Smuggler

Chapter 5

 The next few days go by uneventfully. The two older people ask me questions about life in the city, mainly about the guards. They want to know their numbers, where they stand, what they do in their spare time. I can't answer all of them, but I answer what I can. After four days, it seems that they have run out of questions. The last day, instead of asking me question after question from their neat little lists, they seemed to be asking whatever came to mind.

That was three days ago. Since then, I have been pacing my cell. I haven't seen Jason since the day I filled in the map. Each day, different people bring me food, I guess whatever guard happens to be on shift. They give me my food silently and then promptly leave.

I have paced every inch of the cell. I have rearranged any furniture I can move, then put it back. I have explored and memorized every crack in the walls, floor, and ceiling. I have never been so bored. Now I lie on my bed, doing what I have been trying to avoid for the past three days: thinking.

They were out of questions. If they hadn't come for me these last three days, they were probably out of anything else for me as well. So if I'm no longer useful, why am I still alive? They had obviously questioned others, and none of those people seemed to still be around. So they clearly didn't keep their prisoners past their usefulness. Maybe they were just making sure they had nothing else to ask me.

Coming to terms with your own death is hard. Really hard. I want to fight against it, to break out, to do something other than sit and wait for it to come. But deep inside of me, there is a small bit of hope. A tiny voice that tells me that trying anything will seal my death, whereas right now it might not be.

I hear footsteps coming down the hall. I don't bother opening my eyes. I know the sounds by heart now. Clunk of the flap opening. Scrape of the plate on the floor. Then the footsteps walking back down the hall.

Clunk. Scrape. But no footsteps.

"You asleep?" I open my eyes, and see Jason standing outside the bars. I can't help but smile. It's been too long since I had any interaction.

"No. Just thinking." I sit up and turn myself on the bed so that I am facing him. He cocks his head to the side and sits down. I see that he has a plate of food with him as well.

"What about?" he asks. Before I answer, I get up and pick up the plate of food from in front of him. I sit down. It reminds me of how Maya and I would eat sometimes, though then there weren't bars between us.

"My probably imminent death." I bite into the sandwich which was on the plate. He looks startled.

"What? What makes you think you're going to die?"

"I can't see any way that I won't. It seems like I've outlived my usefulness, and even if I haven't, I will soon. There's not much else I can tell you guys, and I can't think of anything I can do for you. So unless you plan on keeping me in this cell forever, I can't have much time left, can I?" I smile at him, but I can tell that it doesn't look genuine. He looks at me, like he's trying to solve a puzzle.

"Weren't you a criminal in the city?"

"Basically, yeah." I wonder where he's going with this.

"And you told us a bunch of stuff about it, stuff none of the guards would tell us. Why?"

"Because I promised I would. And because I couldn't care less about the cities secrets."

He pauses for a moment. I finish my food, and lean back on my hands.

"Where'd you get that? Everyone else just assumed I gave it to you." He's pointing at my face. There must still be a bruise there.

"Oh, I bumped into a guard, and he took exception to that." For some reason, he's beaming as though my answers have been exactly what he wanted. But I can't see what this has to do with anything.