The

  prison camp was not so different from life in Jurckas. The work was

  no harder here than on the farms, and you could rely on a solid meal

  at the end of the day, something that wasn’t always guaranteed at

  home. Where most lost weight when they were sent to Pokey, I appeared

  to be filling out, the cord on the waistband of my breeches no longer

  requiring a knot.

  There

  was little time to wind down at Pokey, so I learned to live without

  the juice. I missed it greatly at first. I was the truest form of

  myself when on the stoopy, free of all burdens – mischievous, yes;

  verbose, yes (how many times had my mouth brought me unwanted

  attention?) but ultimately harmless. Yes, yes, going to prison for

  killing your brother while under the spell isn’t harmless, I know,

  but it was an accident and there was no violent intent. Despite my

  criminal status, condemned to walk around with a full bureaucracy of

  papers following me, I mostly thought of myself as a good person.

  The

  Gangad Pokey was a quarry that removed chunks of bordonite from the

  muddy Gangad Mountain. There was little discussion between inmates,

  but some of the old timers, those who had transferred to Gangad when

  it was first approved for mining, made sure to let me know that it

  had been a lush green landscape then. There had been birds in the

  trees, one said, and complex ecosystems could be mapped in the

  behaviour of the insects. In another snatched excerpt of

  conversation, I was told that there was even a meadow upon which

  waves of succulent, nutritious grass folded over each other. Someone

  else had told me of the haze that arose from the meadow as the

  morning dew evaporated in the newly risen sun. It had been if they

  wished to deny me further freedoms with such tales.

  ‘No

  free person knew the comings and goings of nature like we did,’

  said one to me as I was clearing my dishes at the mess. It was a

  quick, rehearsed spiel, edited so it would end just when the watcher

  had started to notice his chatter. ‘It was a privilege to stay,’

  he said, moving away, his narrow jaw peaked to one side, a stout

  finger pointing upwards. ‘Goats would even come out from their

  hiding places to graze,’ he said, before he finally left me alone,

  content that he had imprisoned me all over again. I had never seen an

  animal in the wild. There wouldn’t have been many of my age down in

  Chiram who had.

  By

  the time I had arrived, of course, there wasn’t a blade of grass to

  be seen. Years of heavy wheels rolling over the mountain had left it

  muddy and tired. An open wound halved the mountain down its middle,

  like a patient who had died on the operating slab and was now

  suffering the indignity of unwelcome experiments.

  Each

  prisoner was joined to his neighbour by a long metal bar chained to

  his right ankle. The bar meant that you could not approach your

  neighbour and the distance meant you could not easily address him.

  The short chain that ran from the end of the bar to a cuff at the

  prisoner's ankle gave the prisoner just enough slack to carry out his

  duties. Talking was not permitted while in the mine. When it was time

  for lunch or time to go home, the prisoners had to synchronise their

  strides to the bark of the watcher’s count.

  The

  only sound to be heard was the chinking of metal, in the working of

  the implements against walls, and in the chains that bound the

  prisoners together. I came to enjoy the peace. You probably know, you

  the reader, that I am a man of religion, but I was not at this stage.

  If it sounds like I accepted my confinement in good humour, then let

  me correct you. I was seventeen years old. My brother had died and I

  knew I’d never see my mother again. I was sleeping in a dormitory

  tent with seventeen other miscreants. I had to assume that they were

  all killers, same as myself, but they looked like people who, if they

  killed you, it was because that’s what they were trying to do. I

  was afraid.

  The

  watchers tormented us. They had access to stoopy, both the juice and

  the reek, and, in the early days, you could occasionally expect to be

  pulled from your bed and asked to perform some humiliating feat for

  their entertainment. We were forced to run around the tent, perform

  callisthenics, sent on pointless errands - ‘Run into that mine and

  find me a bat’s egg, lowlife’ - general silliness that would

  allow them to assert their authority over us. Their circumstances

  were little better than ours. They lived in similar conditions,

  although they each had a roomy, well-furnished tent to themselves,

  and they ate similar food, albeit from nicer plates and in more

  plentiful quantities. They worked in three-months-on,

  three-months-off

  cycles,

  going back to their families, or whoever else they had belonging to

  them for their off-stint. I wondered why they would volunteer for

  such thankless work and concluded that soldies must have been the

  reason. I also considered that maybe they had not volunteered, that

  maybe they were criminals also, but I reckoned that some old timer

  would have been quick to let me know about it, if that were true,

  eager to compound my misery.

  There

  was also a team from the JPD Company working there, who wordlessly

  inspected our labours to ensure that their precious bordonite was

  slabbed from the rock face in as generous proportions as possible.

  They would be so fully bedecked in all manner of safety equipment –

  gloves, goggles, helmets, overalls – that you began to wonder

  to what

  dangers we, with our bare hands and thin prison uniforms, were daily

  exposing ourselves. On my first day, I had to listen to one of the

  JPD gillas skip through a presentation that explained that bordonite

  was a sought-after type of rock, carved into tables and fireplaces

  for wealthy residences and opulent office buildings. The only dangers

  we would face, we were assured, were those faced by all miners, or

  anyone who worked underground with machinery or with cumbersome

  plates of solid rock. I wasn’t set at ease by their assurances, but

  with the works foreman standing at the door of the tent, impatiently

  waiting to put me on shift, I didn’t ask any questions. I

  understood that I was a prisoner and that I would not have any

  recourse to improve my situation.

  Occasionally

  the JPD gillas would get involved in the stoopy binges, but they

  retreated into the background while the indignities were handed down.

  They were scientists and administrators, drivers and machine

  operators – they did not want to be reminded of the moral dilemmas

  they had pushed to one side when they had agreed to work for this

  company. They had no interest in coming into contact with killers.

  There

  was no physical violence from the watchers, just the threat of it. As

  the youngest of the inmates, I was often told that I would be taken

  to the watchers’ quarters and obliged to service each of the men in

  turn. This had never actually come to pass, but I barely slept

  throughout the entirety of my first year there, such was my terror.

  The shadows that developed around my eyes during that time still look

  back at me from the mirror, a lifetime later. I hated them then, and

  quivered when I heard the approaching squelch of their boots in the

  mud. When I did sleep, my dreams were filled with images of violent

  uprising. Real head-bursting stuff.

  Once

  the unpleasantness of the very early days had passed, I began to

  settle into the routines. My body’s functions soon came to run

  parallel to the timetable of the camp. It became difficult to do

  anything without the toot of the horn or the barking cry of a watcher

  to jolt me into activity. Our opportunities to interact were so

  limited that relationships with the other prisoners never developed

  into friendships. At lunch, a few words might be exchanged about the

  weather or about how the rock was cooperating with the tool, but it

  seemed that as soon as the conversation began to loosen, the horn

  would sound again and we would be back in our chains and our strides

  counted back into the mountain’s scar.

  The

  one inmate with whom I was able to develop a relationship was Gluff,

  my neighbour on the chain. Though if you were to show me an image of

  him, I wouldn’t recognise him. I had only ever seen the back of his

  head, perhaps occasionally the side of his head. I have searched in

  my memory for the colour of his eyes, but I never knew.

  One

  day, I had heard him counting the strokes of his pick against the

  

  under his breath. He was somewhere in the thousands, quietly and

  diligently whispering his tally as the rock crumbled beneath the

  tool. I was impressed. The nature of our work required a very large

  number of small repeated chinks into the rock. To maintain a count

  for so long – this was someone with great patience. I noticed that

  on his left temple he had tattooed an arc of crosses continuing the

  line where the eyebrow stopped. The kind of tattoo that prisoners

  administer to each other with a scarring implement, in prisons with

  more intimate arrangements. I figured him for an experienced inmate

  and I respected the apprenticeship in patience that he had clearly

  received. Following his lead, I started to count my own strokes too.

  We developed something approaching a relationship – at scran time,

  I would call out the number of chinks completed in the previous stint

  and he would do the same. It was as far as our interactions ever

  stretched.

  A

  question a four-year old might ask – what’s the highest you’ve

  ever counted? My answer is 11,410. I have gone beyond 10,000 on a

  good number of occasions. To count for so long is to explore unknown

  frontiers. You descend into yourself, as if your head has sunk into

  your shoulders and you’re having a look around, watching the

  flickering rumble of your heart, that miraculous, undouseable flame.

  You continue to descend, as if into a hole, your feet feeling for the

  floor that never comes. Orbs dance across your consciousness, you

  envision your past and your future, and yet you have never been more

  present. The toot of the horn drags you back to the doubt and

  second-guessing of everyday existence. It takes a long moment to

  remember where you are and who you are. Sometimes you only come back

  to an approximation of your personality, dropping bits of yourself on

  the return journey. You think that perhaps in further descents you

  will be able to recover the bits you left behind, but it doesn’t

  work that way.

  Understand

  me, I wanted to punish myself in those early days – I had killed my

  brother. I had considered burying one of the sharp implements in my

  guts and putting an end to it all, but I reckoned that such an act

  would not be punishment enough. I decided instead to prolong my life,

  but to seek out mundanity wherever I could find it. That would be a

  more fitting punishment for someone of my leanings, a person who

  needed to be in the den every night, soliciting someone, anyone, for

  a story. Someone who strutted around Jurckas, eager to get involved

  in whatever scheme was running. Someone who had an aversion to

  solitude. To subject myself fully to the monotony of my task would be

  a personal punishment that my brother would understand. But this

  counting became something. I had thought I understood the nature of

  my crime, but now, reaching further down into the darkness of the

  sack, I could see that there were hidden dimensions. It was a further

  punishment to find I had become an empathetic person.

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  A

  year into my incarceration and I was completely surrendered to the

  routine. My eyes opened moments before the reveille, my stomach

  rumbled an instant before the cook rattled the tin triangle. I heard

  answers in my head before the questions were even asked. I made eye

  contact with Gluff once a day, telling him my tally and waiting for

  his response. The moon had drawn its halo around our camp twelve

  times, almost thirteen, and it was the only eye contact I had made in

  the

  time that had passed.

  ***

  Then

  came the day. The day that would change my unhappy circumstances.

  There was terror to begin with, but that is the way with most

  changes. The day of vision, I call it, but I have had little reason

  to speak about it, since Largan died. I recall the details vividly.

  It is as if I can observe the whole of it as if it has been sketched

  out on a roll of parchment so expansive that it would require the

  peeling of a dozen trees. Indeed, details of my life subsequent to

  this day come to me much more readily than those of my unpleasant,

  poverty-stricken beginnings. I can study the drawing at my leisure.

  The information comes easy to eye and hand, if I only care to look at

  the right bit closely.

  The

  day starts with a horn’s blast. Or, rather, a horn which does not

  blast, as it is expected to. The horn that signals the end of

  breakfast and the beginning of the day’s labour. On this day, the

  horn does not sound. The prisoners, attuned to the rhythms of their

  incarceration, and timing their consumption of the sappy meal so that

  the spoon clinking on the emptied bowl coincides with the wheeze of

  the horn, begin to look at each other. After a brief pause, we are

  told that we should wait in our rows, and that a man was coming to

  talk to us. This provokes a loosening of tension in the room; I sense

  the exhalation of tightly-held breath, the sound of arses sliding

  forwards on seats and legs stretching out, loose ankles crossing over

  the barred ones. My spine, in contrast, straightens more rigidly. I

  sense Gluff tightening himself behind me, at the other end of our

  bar. We would not reach 10,000 that day.

  After

  a few torturous moments with my toes clenched and my hands tucked

  tightly under my armpits, a man agitates the curtain with violence

  and enters. He does not wear a guard uniform, so he is clearly a JPD

  man. His bearing tells us that he is more senior than anyone from the

  company we had seen until then. Dark, sturdy boots, surely once the

  weather-worn hide of some exotic animal, stretched to his knees, and

  he wears a neat pair of brown breeches and a blue smock, contrasting

  with the green of the guards. The smock is tucked into the breeches

  so we can appreciate the solidity of his physique. He’s well fed,

  this man. A pestle. The pocket on his shirt breast carries some sort

  of emblem, perhaps an indication of his standing at JPD. While he

  speaks, his arms and hands move with choreographed authority – an

  extended finger, a palm closed round a fist.

  When

  he is finished speaking, we were given new, heavier tools and told to

  make our way further into the mountain’s scar than was our custom.

  The bordonite in the upper part, we are told, is close to exhaustion.

  We need to go deeper and to open up a new rock face. We walk past our

  usual area of engagement, our feet responding to the guard’s count,

  and continue into the darkness. I feel tears pool as I reach out to

  touch my piece of mountain as we pass it.

  We

  thought we had known silence before, but we learned that a drill had

  been boring further into the mountain this whole time, creating the

  tunnel into which we are now shuffling. As the darkness increases, so

  does the heat. I feel moisture beading on my forehead and a desire to

  remove my smock before it is sodden with my sweat.

  We

  stop, and lights arranged somewhere around our feet illuminate our

  new workplace. With our chains no longer tinkling upon themselves,

  the new silence is featureless and dark and oppressive, leaving

  nothing to hook a thought onto. You seem to hear a muffled whine

  somewhere, but it is a noise your brain has created so you won’t

  feel so alone.

  We

  are in a chamber of earth. Every vibration brings a sprinkling of

  dirt onto our heads and shoulders. The ceiling is a mere hand’s

  breadth from the tops of our heads and we can comfortably touch the

  wall on either side of us. There is no space to swing the tools, so

  we leave them on the floor and work at the walls with our fingers,

  scraping the dirt until it piles up at our feet. The guards are not

  with us, but we do not interrupt the silence, scrabbling at the walls

  until it becomes rock. Someone down the line removes their smock and

  everyone quickly does the same. When I think back at this time, I am

  shocked by the danger we were exposed to, just for the sake of a few

  exotic tables and fireplaces. Still, I don’t remember feeling

  scared. With my obsessive counting, I had scarcely experienced a

  conscious thought in months. I was like some species of insect, only

  responding to instinct – the horn toots and the stomach rumbles. I

  had already died twice by this time, as I have told you.

  Every

  splutter in the dusty atmosphere brings more soil sprinkling on our

  heads. It is in our eyes, our mouths. Our feet disappear under the

  accumulating mounds. Distant rumblings interrupt the proceedings, and

  we look to the animate ceiling for some sign. I sense a ceasing of

  work down the line, a frustrated shaking of heads, a commotion of

  breaths hurried through crowded nostrils. I continue to work, the

  clay beginning to fill the cracks in my palms. I have already

  descended into a new obsession of counting. 

  The

  light goes out. My pupils open their arms, straining to embrace

  whatever light they can find, but there is none. The earth, gathered

  at my feet a moment ago, is now pressing at my chest. My arms are

  outstretched, intending to maintain their scraping search for the

  rock's face, but they are held fast by unyielding enclosures of earth

  and stone. I hear a muffled scream somewhere to my left, and I feel a

  panicked rattle on my ankle's fastenings.

  I

  see my brother. As clearly as if he had walked up beside me and

  placed a comradely hand on my shoulder. I can see him in his

  entirety, from head to foot, as if someone has opened a door to a

  roomy den. I try to talk, I mouth the words, but no sounds follow.

  'Buchan,’ I want to say. 'Buchan. You are dead.’ Because what do

  you say to a dead man?

  He

  is happy, my little brother. As well-fed and as well-rested as I've

  ever seen him. Do I see this or just sense it? I have an impression

  of warm, gregarious gestures. A presence that is truly pleased to see

  me. A familial embrace I have not felt in years. I see us sharing a

  bed together as boys, I see him standing on my supportive hands as I

  help him up into a tree. I see that time he clouted me on the ear so

  hard that I decided never again to pick a fight with him. He is

  wearing the same smock he was wearing on the night of his death - I'm

  sure of it - the same expansive maroon covering its lower half, the

  same leakage from his vital receptacles. I could touch him, I'm sure

  I could, if I could only move my arms.

  I

  had not been allowed to attend his combustion. I had not seen his

  essential particles reduced to smoke and ash. Perhaps he still hung

  around in the atmosphere, like the dark shawl that perpetually rests

  on my hometown's shoulders. Perhaps his dust had found its way to

  this lonely mountain.

  I

  feel a sudden, angry throb at my ankle. A dim glow begins to

  penetrate behind the tumbledown walls of earth. My brother is gone.

  ‘Buchan! Buck! Come back!’ I try to shout, but my mouth is

  clagged with soil, its sharp grains impervious to the acids of my

  mouth. I cough and spit and expel as much of the stuff as I can.

  Someone is tugging at my ankle. The shackles are biting into the thin

  layer of flesh. A machine whirrs urgently somewhere beyond my

  chamber. Then there is a more violent surge at my shackle and I try

  to scream. I am moving through the earth, like some species of

  underground rodent. Again, I try to cry out, but I understand what is

  happening finally – they are pulling me out. I will be free soon,

  if I can withstand the pain for just a few more moments. I

  concentrate on trying to arrange my limbs into as draggable a form as

  possible, the better to penetrate through the collapsing mounds of

  earth. As soon as there is an opening, and my mouthways are clear, I

  scream finally. My limbs point in all directions, like those of a

  child-tortured insect. Light and colour flood into my optical

  machinery and I haul quick, restorative draughts into my lungs. The

  milky grey of the sky is punctured with frantic shadows vibrating at

  the peripheries of my sight. I blink and hot tears overflow from my

  gritty eyes, tracing a course down my temples.

  ‘Hold

  on there lads, this one’s alive!’

  ***

  I

  wake up in a high bed, my head resting on a slim pillow. The room is

  small and starkly furnished. Condensation obscures the window,

  through which I see only a featureless haze of golden sky. I hear

  escalating commotion beyond the door.

  I

  decide I will sit up, and as I crease myself, I learn that both of my

  legs are set in long splints, their yellow wood smooth and shiny

  after years of use and reuse. I no longer wear shackles – perhaps

  they thought them an unnecessary extra indignity.

  Suddenly,

  there is a dull rumble of fingers on the wood of the door. It opens a

  narrow crack and then slams shut immediately. Two competitive forces

  resist each other, first a wave of angry, entitled voices, then a

  corresponding clamour of stern, pacifying ones. The door does not

  open again.

  I

  must have fallen asleep. A team of four people has appeared on chairs

  by my bed. I’m not sure how much time has passed, but they are

  quiet, as if they have nothing left to say to each other. The stale

  atmosphere of unchanged clothes clings to the walls.

  One

  of them stands up and stares directly into my face. The savoury odour

  of tare is on his breath.

  'Here,

  he has opened his eyes,’ he says, looking searchingly at me, his

  eyes darting left and right. A chorus of creaking chairs sounds as

  the others stand up and join him.

  'Oh

  look at that, Terry, you're right. He's waking up.’ A woman's

  voice. She ducks in front of the first speaker to get a good look at

  me, the same open expression on her face.

  'Can

  you hear me?' she says, at a drum-tightening pitch, and my head

  shudders in response. She looks to someone behind her. 'What's his

  name? Charlie, is it?' Then to me again, at the same tooth-loosening

  volume. 'Charlie, can you hear us? We're from JPD. JPD, remember? The

  bordonite mine? Bor-don-ite?'

  I

  feel myself grimacing, as if I have tasted something unpleasant.

  'He

  looks like he's in pain, should we get the doctor? We'll get the

  doctor, Charlie!'

  Footsteps

  scurry towards the door and I feel a gust as it opens and closes.

  'You're

  going to be okay.’ Another voice. A man's, less guldersome. I

  consider how long it has been since I've known respectful address.

  'What

  an ordeal you've been through, my friend. And still fighting yet.

  You're as tough as bordonite, my friend. Tougher! That mountain! The

  thing just fell on you. And here you are! Look! Survived! It just

  fell on you, on all of you! And here you are, Charlie! Eh? A couple

  of scratches and a broken bone or two, but. You know. You'll be on

  your feet again soon!’

  I

  feel him tapping and squeezing my fingers.