ingredients from all over the world”. That would tell you just as much about the actual selection as your answer has informed me of why I’m actually here, tell me if I’m wrong.
- Well, we had hoped that you would give us the answers. Why do you think you are here. Use your imagination.
- I only know what you have told me - that I am here because of something that has to do with M. Surely you must have realised by now though that I have nothing to do with him. That you were wrong from the beginning. Is that why I am still being held here? Because you don’t want to admit to yourselves that you made a mistake capturing me in the first place? Or do you really think that I will rush home to make petrol bombs together with M as soon as you release me?
- What do you think?
- Don’t give me that! For fuck’s sake don’t give me that! I’m not stupid you know - I know there must be something or else I wouldn’t be here. It’s been forty days now and I have tried hard, indeed used the full capacity of my imagination to come up with possible explanations as to why I’m being held here. I have tried to decipher every conversation I have had with M in search of hidden messages, I have attempted to go through just about everything I have done or said to anyone in the past year, and I still don’t know. I’m only asking you out of curiosity - why am I here - and all you ask me to do is to think about it! I tell you what - I’m not going to think about it any more. I am just going to accept that I don’t know, and it comforts me to know that you don’t seem to have a clue either.
- First of all, I never thought you were stupid. No one does. People who end up here seldom are, and even more rarely do they spend their time making petrol bombs. Second, you should know that we are not stupid either. Trying to provoke or insult me won’t do you any good - if you are clever enough you’ll realise that. Third, it must certainly have crossed you mind that we’re being extremely gentle with you. You cannot think that this is how we treat all our “guests”. If someone withholds information from us that we deem necessary for us to acquire, we usually find a way to get it. In you case...let’s just say we are slightly curious about certain things and that you’ll know when our interest grows stronger. And frankly, I don’t really care whether or not you know why you’re here so long as we get something out of it - and whether we do is for us to decide.
- In that case, I certainly hope you have low standards, or else you must be terribly disappointed by know.
- As I said, that is for us to decide, and in my humble opinion we do possess the greater expertise in that respect. And I believe we are done for today. Take him away.
That’s it. Today’s interrogation word by word as accurate as I can remember it. And if I fail miserably to see the reason why I am being detained, I struggle equally to see in what way our conversation can be of any use to them. But that’s their problem, not mine. I am merely here as guest to still the curiosity of my hosts.
- Go ahead.
- Why am I here?
- You are being detained in accordance with English law on suspicion of involvement with terrorists cells operating…
- I know, I know. But that tells me nothing, does it? If you ask a waiter what is on the menu, surely you would want to here something more than “oh, a wide variety of original and tasty dishes, prepared using only the best ingredients from all over the world”. That would tell you just as much about the actual selection as your answer has informed me of why I’m actually here, tell me if I’m wrong.
- Well, we had hoped that you would give us the answers. Why do you think you are here. Use your imagination.
- I only know what you have told me - that I am here because of something that has to do with M. Surely you must have realised by now though that I have nothing to do with him. That you were wrong from the beginning. Is that why I am still being held here? Because you don’t want to admit to yourselves that you made a mistake capturing me in the first place? Or do you really think that I will rush home to make petrol bombs together with M as soon as you release me?
- What do you think?
- Don’t give me that! For fuck’s sake don’t give me that! I’m not stupid you know - I know there must be something or else I wouldn’t be here. It’s been forty days now and I have tried hard, indeed used the full capacity of my imagination to come up with possible explanations as to why I’m being held here. I have tried to decipher every conversation I have had with M in search of hidden messages, I have attempted to go through just about everything I have done or said to anyone in the past year, and I still don’t know. I’m only asking you out of curiosity - why am I here - and all you ask me to do is to think about it! I tell you what - I’m not going to think about it any more. I am just going to accept that I don’t know, and it comforts me to know that you don’t seem to have a clue either.
- First of all, I never thought you were stupid. No one does. People who end up here seldom are, and even more rarely do they spend their time making petrol bombs. Second, you should know that we are not stupid either. Trying to provoke or insult me won’t do you any good - if you are clever enough you’ll realise that. Third, it must certainly have crossed you mind that we’re being extremely gentle with you. You cannot think that this is how we treat all our “guests”. If someone withholds information from us that we deem necessary for us to acquire, we usually find a way to get it. In you case...let’s just say we are slightly curious about certain things and that you’ll know when our interest grows stronger. And frankly, I don’t really care whether or not you know why you’re here so long as we get something out of it - and whether we do is for us to decide.
- In that case, I certainly hope you have low standards, or else you must be terribly disappointed by know.
- As I said, that is for us to decide, and in my humble opinion we do possess the greater expertise in that respect. And I believe we are done for today. Take him away.
That’s it. Today’s interrogation word by word as accurate as I can remember it. And if I fail miserably to see the reason why I am being detained, I struggle equally to see in what way our conversation can be of any use to them. But that’s their problem, not mine. I am merely here as guest to still the curiosity of my hosts.
Tuesday, 29 July 2008
Thirty-Ninth Day
Rain.
I would give anything for rain on my head.
I can hear it outside, just. I want it cascading through my hair and down my temples, dripping into my eyes and merging with my tears and, possibly, my snot.
I would give anything for rain on my head.
I can hear it outside, just. I want it cascading through my hair and down my temples, dripping into my eyes and merging with my tears and, possibly, my snot.
Sunday, 27 July 2008
Thirty-Seventh Day
An extraordinary thing happened today. I met a person from outside. I know, the guards I see every day, and my interrogators, all have lives beyond these walls. When here, though, they are parts of the machinery of this institution and of its fabric. The girl I met today was luminous by comparison.
I was led from my room through our bleak corridors in the usual way, my squat guard silent but for echoing footfalls. He stayed with us in the interrogation room.
I'm not sure quite who the girl was. She could have been an official, but could just as easily have been an undergraduate on some quixotic project, who in her naivity had got access to me - something I cannot imagine any more hardened researcher attempting. The girl was preposterously young. I imagined some sleepy bureaucrat signing her off, his mind preoccupied with the recent discovery of his teenager's dope habit, or maybe with a particularly ripe cleavage he'd been staring at on the tube that morning. She asked me about my sleeping patterns, my general health, and made me perform some tasks, some word games, some mental arithmetic. This was evidently some form of psychological assessment, but it didn't feel all that rigorous.
Frankly, I wasn't interested in what this girl - I cannot think of her as a woman - was asking me. I was taken aback by her presence, and how it made me feel. She had luxuriant, tousled hair. Her face was plain but confident and happy and made up with skill. She was tanned. Her handbag was obviously costly, and a pair of sunglasses lay beside it on the table between us. Here was a wealthy woman, but in no sense a glamorous one. She was too young and too English and the illusion she gave of carelessness and a lack of preening was far too successful for that. In a word, the girl I met today was a picture of privilege.
I was prompted to an absurd feeling. I resented this girl's privilege and that of her class, and I felt a desperate pang of envy. I didn't just want the trappings this creature enjoyed, or even her freedom to come and go from my prison, I wanted to be as much like her as I could be. I wanted to be young and beautiful and born to a life of the best of everything.
My parents should not have pursued their worthy but ordinary lives, I thought. Neither should I now be satisfied with what I now accept as my fate. I should be striving to bring my children or theirs to this girl's heights. Somehow, though, I have accepted the life that has been thrust upon me as my own and as right for me. I know or think I know that this girl will not grow up to be happier or healthier than I, or to have a better understanding of the world. Almost everyone in the world has someone to envy, and they console themselves with thoughts such as these.
There is a connection between privilege and freedom, of course - freedom to choose what to do with one's life, and more importantly with each hour of the day - the ability to buy time for study or travel or for blow-drying one's hair is what sets apart the rich from the poor. Historically this divide was all the wider, I suppose, if that's not so vague as to be meaningless. Writing about class, and now history, I cannot help but think of class struggle, which means Marx, which means revolution. This Sloaney girl made me think of the Manifesto. 'Workers of the world...' and the rest. Where shall we place my detention in the history of the modern age? What does it say about these times? I don't know the answer. I know I don't have the perspective to give an answer. But it feels like the end of history. If those with power in the UK believe themselves threatened by me, and this is all the response they can muster, this is an effete age indeed. It is as though history has been replaced by politics.
I will stop here, though this isn't all I have to say.
I was led from my room through our bleak corridors in the usual way, my squat guard silent but for echoing footfalls. He stayed with us in the interrogation room.
I'm not sure quite who the girl was. She could have been an official, but could just as easily have been an undergraduate on some quixotic project, who in her naivity had got access to me - something I cannot imagine any more hardened researcher attempting. The girl was preposterously young. I imagined some sleepy bureaucrat signing her off, his mind preoccupied with the recent discovery of his teenager's dope habit, or maybe with a particularly ripe cleavage he'd been staring at on the tube that morning. She asked me about my sleeping patterns, my general health, and made me perform some tasks, some word games, some mental arithmetic. This was evidently some form of psychological assessment, but it didn't feel all that rigorous.
Frankly, I wasn't interested in what this girl - I cannot think of her as a woman - was asking me. I was taken aback by her presence, and how it made me feel. She had luxuriant, tousled hair. Her face was plain but confident and happy and made up with skill. She was tanned. Her handbag was obviously costly, and a pair of sunglasses lay beside it on the table between us. Here was a wealthy woman, but in no sense a glamorous one. She was too young and too English and the illusion she gave of carelessness and a lack of preening was far too successful for that. In a word, the girl I met today was a picture of privilege.
I was prompted to an absurd feeling. I resented this girl's privilege and that of her class, and I felt a desperate pang of envy. I didn't just want the trappings this creature enjoyed, or even her freedom to come and go from my prison, I wanted to be as much like her as I could be. I wanted to be young and beautiful and born to a life of the best of everything.
My parents should not have pursued their worthy but ordinary lives, I thought. Neither should I now be satisfied with what I now accept as my fate. I should be striving to bring my children or theirs to this girl's heights. Somehow, though, I have accepted the life that has been thrust upon me as my own and as right for me. I know or think I know that this girl will not grow up to be happier or healthier than I, or to have a better understanding of the world. Almost everyone in the world has someone to envy, and they console themselves with thoughts such as these.
There is a connection between privilege and freedom, of course - freedom to choose what to do with one's life, and more importantly with each hour of the day - the ability to buy time for study or travel or for blow-drying one's hair is what sets apart the rich from the poor. Historically this divide was all the wider, I suppose, if that's not so vague as to be meaningless. Writing about class, and now history, I cannot help but think of class struggle, which means Marx, which means revolution. This Sloaney girl made me think of the Manifesto. 'Workers of the world...' and the rest. Where shall we place my detention in the history of the modern age? What does it say about these times? I don't know the answer. I know I don't have the perspective to give an answer. But it feels like the end of history. If those with power in the UK believe themselves threatened by me, and this is all the response they can muster, this is an effete age indeed. It is as though history has been replaced by politics.
I will stop here, though this isn't all I have to say.
Saturday, 26 July 2008
Thirty-Sixth Day
Last night, I had a dream.
I don't usually remember my dreams; at home, I wake to the sound of an alarm most mornings, and any momentary dream fragments remaining in my consciousness are pushed out by beep after beep after beep.
But now that I spend days drifting between waking and sleep, there is ample opportunity to let the end of my dreams flower in that walled garden of half-sleep, that Sunday-morning half-tossing, half-stretching that goes on without any concept of time or pressure.
Yet, from these kind of dreams, I would rather wake up.
I'm on a treadmill in a laboratory, being analysed by some kind of white-coated scientists - one man and one woman. Traditional nerdy types with clipboards and faces like a slapped arse. I'm linked up to heart-rate monitors and such like. The treadmill slowly gets faster, and suddenly they start asking me where M is.
Each time I reply that I don't know, the treadmill gets noticeably faster. I can't see the speed dial on the treadmill, but I know from experience that if it has been constantly increasing in speed for this long, it must be well over what the human body can tolerate. But I'm still managing to run - only just. It's a dream, so the treadmill can both go on increasing indefinitely in speed and making me panic and yet still remain within the realms of what I can physically handle. It goes on and on, round and round.
*
It's funny, this dream, because I haven't been interrogated for a while now.
And it's not like this can be a subconscious analogy for torture, because - clealry, quite clearly - I haven't been subjected to any.
I don't usually remember my dreams; at home, I wake to the sound of an alarm most mornings, and any momentary dream fragments remaining in my consciousness are pushed out by beep after beep after beep.
But now that I spend days drifting between waking and sleep, there is ample opportunity to let the end of my dreams flower in that walled garden of half-sleep, that Sunday-morning half-tossing, half-stretching that goes on without any concept of time or pressure.
Yet, from these kind of dreams, I would rather wake up.
I'm on a treadmill in a laboratory, being analysed by some kind of white-coated scientists - one man and one woman. Traditional nerdy types with clipboards and faces like a slapped arse. I'm linked up to heart-rate monitors and such like. The treadmill slowly gets faster, and suddenly they start asking me where M is.
Each time I reply that I don't know, the treadmill gets noticeably faster. I can't see the speed dial on the treadmill, but I know from experience that if it has been constantly increasing in speed for this long, it must be well over what the human body can tolerate. But I'm still managing to run - only just. It's a dream, so the treadmill can both go on increasing indefinitely in speed and making me panic and yet still remain within the realms of what I can physically handle. It goes on and on, round and round.
*
It's funny, this dream, because I haven't been interrogated for a while now.
And it's not like this can be a subconscious analogy for torture, because - clealry, quite clearly - I haven't been subjected to any.
Friday, 25 July 2008
Thirty-Fifth Day
What a load of old shit I’ve been writing. ‘I wonder if I really want to leave’: of course I want to leave. I just want to get out of here. It doesn’t matter if, in the outside world, my choices are arbitrary or irrational, if I’ve always drunk coffee when actually I prefer tea. It just doesn’t matter. At least I’m making a choice. At least I’m able to make a choice. Here in this room, I have no decisions to make, and it is stifling. All I decide upon is the next word, and whether I prefer this to that. I prefer that. I like its accusatory rattle. But it doesn't really matter because words are not actions - they are not real. There's nothing else.
If this 42 days thing is true, then I’ll be out of here in a week. I wonder if I get to leave on the 42nd day or if I have to wait until after 42 days. How much could one last day hurt? I wonder what time they’ll let me out. Morning would be nice – some daylight perhaps. A full day of walking and sun. Or just an afternoon, even a rainy one. But it’s perfectly possible that I could be here indefinitely. Maybe they think they’ve found evidence of some past crime – those sweets I stole from the shop as a kid, that lie I told at school – ‘Oh no sir, it certainly wasn’t me’ – anything. I can’t remember all of my own life. Maybe I’m now awaiting trial and nobody’s told me. Who would know? Who would fight for me? The government? These people are the government, I guess. Why haven’t my friends done anything?
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