Resurgence

21. Blood Truce

“You sound like you’ve been doing this for a long time,” Tari for some reason didn’t want to talk about himself and his situation. For some reason, it made it more real in a way that he wasn’t ready to embrace yet. “Do you get moved from cell to cell to meet new people, or is there some sort of rotational system I don’t know of that they do here.”

“You know, trying to dodge my question isn’t going to make this less real than it is,” His cellmate said. “If anything, it’d make it more real because you’re running away from that realization and it’s always going to be at the back of your head unaddressed. Might as well get it over with.”

Tari frowned, sitting up. “Are you a therapist? Is that it? Or are you a preacher now and this is some new prison ploy to dress up experts as cellmates, so they could come off as having more empathy? Or are you a preacher? If you are one, save it. I believe Christ exists and that he is real and that I should give my life to him and all that. I didn’t exactly kill someone to end up here.”

The old man only chuckled and shook his head gently, angling his right leg up so it rose and his hands rested on his knee. “You’re quite presumptuous for someone who just got here. If anyone should be trying to place the identities of people without having spent ample time with them before, it should be someone who has spent a long time in prison. I’m not a therapist, neither a preacher. I’m just a human who made a mistake like you did.”

“What mistake?”

“That’s not how it works,” The man shook his head. “We’re not exactly pals and we have absolutely no reason to trust each other. So why don’t you go first?”

“Why should I be the one to go first?”

“You’re the one who is curious about my story and you sort of asked first.” When the man saw that he wasn’t ready to budge, he continued. “Fine, fine I’d talk first. But you should know that you can’t pull a fast one on me and decide not to talk about your story later on. Even if you’re incredibly lucky, you’re still not leaving this place anytime soon until next week or something. The station has a policy that every prisoner, must spend at least a week here before being released.”

His chest tightened at the thought, but just like every worry that had surfaced since his arrest, he discarded it and refused to give it priority and time to bother him.

“I don’t have a story, I came here on my own.” The man finally said, the wide, bothering smile still on his face that Tari began to wonder if it had a sinister motive.

“What do you mean you came here on your own?” He asked.

“I’m sort of a cast away, I failed at everything in life.” One would think his voice would dip and sound sober, but it was pretty much in its lively mood. “My story was like that of the guy who set up the KFC, but without the breakthrough at the end. Got married, she divorced me several years later because I couldn’t keep a stable job and I kept on drinking and my personal debt was swallowing us all up. Luckily, we hadn’t given birth to any kids so it didn’t have any effect on anyone us asides us.

“After that my life has been mostly uneventful. I kept going from one manual labor work to the other, losing it as a result of incompetence and loss of purpose. Drinking, sleeping around for pleasure – never really taking life seriously. When it got to the age that I couldn’t keep up anymore and I had nothing in the way of family and cash, and I was tired of moving from one unconstructed building to the other and one bridge to another also, I finally decided to barge in here and pick a fight with a policeman. I figured being here was pretty much outside anyway. I was right. While we might not be in luxurious surroundings, there is a roof over my head and we are given food every day. I couldn’t ask for anymore.”