3

One

My cell is – just a cell. To the unincarcerated eye, it must appear almost featureless. The walls are bare plaster, peeling in places to reveal patches of grey brick. There is a green-painted metal door with a peephole and a hatch low down near the ground, through which food and water can be passed. There is a metal-framed cot and a thin mattress, wrapped in some kind of hard-to-tear fabric. Pushed against a little wooden table, so that it stands no more than a foot from the side of the bed, is an armless wooden chair.

I have been here a long time. Months, certainly. I’m no longer sure. I am adrift in time and space.

On the floor next to the door, just at the foot of the bed where I don’t have to look at it all the time, is a slop bucket, showing signs of rust on its handle and base. The floor itself is lined with white tiles, a few of which have broken, or are missing, leaving dark gaps like missing teeth. The ceiling is painted white. High up on the wall opposite the door is my only source of light, a small recessed window, which lets in a weak yellowish glow. The window glass is thick and grimy. It is barred by two vertical iron rods, crossed by a single horizontal rod. These bars are cemented into the recess.

3

One

My cell is – just a cell. To the unincarcerated eye, it must appear almost featureless. The walls are bare plaster, peeling in places to reveal patches of grey brick. There is a green-painted metal door with a peephole and a hatch low down near the ground, through which food and water can be passed. There is a metal-framed cot and a thin mattress, wrapped in some kind of hard-to-tear fabric. Pushed against a little wooden table, so that it stands no more than a foot from the side of the bed, is an armless wooden chair.

I have been here a long time. Months, certainly. I’m no longer sure. I am adrift in time and space.

On the floor next to the door, just at the foot of the bed where I don’t have to look at it all the time, is a slop bucket, showing signs of rust on its handle and base. The floor itself is lined with white tiles, a few of which have broken, or are missing, leaving dark gaps like missing teeth. The ceiling is painted white. High up on the wall opposite the door is my only source of light, a small recessed window, which lets in a weak yellowish glow. The window glass is thick and grimy. It is barred by two vertical iron rods, crossed by a single horizontal rod. These bars are cemented into the recess.

4

The table, the bed, the rivets in the metal door – nothing about this cell is specific. Nothing carries a trace. I think I could be anywhere, at any time in history: there have always been places like this, at least that’s what I think. But this blankness is not an accident. It is the meaning of my cell, the message my captors want to convey to me.

At some point, the walls must have been painted a drab green. This colour was then painted over with an equally drab grey. Little bands of these two colours remain in the window recess, a wider band of grey and a narrow, barely perceptible strip of green, framing the square of yellow light.

4

The table, the bed, the rivets in the metal door – nothing about this cell is specific. Nothing carries a trace. I think I could be anywhere, at any time in history: there have always been places like this, at least that’s what I think. But this blankness is not an accident. It is the meaning of my cell, the message my captors want to convey to me.

At some point, the walls must have been painted a drab green. This colour was then painted over with an equally drab grey. Little bands of these two colours remain in the window recess, a wider band of grey and a narrow, barely perceptible strip of green, framing the square of yellow light.

7

Two

I have been charged with membership of an internet. There has been no trial, just a meeting of thanes in the Great Hall of the London Thing. Yet they use these words. Charged, internet. They don’t really know what they mean any more. They are words from before the Withering.

They use the words out of vanity, mostly. Out of insecurity. The men who gathered to question me in the feast hall have no more notion of an information age legal system than they do of physics, or the theology of evolution. But they are possessed by a terrible righteousness. This their style, their swagger. They are to be the bringers of the Wilding, the ones who will make the world anew. They are lords of the red and of the white and the blue. Aloud they claim to be proud of their ignorance. It is purity, a sign that they are free of trace. But secretly they are not sure. They have doubts, these great lords, alone in their beds at night. They feel the chill hand of death tapping on their shoulder. So when they puff out their chests and bring down their thunder on the likes of me, they cloak it in the old time words, because those words signify authority. Such thunder as they have. In their bones they know they are small men, compared to the sign-wielders, the builders of hospitals. However much they swear it is not true, they know. The shadows of the ruined towers fall on them as they walk through the city streets, same as the rest of us.

7

Two

I have been charged with membership of an internet. There has been no trial, just a meeting of thanes in the Great Hall of the London Thing. Yet they use these words. Charged, internet. They don’t really know what they mean any more. They are words from before the Withering.

They use the words out of vanity, mostly. Out of insecurity. The men who gathered to question me in the feast hall have no more notion of an information age legal system than they do of physics, or the theology of evolution. But they are possessed by a terrible righteousness. This their style, their swagger. They are to be the bringers of the Wilding, the ones who will make the world anew. They are lords of the red and of the white and the blue. Aloud they claim to be proud of their ignorance. It is purity, a sign that they are free of trace. But secretly they are not sure. They have doubts, these great lords, alone in their beds at night. They feel the chill hand of death tapping on their shoulder. So when they puff out their chests and bring down their thunder on the likes of me, they cloak it in the old time words, because those words signify authority. Such thunder as they have. In their bones they know they are small men, compared to the sign-wielders, the builders of hospitals. However much they swear it is not true, they know. The shadows of the ruined towers fall on them as they walk through the city streets, same as the rest of us.