Vengeful Desires

4-

The guard's boots clomped against the dingy linoleum floor as she led Amirah down the corridor. The harsh lights flickered overhead, casting an eerie pall over the drab cement walls.

"This will be your room," the guard announced gruffly, stopping in front of a heavy steel door. She jangled her keys, the metallic clinking echoing through the deathly quiet cellblock.

With a groan of unoiled hinges, the door swung open to reveal a small, closet-like space - barely larger than a walk-in closet. Amirah peered inside, taking in the sparse furnishings with a sinking feeling.

Two narrow cots lined opposite walls, each with a pathetically thin mattress and single flat pillow. A stainless steel toilet-and-sink combo protruded from one corner, already stained with rust and grime. A single barred window set high up near the ceiling let in a pitiful trickle of natural light.

"You got lucky," the guard remarked with a sardonic twist of her lips. "Seems the lieutenant has you in one of the least crowded rooms for now. Don't get too comfortable though - they'll be adding more occupants throughout the month to fill it up."

She jerked her head towards the closest cot, where a young woman with a shaved head huddled beneath a thin blanket. "That's Yun. And over there is Mung."

She gestured to the other cot, where an older woman lay, facing the wall. Neither inmate reacted to their entrance.

"Get comfortable while the space lasts," the guard said with a shrug. "Yard time is at 0800, work assignments go out at 0900. Any questions, save them for someone who cares."

Without waiting for a response, she shoved Amirah unceremoniously through the doorway. The steel door clanged shut behind her, echoing like a death knell in the tiny space.

Amirah stood motionless for a long moment, letting her eyes adjust to the gloom while her other senses took in the dismal atmosphere. The air reeked of mold, human misery, and bodily waste. Water dripped in a maddening plink from the crusted sink. Somewhere down the cellblock, a woman's hoarse sobbing echoed eerily.

All of Amirah's days in this fresh Hell seemed to blur together into an endless march over fields of shattered glass. Physical pains she could tolerate, but the invisible lacerations inflicted on her psyche went bone-deep.

The relentless days and sleepless nights gnawed at her attempts to remain stoic and sensible as mad visions and grief encroached.

Her eyes strayed to the cot's thin mattress, noting the scurrying motions of the occasional roaches and other vermin already making themselves at home there.

How sad that these revolting creatures seemed to possess more freedom than the humans trapped alongside them in this concrete tomb.

Amirah's gaze drifted down to her hands - those capable hands that had once born the glittering symbol of her life's greatest love and catastrophic loss. Well, the idea of it rather.

Her ring finger felt shockingly bare, the imprint  line where her wedding band used to sit standing out in relief. She traced the ghostly imprint with a feathery touch, throat growing tight.

Divorce he says...

In this place, being stripped of all jewelry and personal adornments was mandatory. Yet the physical absence of that simple gold circlet somehow made the weight of everything she'd lost feel crushingly, viscerally real all over again.