Fifteen: Witches hat

Some hours later, the door was opened and the female security guard filled the doorframe. She brought in an orange witches hat cone - the type used on roads to help direct traffic. She gave me a mean smile, kicking the mattress toward the shower and dropping the cone on the cleared tiles.

"Would you like your dinner?" she asked me.

"Yes?" I replied hesitantly. "Please?"

"Then you sit on that cone," she smiled, the pleasure she was deriving from my nervous fear contorting her ugly face. "Your feet aren't allowed to touch the floor. You sit on that cone for half an hour. If you can't or try to cheat, I'll eat your dinner in front of you."

"How can a person sit on that for half an hour?" I backed away from her but didn't anticipate that she'd move so fast or be so strong. The top of the cone while blunt was plenty sharp enough for me to imagine how uncomfortable it was going to be to sit on such a small surface.

"Like this," she caught me by the lapel of my shirt and pushed me down onto the pointy top of the cone, making me yell in pain. Tears spangled my eyes at my sore behind. "Get those feet off the ground. Sit there for half an hour, mind you. I'll be watching."

She pushed my shoulders down heavily. I couldn't take much of her weight and immediately put my feet back on the ground to brace against her weight.

"Get off. Get off me!" I yelled in desperation. "It hurts!"

"Oh," she sneered down at me. "You lose."

Releasing her weight off me, she took out a ham and cheese bread roll from her pocket and waved it in front of my face. I could smell the bread. It made my stomach growl and made her laugh.

"Sit," she growled, the moment I tried to stand back up. "Feet off the ground," she barked, taking a bite of my dinner. "Stay there. If you don't sit there long enough, you're going to stay there for a longer time and I'll eat even slower."

Using my hands and feet to brace myself against the cone, I did the best I could to grit my teeth against the pain. She purposely took small bites and ate noisily in front of me. I shut my eyes against the sight and tried to ignore the smell and sounds. Maybe that way, it'd be over sooner. Concentrating on balancing my backside on the top of the cone and dealing with the uncomfortable pain, I tried to ignore her. I really did. It's just that when she got bored of me sitting still, she leaned her elbows on my shoulders while she continued to eat. I felt sweat ooze out the pores all over my head and face with a prickling sensation. It dripped down my temples and the back of my neck. Sweat dripped down between my breasts. My feet and hands kept slipping. When I couldn't stand it anymore, I heard her sniggering at my scrabbling in desperation to get her off me.

"Ugh, you're so boring," the female security guard finished my roll with a smack of her lips.

Pushing me off the cone, she picked it up and sauntered out. The door was locked behind her. I rolled on my mattress, rubbing my sore backside. 

Was this type of thing really allowed during war time? This type of bullying could be considered torture, right? It wasn't a game. Even prisoners aren't meant to be starved. She did realise that, right? If she could see me in my room, then other people might see her bullying me like that. I hoped her superior saw and she got in trouble.

My tummy grumbled and I hugged it.

Tomorrow, I promised my tummy. Tomorrow you'll be able to eat. Just put up with it for today. Take it as fasting a meal to slim down.

I didn't dare to use the shower or toilet in case security could see everything in this room. Although I didn't spot any security cameras up near the ceiling, I guessed they must have put a concealed one in somewhere. Not knowing what else to do and considering I'd hardly slept last night, I curled up on the mattress, wrapped myself in the blanket and went to sleep.

*

Over the next few days, I learnt what boredom truly was. There was nothing to do in the room by myself. After I caught up on my sleep, I was mostly counting the minutes until my next meal. When I couldn't take it anymore, I used the blanket to cover myself to go to the toilet or threw it over the rod to use as a pseudo shower curtain. It didn't cover all of me but it hopefully blocked any cameras pointed at me. The only problem then was that the blanket got wet.

I tried to find the camera and eventually found it on the tiny window ledge above the shower, meaning that the shower and toilet were in a blind spot. Thank goodness. Then I did lots of exercises. Practiced folding my blanket into perfect squares. I used the bar of soap to wash all my clothes and then realised I had nowhere to hang them up and so I ended up dancing around, waving my wet clothes to try and dry them. I sang. I slept. I cried.

I cried a lot. It's amazing how much water a person might cry. The electricity wasn't always working during the day and so some days were spent in utter darkness. When I pressed my ear to the door, I heard tradies and electricians working, so I figured the electricity would eventually stabilise.

After the bullying by the security guard the first night, she didn't bother me again. I wasn't sure why but maybe God had heard my prayers. My meals in the form of bread rolls wrapped in cling wrap or in a brown paper bag would be tossed through the door at me around meal times. Sometimes a drink bottle would follow. Sometimes not. At least I got food.

I had a lot of time to think… or rather, to learn not to think. After some days of not being able to talk to anyone or do anything, despite being an introvert, the uncertainty of life and what could happen next began to eat holes through me. Perhaps they were right? That I was a traitor for having looked at that Bosky soldier that way. That I was a real criminal for breaking the internet when I had been trying to defend and save myself from those bullies. Maybe there was something wrong with my character. Perhaps Priscilla was right? All those things I had been learning and teaching myself - to disappear in a crowd. To lose a tail. To be better at anything and everything than I allowed others to see. Did it give me a sense that I was above other people? Maybe that was what I was in here for.

By the time a few days had passed, I stopped feeling like doing anything. I lay on the foam mattress. I slept. I stared. I ate. Thinking was too dangerous, so I stopped doing that too. It was better to just wait for death.

This was the perfect life that I had once imagined. I had shelter, food and drink. I didn't need to do anything. I just needed to lie here and wait for death.