1.15 Gamelan

As if water were being brougth to a slow boil, the air in the cell has grown steadily heavier, muggier with each passing minute.

I pull the gray shirt over my head. The tank top under it is soaked completely with sweat, and sticks to my skin like gauze on a wound. Peeling the tank top off, I take it to the sink and rub it down with a bar of soap, then rinse and wring it several times.

When it’s humid like this, all you can do is sit half naked on a zabutonand wait patiently for the odd vagabond breeze to meander in.

Like that one, there . . . Ahhh.

*

Discordant, yet melodious sounds come from outside the cell’s rear window. Were I at a resort hotel in Bali and not in this stinking jail, I might suppose a gamelan ensemble was rehearsing in the courtyard. Getting up off the zabuton, I move toward the back of the cell to get a better look.

Although the music continues to grow nearer, I can’t see anything of note outside the window. There is an occasional sparrow flying in and out of the weeds, the tenuous chirps of the summer's first cicada. The shadow of Cell Block D, which enveloped the courtyard in the morning, has now retreated to the lowest edge of its wall. Were the sun to burn any brighter the weeds would surely catch fire, the courtyard becoming a flaming cauldron. And yet the soft hammering of gongs and cymbals grows louder.

Right then, a powerful urge to take a leak hits me.

The toilet, which is located just under the large rear window and lacks even a suggestion of privacy, has left me uncharacteristically stage fright and I have not yet to used it. On one side, you've got the window open to the courtyard, inviting one and all to have a peek. On the left side, there's a wall, half a foot high, that is next to useless. Any guard passing by in the corridor can get a free show if that's what floats his boat.

Just as I release a steady stream, redolent of the morning's barley tea, the mystery of the gamelan is solved. Looking to my right, I find a guard standing outside my window, tapping the bars with a rubber hammer. The guard looks in at me, makes the swift and astute observations that the only bar this particular inmate has tampered with is the one in his hand, and carries on, moves onto the next cell.

Tap, tap, tap . . .

© Aonghas Crowe, 2010. All rights reserved. No unauthorized duplication of any kind.

注意：この作品はフィクションです。登場人物、団体等、実在のモノとは一切関係ありません。

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

No. 6 is now available on Kindle.

The first installment of No.6 can be found here.

Read more from Aonghas Crowe here: