Winner -- Junior Section

St Mary's College

The taste of salt fills my mouth, the cream in my coffee might be a little expired.

Something I’ve learnt here is that the clock doesn’t dictate the time or the pace. The pace is separate, two completely different things. The clock could tell me it’s one. So what? That’s the phrase I’ve come to tell myself every hour, I repeat it like a mantra.  It doesn’t have to be one, it could be two or three or four or even next Wednesday.

You don’t go by the clock. You go by what you see in front of you. Sixteen screens, the sweet sixteen, what a number. The guy who used to work the night shift before me apparently went home one night and never came back, that’s when they told me I’d be working on my own from now on. The screens capture the experience of sixteen people all locked up. Nowhere to go. I tap on screen three, the one that flickers. Sometimes when I tap it it’ll stop flickering for a minute or two and other times, when I convince myself that I’ve got bigger things to worry about than a flickering screen, I’ll let it be.

I take another sip of my coffee. The cream is still bitter. It must be expired. Not a lot expired, but a little. Enough to make me think about the things I carelessly put in my body to keep me awake. The coffee sits in a mug that I borrowed from the staff room, with the name “Vicky” on it. Who the hell is Vicky? I’ve never asked anyone about that, maybe she’s someone on the dayshift? Does she know I use her mug every night? Rinse it, wash it, and then put it back in the empty cupboard? It’s the same repetitive, old and boring routine I’m used to. I’d love to get here late, but from nine to five, every night, here I am. Sitting on a chair with stuffing coming out from behind the red cushions, my back aching, my eyes threatening to close and my brain searching for something crazy to think about. Sitting in some back room in some back building that I couldn’t even spot if I was standing outside, staring at sixteen screens each sticking out from the wall.

I don’t know the prisoner’s names. I call them by numbers. It makes me feel like I’m some sort of secret agent or spy. Number one, two and so on. Number four is my favourite. He likes to stand and stare right at the camera, even smile at it if he’s feeling happy. I think he’s a sicko, a piece of garbage and out of his mind, but I love him. I want to be his friend, his best friend. Sometimes I want to bust him out of prison, escape with him and go on a road trip.

Instead, I stir my coffee again, trying to make the expired cream go around until I can’t see it anymore. Maybe I should add sugar. Number twelve is doing star jumps. Good for him, he’ll die in there but at least it won’t be from heart disease. Screen three flickers again. Does it bother me or does it not? I tap it. It stops. For a second, I think the screen is empty, and my heart stops too. What would happen if he disappeared? Do I call someone? Who would I call? There’s no phone manual, no contact list. I was told to stay here and watch the screens. Nothing ever happens on the screens. What if something does happen? There’s a fire alarm to my right, I could pull that! I reach over and touch it, but something tells me it won’t work if I pull it, something tells me that nothing in this place works except the screens. Who knows if they work? I could be watching five-year-old footage of prisoners who have already escaped.

Number one sleeps the whole nigh., That’s what he’s doing now, that’s what makes sense, that’s what all the prisoners should be doing. Number one sleeps and dreams of French cuisine. Even through the screen I can see him drooling, maybe about something with chicken? I want to keep him asleep and then sleep myself, but my coffee tastes weird, the lights are blinding and screen three is flickering again too. If they catch me sleeping, I’ll get a warning and I’ve never gotten a warning. In fact, I’ve been voted Employee of the Month three months in a row. I’ve never actually voted for anyone though. I just assume they miss me every time… and the only reason I know I have been Employee of the Month is the little paper slip that shows up on my desk. It contains a voucher for a Greek restaurant. I wonder if number four likes Greek food.

The coffee tastes funny, it might be the expired cream, it might be the mug that doesn’t belong to me. I take another sip but swallow nothing, not even the taste of salt. I look down, the mug is gone. Screen three hasn’t stopped flickering, and this time it does bother me. I tap it, it doesn’t stop. I tap it again. It goes out. It never goes out. I look for a plug, but there is no plug, there’s nothing attached to the screen, not to any of them and maybe I’m going crazy but there isn’t a floor either and now the walls are disappearing. Six goes out, I stop breathing. One by one, three, six, one, fourteen. When four goes, I pull the alarm. Nothing happens. I watch as each of the sweet sixteen go dark. Everything is pitch black and I think about dreaming until I’m not really sure if I’m still thinking about it or if it is actually a dream.