cell

CELL
LEE GREY

I look down from a high balcony. The stone below is scattered with glittering fragments of shattered weapons, smashed machines, armour, treasure, priceless instruments, and symbols of power. Up here I have kept only my books, and thrown the other artefacts over. All but one.

The sunlight enters my cell through the thin crystal roof. My bare feet step carefully through a forest of stacked books, rolled up scrolls, and loose papers. I am desperate to make words of my own, but there are no writing implements. I am forced to write with my own blood, in the margins of books that have already been filled with the words of others. My words are intruders, overpopulating the paper, forced into narrow ghettos at the fringes of the pages. Still, they thrive and flourish, reproducing with great vigour.

Here in my towering cell, where I am captive, I gradually become attuned to the transmissions of the cosmic radio, an ancient broadcast that resonates with the crystal walls of this high tower. My blood words resonate with them in turn, and begin to tell a story of a cold fire, a slow blast, an infinite point. Now I am outside my cell. Now I am far away, in a hall of song, and I am not alone. We are a crowd, an endless parade. We have no fear, no sorrow. We are a joyous roar, breaking apart all limits.

Then my blood clots and ceases to flow. I am imprisoned again, anaemic and weak. I lay on my wide bed, wrapped in furs and silks. The wind blows through the room. Clouds pass slowly over. Rain falls.

The mechanical slave is making its way up the tall spiral of the stairs below. I hear it unlock and relock the series of heavy doors. Finally its regular footsteps ascend to the door of my cell. The door swings open and the slave enters. It has brought me food, which I eat so I can produce more blood. Now the slave washes me, combs my hair, oils my skin. I submit to all this, as I do not have the strength to resist.

Eventually the slave retreats through the door and I am alone again, purified. I sleep. Sleeping takes a long time. I wake up very slowly, and go to the balcony to look down at the sparkling reflections. I dare not raise my eyes to look at the horizon.

The Bird alights on the balcony rail. I stay very still until it settles its wings and grows calm. I lure it near with crumbs I have kept hidden from the slave using slight of hand. Its beak pecks at my palm, pinching the skin. I take hold of the bird and pluck two strong feathers, before setting it free. These are pens for my blood, for the words. The bird flies out into the sky I dare not look at.

It is time again to make the cut, to make words. The words writhe like fish in a bucket. I set them free, into a clear river. The river bed is alive with red words. The words will themselves to evolve, to take on new forms, pressing upwards, forcing themselves into the open air. Now freed from the liquid flow of the river, they break into new colours and forms, vying against each other to enter the most outlandish configuration.

When my injury runs dry, the feathers lie bloodied against the paper. I rest my ear against the words and listen, hearing only the empty spaces of my cell, ringing faintly as the high tower air moves through them.

There is one last artefact remaining in my cell, and my thoughts naturally return to it. I know I must send it to the rocks below, like all the rest, but it is as if it exerts its own strong will in opposition to my own. The death mask of the Old Queen, set in white porcelain, sits facing me with closed eyes. It is calm, with an expression of peace and authority. I have become attached to this sleeping face, as it is the only face I ever see. My loneliness has become a chain that binds my own arms, keeping me from action. I have held the head out over the edge many times, but looking down at those wrinkled lips, the creased eyelids, I cannot bear to part with it. It is the last, the final artefact. When it is gone, there will be no obstacle, but still I cling to it.

I lie in my bed, looking at the Old Queen's death mask. I saw her once, from a safe distance, with my own eyes. Her procession was shining with gold and silver. Her deep green banner was borne by a train of pale maidens. Her guards wore black armour, and carried long spears. Their helmets were wrought in the form of demons and monsters, giving them a fearsome appearance. Later, I held some of these very helmets. I watched them fall from my hands to the rocks below my tower, and smash into shining fragments.

One morning I awaken to discover that I am unable to find the death mask. I have no memory of moving it from its usual place atop a dais of stacked books. At first I assume I have hidden it from view amongst the disorder of loose books and paper. I become crazed with frustration, and make the disorder even worse. I collapse, exhausted, in the chaos of spilled words and pages. I begin the long task of setting this small world of mine in order. I stack the books into towers along the wall, layer on layer. I make a great pyramid of the scrolls. I put the loose papers in perfect bales. Eventually the floors are bare, other than the central bed. I pounce onto its soft covers and tear them away, one by one. When I find nothing, I carefully fold each of them, pressing them flat to prove to myself there is nothing hidden in their folds. There is nothing beneath the mattress, or within the pillows.

I go to the balcony and stare down at the rocks, as though I would have some chance of seeing the broken shards of white porcelain. Yet I am certain I have not thrown the death mask there. I have not done this thing I have tried so long to do. I become dejected, and sit on the cold hard floor, the warmth draining out of me into the stone.

When I hear the heavy doors opening and closing below, I begin to form a suspicion. When the mechanical slave enters, I cannot help but detect a furtive, guilty air in its movements. It advances and places the food on the floor beside me. Then it gazes slowly around the room at the now transformed space. I fly into a rage, shouting accusations. I demand to know where the mask is. The slave ignores me, and attempts to begin the usual ablutions. Overcome, I seize the spindly slave and raise it into the air. It is shockingly light. I carry it to the balcony and hang it over the edge. It does not even struggle. It simply stares up at me with emotionless eyes. It is all too easy to send the mechanical slave to a crushing destruction far below. I watch it grow small and smash into a cloud of spinning, flashing pieces.

I am punished with swift efficiency. The Mechanical Slave, while of most low status, was a priceless object of great antiquity, an ancient fixture of the tower I inhabit. Its destruction is a blow to history itself, and to the glory of this Empire. I hear the doors below opening and closing, one by one. I stand, waiting for the final door to open. I am defiant, full of angry power. This is easily taken from me. Through hidden openings in the door, small arrows are fired into my flesh. As I tear them from my skin, I already feel the narcotic flowing in my blood. As I fall unconscious, I hear that final door heaving open.

I awaken, slowly, through a mist of coloured dreams. My cell has been stripped bare. All my books and papers are gone. My words, my blood, gone. The bed is gone. I too have been stripped naked. Even my head has been shaved to the skin. I am cold, alone, and without paper.

They feed me barely enough to sustain life, and I grow weak. I have no blood to spare, and cannot even write my blood words onto the walls. I am forced to write words in the air with my fingertip, and then merely with my eyes.

The words I write are like thin needles of ice, breaking from a blue mist. They are weak, and crumble at the slightest disturbance. A cold wind blows through the bloodless words, an aeolian moan that rises and falls. Grey cloud crowds around, withholding the light. Far below, under the deep of the frozen ocean, the Old Queen smiles up at me. Her eyes are open, cataract white. Her lips move, forming into the shapes of words. The words rise up through the brine and burst like the bodies of whales into the open air. They have filled my cell up, yet the Queen continues to speak.