Thirteenth Day

At least I think it is the thirteenth day.

What I can say with certainty is that I was awoken this morning when the door opened and a guard entered. The intruder asked me to sit on my chair with my hands underneath me. The intruder said ‘please’. It is almost two weeks since I heard the word, and it had a profound, paralysing effect on me. I was asked politely a second time before the brain cells in my head responsible for sending signals to my legs kicked into gear and I managed to stand and walk over to the chair. She left the door open, my visitor, and I briefly contemplated a fruitless escape attempt. She walked over to my bed, lifted the mattress, picked up my diary stored carefully between the mattress and the bed frame, smiled apologetically in my direction, and left. You see, this accounts for my confusion regarding the day. I think it is the thirteenth day now because I think that I wrote that it was the twelfth yesterday.

It occurred to me, after she left, as I sat there on my hands on my chair, how strange it is that there was paper here at all, and even stranger that it had not been taken before. At first I sat angrily wishing I’d destroyed what I’d written, later forlornly hoping that somehow my journal would exonerate me. Surely they would see that I was no criminal? Now I don’t know how to feel. I regret referring to my captors as insurance salesmen. I’m perversely glad that I checked my lexis and syntax.

They delivered more paper this evening and a new pen. I’m not sure if I’ll write tomorrow, what I’ll say if I do and whether I’ll keep my diary from tonight. It feels different now I know that I am writing for an audience.