Prison
Population:
Guard and Prisoner
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Bridgette grew up in Connecticut. The nice part. The really nice part. She did everything right. People said it that way. Bright girl. Driven. Cute. Went to a top university. Never cut…
Corners
Two walls
“Do you want something to eat?
Do you need some love?”
Bridgette was an excel wiz. Had all the three-letter certificates that you like to see. She especially stood out when it came time to give promotions because she truly was all business. “Bridgette”. People would say her name then their lips smiling...
a face covers the fun, warm lights
“Do you need some love?”, Guard asks.
“No, that one makes me sick”, Prisoner replies.
“It’s that kind of thinking that got you here.” Guard shuts out fun, warm lights.
Bridgette knew she would be at the top. Hard work is rewarded. The game gives back. All the pieces are falling in their place. It’s time to start thinking about Mr. Perfect, Mr...
Guard pounds claws on door and shouts,
“Let me in, I can’t stand the probabilities
The fun, the warm
She said this, He said that. Too much noise.”
Bridgette had never dated seriously. Three adequately long college relationships. She had thought about what she would look like in a wedding picture with one or two of the boys, but never could pull the trigger. They didn’t do it for her. She thought so strongly about the future, about what she could become, that she subconsciously compared any potential matches with her future self. It’s hard to blame her, she is one of the surest bets that you can make. She has the light. That sort of effortless…
“Charm is what people use
You’ve seen it
People calling others friends
None knowing what’s on the inside. All it takes is one time”, says the Guard.
Bridgette was good at everything. We’ve got that straight, right? So what do you think she was like in the world of love, love, love? She was great. Modest, yet, knew how to move all those little levers that ignited something in men. Sure, yes, she had a type that she attracted. She didn’t know it, but she had one. Still, that doesn’t take away from the fact that she had “it” when she went out. She was the heartbeat of the dance floor without doing more than a simple two-step. She was the one who all of the girls raced to to share jokes or drinks with. She was fun, and girls just wanna have fun. But, here’s the thing about going out, after two, maybe three weekends of doing it, women like Bridgette have seen enough. They turn to dating apps or something falls out of the sky at a coffee…
“Shop, shop, shop
That’s all there is out there”, says the prisoner.
“How so?”,
Asks the guard.
“Exchange, transaction, bartering
At every level, with everything.”
“What’s there in here?”, questions the guard.
“Well...me, comfort, safety, guarantee, knowing.”
“Knowing what?”
“That all of it can’t get me”, states the prisoner.
“Get you? You’re paranoid.”
“No, I’m aware, aware of reality”, the prisoner says proudly
“Reality? The truth?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“Pfff.” Pressure is released from the guard.
Bridgette looked up and there he was. Full splendor. Smiling but not showing teeth. “Can I sit here?” Direct, but still so curious. No pushover. He had passion in his eyes, but this familiar warmth in his movement. Slightly dangerous or criminal? But she couldn’t. Damnit. “Uh, yeah, yeah, go ahead.” Wait why did she just do that. No. No. That’s not what she meant. It just slipped out. Her mind was racing. She had to play it coy. How is he going to just come right up to her and ask her if he can sit with her? Is that a thing? I guess it is but more so in a big city, she guessed. She didn’t know what she was doing or what she was thinking, nothing. Her mind: static. Her heart felt out of rhythm. Why was she so disoriented? Somehow she composed herself just like she should be. Some might call it…
“Hypocritical”, says the prisoner.
“How?” Replies the half-stunned guard.
“You know how.”
“Why? Because earlier I had a slip?”, Says the guard embarrassingly remembering his outburst.
“Yeah, you play this part, then, you ‘slip’”, says the prisoner.
“You’re so judgmental, that’s why you are where you are. I can feel things too”, states the guard almost proudly.
Bridgette had a short little sit-down with Avery. Avery. What a character. What a guy. He was a mixture of many things. Some of them made her go crazy with desire. How she developed those points of arousal, go figure. She loves what she loves. Some (probably too many) of them made her cringe. The constant search for attention. His clear emotional incapacity to be without a significant other for any sort of substantial time period. His slight, yet, apparent substance abuse. His quiet arrogance which he choicely played off as timidity. His bigger-than-life extroverted nature which choicely made appearances at the most peculiar times. Yeah, she gathered all of this during that quick chat. I’m telling you that she’s good. So good. Still, aside from all that she liked and disliked about that brief chat, the overwhelming feeling that lingered in her pure little heart was absolute, unadulterated craving.
“Can we just hangout?”, asks the guard.
“Forget about everything outside of here, ya know?”
“Why?”, replies the prisoner.
“So that we can just distract ourselves?”
“Yeah, yup, I knew it. Forget I said anything. You’re incapable of doing anything but sitting in that cell thinking”, says the guard angrily.
“You won’t eat your love. You won’t let me wallow with you. You won’t let me relax with you. There’s nothing to do with you…”
“I hope you hurt”, says the prisoner.
“I’m sure you do”, slams the guard.
Bridgette had never moved at this pace before. The world became pink and white and everything that her and Avery did was art. She felt awesomely desired by someone that resonated with some of her deepest aesthetic pleasures. He felt something. She saw in him multiple lifetimes of adventures and gentle moments. He saw in her fragments of a traumatic past. In his voice she heard the tones of sweet empathy. In her voice he heard the muted cries of past ghosts. As the time went on…
“I began losing touch with reality”, says the Prisoner.
“All the soured memories began piling up,
All the hurt began spilling out
My face didn’t look like my face
Full of blemishes, acne
Scared
Afraid of the world and that I was the problem
Frightened
That I was making a misstep through a booby-trapped garden.
Where did all of this come from? How did time start weaving pain in and out of my life this effortlessly? Why doesn’t life give you some sort of status update on these things? When did I lose my essence? I’ve stopped reading faces. I’ve stopped listening to lips. Yet I’m still here. Arms stretched out. Relishing in the comfortable nostalgia that my younger self still affords my worn-down present self. And I don’t know whether it was you or me.”
The prisoner closes their eyes.
Avery was hurt, then hurt, then misunderstood. That’s how people are sometimes. Sometimes events shape people so much, so deeply that - on the pathological level - it takes a lot of “work” to get them to a better place. Then again, who is the picture-perfect image of psychological balance? Avery knew that he was mercurial and that he had a lot to lose before he truly learned some of life’s most essential lessons. Still, in Avery’s mind, these issues, these hurdles were simply that — small barriers. That’s Avery’’s headspace when he’s drunkenly asking sweet Bridgette to be his girlfriend while he’s still licking his wounds from his last break up. That's his headspace as he ignores all of the deeply plunged wounds that life has already handed down to him. That headspace, oh boy, yeah, you can see where this is going. Trouble, trouble, trouble.
“I saw it happen”, says the Guard.
“I saw as the light went from your eyes. You realized what I had known. I saw you question me and then revise yourself. The walls became more than walls. Then you wanted to escape and kill it all. Then, it subsided. Now you’re a molten island fixed in the business of pain. I can’t say I’m proud, but I also can’t say I shame you. Tomorrow is one more day. The dark fantasy continues. Maybe with me or with a different body. But the fantasy continues. It all keeps rolling. By now you realize what that means.”
"Bridgette", says the Prisoner.
"Yes, Avery?", replies the guard.
"I loved you tonight, Avery, I hope you know that", says the Prisoner.
"I know it, Bridgette."