The Penal Colony — take 5
In the loom of deadline, yet confident of her arrival, he vowed to himself he would, in any event, if necessary, go without her.
The transport would not wait, warned the guard.
She herself had corrected him as to the time of departure, remembered the man aloud.
He had wished it earlier.
He had wanted to go the day before. It transpired nineteen years and a day was the best that could be done.
At seven minutes, and counting, he reaffirmed to himself his determination to proceed.
A minute later he sent a voice message. There was no reply.
Suddenly, his hand lit up. “Hello? Hello?”
The line was open, but empty. He found himself walking, “Hello, Hello!”, at increasing pace, back down the pier, as if getting nearer would help.
An unintelligible voice sounded in his ear. Moving mountains to bury deep all impatience, he asked: “Where are you?” A hurrying voice confirmed she had arrived, and was hurrying — at the far end — and not entirely sure of the path.
In vacillating fits and starts, he abandoned the Cat ‘o Nine Tails to seek her out.
“I see you,” said he to the telephone, hurrying forward, knowing time was upon them.
Half-running, at anxious intervals, they retraced his path.
They passed the departing sentinel.
“It’s left.”
The pace of the man slackened. Hers did not.
“I think.”
Encouraged by uncertainty they hurried on.
“You go ahead”, said he.
She started to wave her arms and lift her voice to something he could not see. He hurried forward. Her signal died away in resignation, only to kindle and quicken once more.
He caught up with her as the Cat ‘o Nine Tails that had been reversing away, nosed back to its mooring.
A deckhand fitted the gangway. She went aboard. He followed, bowing his head beneath the superstructure of an upper-deck.
“Thanks”, gave he softly.
A cabin enclosed the lower deck. They found the last two adjacent places: facing each other across an aisle, his back to the bow, hers against the stairwell leading to the upper-deck and the bridge.
“I thought,” she began.
“We made it, that’s all that matters.”
She agreed. “All’s well that ends well.”
A loud-speaking voice filled the cabin.
“Remember what you have already been told. Nobody cares! If you fall into the water, nobody cares. If you have something you need to tell me, I don’t care. Nobody cares! Sit down! Nobody cares.”
The primary school class flowed over the exposed upper-deck and into the shelter below. The youngsters, male and female, accepted their bodily restraint — but perhaps only for the time being, for otherwise they appeared little concerned, leaning across each other and talking in suppressed excitement.
Neither the woman nor the man could see outside.
They spoke of family until interrupted by a figure in a loose-fitting uniform-of-yester-year.
The figure from the past taught the crescent of small islands that fronted the bay were the issue of ocean stir — obstructed and aggregated by higher ground.
Their instructor was joined by a wide-gesturing companion dressed in calico trousers and striped cotton shirt. He, it would seem, had been assigned (happily) to play the part of Prisoner (comic).
Loud-speaking Voice sounded once more.
Instructed in too-familiar transit tone, the woman heard they were to disembark first.
The man heard they were to be last.
The jetty was built by First Felons.
“There are no safety rails. If you fall in, ‘Nobody Cares’! I will take a video of you and post it online and everyone will laugh at you.”
The man and the woman disembarked before the infirm and behind a juvenile troop, untroubled, it would appear, by the absence of bounded path.
At year-end celebration, it was said, a guard leapt from the jetty into black night and low tide, and broke his neck.
The man hesitated at the site of the suicidal jailer — before, urged on by curiosity, advancing in open air.
He was confronted, The Free Encyclopaedia later informed him, by a tertiary basalt core with a maximum elevation of 21 m at the south-eastern corner. He also learned basalt was an extrusive igneous rock formed from rapidly cooling low-viscosity lava.
Molten heart, mused he to himself, quenched in out-face world — bar to ocean flow.
The core was, apparently, flanked by two broad ages of accretion.
The juvenile troop, under guard (pantomime), went blithely on its way.
The man and the woman followed Costume Authority and Prisoner (comic) to the first station.
Graveyard (fenced) over-written in stone: name and date and date. Infant, maiden, youth, sadly missed.
The blameless dead.
No time to linger.
Another graveyard (fenced).
It is said the unclaimed bones of guilt moulder in ground below — fraud, thief, forger, fraud again, murderer
names unremembered
infamy marked
stencilled number
row and row
No time to linger.
No sooner hurried onward than halted
to learn
sea-shells
under armed guard
on sea-shore
in black alchemist fire
transmuted
into caustic lime.
Ruined fragment of vaulted oven yet survives — overgrown into pastoral scene
Costume Authority recalls skin burned and lungs seared
Fertiliser of mass grave, reflects man to himself.
Ninety-pound sacks, backed, on chain of guilt, to top of hill, there to fuse beach rock into prison wall.
“You are quiet.”
A question is asked.
“I’ll tell you later, when we get there”, quoth Costume Authority.
No time to linger.
Urged onward up the slope, they are soon paused to look down on another vaulted ruin
the trace
they are given to understand
of raw-sweet
crushed and boiled from first crop
Unhappily ground water gift from heaven
tears of God
insufficient
primal ocean salts first field thought he.
Chivvied onward and upward, they are, for the third time, halted. Below, two large cylindrical fragments, the mark, it is said, of more fibrous, less thirsty cultivation — crushed in iron law of sisal supply and sisal demand.
They turn of their own accord.
Open rise stretches to hill top.
In facing breeze, man and woman, with renewed step, find themselves leading up the slope.
“You are quiet.”
A walking question is asked.
“I’ll tell you later, when we get there”, quoth Costume Authority.
They arrive at the foot of what appears to be an over large barn, with sparse windows set high in block wall.
Costume Authority labours to the fore.
Empowered, perhaps, by home ground, he herds his charges against the wall.
Behind them, they are told, is the Administration Building.
In a field of meagre ruins it stands large and complete, and closed to inspection.
Costume Authority points away to trace in the ground.
Ghostly remains, it is said, of blacksmith forge and prison chains.
Prisoner (comic) is prompted to recite a litany of want — one tin cup, one pair of, one of, one, one.
Costume Authority, gesturing to open ground, conjures First Punishment.
Miscreant picks up cannon shot (20 lbs) and carries it to other side (a hundred yards) and places it on the ground.
Miscreant picks up cannon shot (20 lbs) and carries it to other side (a hundred yards) and places it on the ground.
And forth and back and forth and back, and on and on and on.
I must not. Not must I. I must not. Not must I.
They are conducted through field of ruins: butchery, bakery, improved butchery with floor drain, kitchen of unvarying menu.
Corn gruel and mutton gruel and cabbage. No Monday, no Tuesday. Corn gruel and mutton gruel and cabbage. No Wednesday, no Thursday, no Friday. Corn gruel and mutton gruel and cabbage. Week after unmarked week. Corn gruel and mutton gruel and cabbage. Year after unmarked year. Corn gruel and mutton gruel and cabbage. No Saturday. Corn gruel and mutton gruel and cabbage. No day of rest.
“You are quiet.”
A question is asked.
They are told no trace now remains of the Superintendent’s Residence and the homes of the jailers.
They find themselves reunited with the juvenile troop to witness show of Second Punishment.
Loud-speaking Voice directs.
Costume Authority and Prisoner (comic) unfold frame of posts. Prisoner (comic) assumes splayed position.
Pantomime flay — cat o’ nine knots by nine tails — nine times nine — brandished to the crowd.
Who will scourge the guilty?
Juvenile hands, male and female, apply.
Bumbling youth is pressed into service.
Exit Prisoner (comic).
Bumbling Youth, in inept burlesque, warms to task, flaying away at wooden frame.
Twenty-five lashes from shoulder to hip.
A magistrate was present.
Twenty-five lashes from buttock to knee.
A superintendent was present.
Twenty-five lashes from this side.
A doctor was present.
Twenty-five lashes from that side.
A doctor was present — to rub raw salt into bleeding wound.
Juvenal troop goes on its merry way.
No time to linger.
“You are quiet.”
Costume Authority gestures to trace in ground. Place of feeding, they are told. Place (only) where prisoner might talk.
In ghostly landscape of lonely silence, one and one and one, phantom hubbub murmurs through the man.
No time to linger.
Open wound in bare earth leads below.
Final Punishment.
Underground, in narrow cell, cut off from all light, condemned to total silence, buried alive.
They begged to be lashed. They cried out. They were bound in straitjackets and thrown back into darkness to start sentence afresh. They went mad in a week.
Nobody lingered.
Nobody spoke.
They straggled down the open slope.
Voices call.
They turn.
Costume Authority and Prisoner (comic)
above
in chorus stand
penal lay to recall
written in ancient tongue and now available in vernacular
twice-chosen word o’er silent sorrow songs
the man and the woman lead the applause.
They walk, in stilled aire, down the hill and across the pier and onto the transport. They find seats in the lower cabin — side-by-side, backs to the prow. They travel in silence — at peace with their thoughts.
Loud-speaking Voice erupts in electronic howl.
“… will soon be over. My associates and I have had a serious meeting, a very serious meeting, and have all agreed, unanimously, that of all,” another howl rents the air, “… to the mainland, none too worse for wear, you are the latest.”
They disembark, leave Cat ‘o Nine Tails behind, and are, soon enough, back where they had met in the morning.
a brief embrace
he kisses her waiting cheek
“Goodbye”, says he.
“Goodbye,” says she, continuing on her way.
“See you on Sunday”, she calls over her shoulder. “Seventy.”
He lifts his hand and voice
“I’d rather hoped people had stopped remembering.”
they go their separate ways
smiling.
