Mia Paton
Some kind of curdled liquid falls from above, dropping onto my shoulder. It runs down my shirt, leaving a gooey stain behind.
I look up.
The blood on the ceiling is black. It glugs in oozing patches, thick like tar. Lukewarm lumps fall into my lap, pooling. The rotten egg stench wafts upwards.
Beside me, the man gags as he forces the browned, mushy apple down his throat.
‘Trust me when I says you don’t never get used to this food, girly. That much, I can tell you proper.’
‘That’s comforting.’ I scrunch up my nose. My own plate of mush and rot sits untouched in front of me.
‘Them guards laugh to theyselves about it, I hears them so,’ he says. ‘They wants us to starve to death up here. Sometimes they even forgets to bring meals up. Rotten folk, they is.’
‘I thought the guards’ job is to take care of their prisoners?’
The man cackles, a rasping, scratchy sound. His throat quivers with the effort of it, jowls wobbling. Mushed apple flecks fly from his mouth like spittle.
‘Not here, girly. Never here.’ His face snarls. ‘They like being nasty, they do. Give us scares when we sleeps, punish us with no foods if we does put one toe across their line.’
‘And what constitutes that?’
‘Aye, that’s a big word me hasn’t heard in yonks!’
Despite myself, I smile.
‘We ain’t allowed to talk to them when they comes up with our meals,’ he says. ‘We ain’t allowed to bang on them bars when they walks past our cells. We ain’t allowed to reach out and try grab them. We ain’t allowed to do nothing, girly.’
‘Sounds like they’re just afraid.’
‘Bang on, girly. They all big wussies, they is.’
I frown. ‘Why don’t you just do it anyway? They step too close to the bars, you make them pay for it.’
He smiles. His teeth are brown, and many are missing.
‘Me likes the way you thinks, girly, but we done tried all that. We killed one of them once. That be why their rules so harsh. They punished us for it, they did. Killed every second one of us.’
I swallow. The man nods.
‘They is fond of punishments, they is. Oh, if I could get me teeth around one of thems again… They right juicy, all bloody and fatty.’
My first instinct is to recoil at his words. But I stop. Think.
‘Here,’ I say, pushing my tray of mouldy cheese and stale bread towards him, ‘you need it more than I do. Take it.’
The man blinks. ‘Oh, no girly, I can’t take your foods. We gotta look out for each other on this floor, we does. You is already skinny enough.’
I smile. ‘Not skinny enough. Not just yet.’
I eye the bars in front of me.
Mia Paton (she/her) is a writer and editor currently studying a BFA in Creative Writing at QUT in Meanjin (Brisbane). She has two short stories published in Dawn Street Zine and is a volunteer beta reader for the Queensland Writers Centre. She is currently in the process of writing her first manuscript, Witch Hunt. Mia writes a mixture of literary and historical fiction and is delving into contemporary and fantasy genres.
With a diverse artistic background in oil paints, acrylics, charcoal, and printmaking, Tremayne Stocks (he/him) creates a multitude of art which reflects his personal connections to his upbringing in Bryon Bay. Influenced by the urban cityscape he currently resides in, Tremayne aims to communicate the beauty of Australia’s vast and alluring nature, as well as display his own use of art as an emotional outlet.
Instagram: @tremaynestocks_art