Curled plumes of smoke crawled from the gaped lip of his wooden pipe and spilled into the space between the two men. Its intoxicating tendrils danced and intertwined in the still air, growing ever further apart on their descent, swooping down, and dispersing into nothingness. The prisoner watched in trepidation as browned fingertips placed the pipe back on its usual indent, gripped by parched lips, and listened as it crackled with an intake of breath. He sighed in fleeting relief.
“I only wanted to do better for myself, sir. I weren’t trying to insult no one”, the prisoner uttered from his position on the floor, staring at the man before him in futile desperation. But the man did not meet his gaze, just stared senselessly ahead at the cream wall. It was hardly interesting to look at, nor was the room itself adorned with any paintings or photographs that might have imbued it with some sense of life. The man, too, seemed washed out: his pot-marked skin and greasy hair was almost grey, and his pipe’s flaking façade had long since lost its shine. The only piece of furniture was the chair bolted to the floorboards at the centre of the room. Or rather, the man and the chair, for the two seemed almost combined. His body spilled through its gaps and oozed over its edges, swollen fat merging with wood. He may well be trapped in it now, the prisoner thought, for he had served here since the start.
He stared at the man’s blotchy countenance, willing it to show any sign of feeling. But with every moment that passed, he grew increasingly uneasy, and the sound of his bloodied, broken nails picking at his restraints echoed throughout the room.
“Please sir,” the prisoner implored, letting out a gasp of subdued agony as he pulled himself onto his knees. “I’ve told ya everything true and proper. I were just asking for the money I was due. I’m not one of those rebel folk – I like living here”. His body shook as he neared the end of his sentence, too weak and terror-stricken to maintain his knelt position. He collapsed onto the floor in abject exasperation.
Tap. Tap. The prisoner darted his eyes to watch as two ashen clumps fell from the pipe, tearing themselves apart on their descent and dispersing across the floor like fluffy whisps of cloud. The man peeled his eyes from the wall and refocused them on the pipe, struggling against heavy eyelids to peer into its belly. He let out a sigh, his breath pushing against his suspenders in a way that made the prisoner sure they would break. But they held on, and he once against raised the pipe to his lips. Drawing in a breath, the prisoner watched in horror as a distinctly smaller puff of smoke escaped. The pipe was nearly empty, and the meeting was drawing to a close.
“I won’t never ask again,” the prisoner cried, tears starting to streak his dirtied face. “I’m sorry.” He let them flow freely now, cascading down his cheeks and wetting the dark knots of hair which stuck to his face. He drew his knees to his chest and clung onto them as sobs wracked his body.
Tap. Tap. The noise silenced the prisoner’s cries. Trembling, he raised his head and watched the man press the pipe against his cracked lips once more. He waited nervously, swaying with trepidation, and praying for one last whisper of smoke. Time was running out: a single word could save his life, but silence would condemn him. At long last, the man inhaled.
Long and drawn-out breath. Holding now.
The prisoner’s ears were drowning in the deafening noise of his own heartbeat. Plucking the pipe away from his lips, the man exhaled slowly, letting nothing but empty air flow from his lungs.
A scream shattered the silence, engulfing the empty room and rattling the bolted chair. The prisoner fought against his shackles in a frenzy, their rusted edges tearing the skin of his wrists and ankles into a bloody pulp.
“You’ve got to forgive me sir. I ain’t a rebel like them, I swear by it!” he spluttered through strangled cries.
The man unpeeled his sunken form from the chair’s grip and approached the prisoner, extending two swollen fingers to grip the skeletal point of his chin. For the first time that afternoon, the man looked directly at him. The prisoner recoiled under his gaze, shuddering as the man’s ugly face contorted into a twisted, gleeful grin. With sudden force, he pressed his empty pipe against the prisoner’s face, its thinned surface scorching his bruised cheek and renewing the speckling of blood bubbling beneath. Its belly was empty, and it demanded to be filled.
Lucy Rumble is an emerging writer from Essex. Her poem ‘My Nan, Remembered’ won third place in the 2023 Tap Into Poetry contest, and her work has been published in Crow & Cross Keys, Myth & Lore Zine, and Needle Poetry, among others. When she isn’t writing, she is trapped in the dust and darkness of an archive (or her mind). Find her on Instagram @lucyrumble.writes or at lucy.smlr.uk