Wonder

Watery voices

Chapter 12

I growl under my mouth as the water drips again from the top of the ceiling, the steady flow has been going for about an hour now. My fingers tingle but I stay still; a sick feeling dances in my stomach as I lay on the rock bed. I can feel the pull from the puddle gather no on the floor, that rush of excitement as I stare at the muggy water.

This isn't what I imagined happening, never in a million years would I think I would be trapped in the cement cell of a police station. Its definitely not something you dream of.

Alone, I always saw myself alone, so actually yes I saw myself alone but not in a cement box. Maybe in a padded box.

"Hey. Show me some buns hun." I tilt my head slowly to the side to find a man about twenty years older than me sitting with his leg crossed on the floor. A crooked smile plastered on his face with a toothy grin.

"You've got to be fucking joking me." I mumble as I hear him shuffle in the cell across from me.

"What they got you in her pretty girl. Stealing a necklace." A high pitched gargle leaves his mouth as I hear his hands hit the floor. He eyes twinkle in amusement. Ratty jeans hang from his waist.

"I'm accused of murder." I sit straight up and watch him, his face flattens.

"Well fuck, I just stole a sandwich." He mumbles before quickly standing up from the floor.

"Hey!" He screams down the hallway.

"I can't be trapped with a murder for the night, all I did was steal one fucking sandwich! A fucking piece of bread with lettuce and pickles, maybe some mayo if you're lucky!" His bloody screams make me want tear apart my own ears, his wailing girdling voice fills the room like air. I want to remove his throat.

I growl in annoyance as he hollers like a loon, about why God didn't put him up to this, that he's a good Christian man. With a family and a fat wife.

"Does a good Christian man steal a sandwich?" I ask after the third screech that sounds like birds mating. He stops and rotates his body slowly and just stares, I hang my head off the bed just staring at him with one of my eyes partly closed. My hair falls loosely onto the floor.

"I don't believe they do." I answer my own question and watch as he lets out a frustrated cry and backs up into the corner of his room and starts yelling abuse at me from the darkness of his cell.

He screeches become louder and I suddenly wish I just kept my trap closed and let him yell down the hallway rather than at me.

After a good hour he falls silent and I peal open one of my eyes to find him passed out on the floor. Finally I mumble under my breath as the two rooms fall quite. The sound of the water slowly dripping from the ceiling, the only source of sound in the empty hallway.

Now I'm alone. Just my thoughts and I.

It felt odd not being in my bed with the little light blue lamp beside my bed, it's slight flicker one someone walks above. The soft white sheets of my bed firmly wrapped around me like a cocoon, my own safe haven. I finger the dirty blanket that lay forgotten under me and the torn pillow pushed aside.

Or the lake that makes me smile, even if it's only for a second. The cool water Briggs me back to life.

A loose strand hangs off the bed, I play with it for a while before tilting my face to the ceiling, the gray walls cold as I place my hand against the closest. The rough texture relaxing for some odd reason. My fingers delicately slide over the bumps. I trace names and objects like trees and birds into the cement. My touch gentle.