Rochelle at Friday Fictioneers offers her community of writers a weekly opportunity to write a 100 word story in response to a photographic prompt. This week, the photo prompt is provided courtesy of Courtney Wright.
As an English teacher, I sometimes also struggle to get texts I've read or am teaching out my head; some texts just linger. As such, this story also functions as a response to Ali Cobby Eckermann's 'Black Deaths in Custody', a poem I recently taught to my Year 8 class.
Silence
They push the rope under the door of the cell. The twine, matted together by blood, catches on the concrete, leaving behind a path of red.
The silence helps lift my boots off the floor.
As an English teacher, I sometimes also struggle to get texts I've read or am teaching out my head; some texts just linger. As such, this story also functions as a response to Ali Cobby Eckermann's 'Black Deaths in Custody', a poem I recently taught to my Year 8 class.
Silence
They push the rope under the door of the cell. The twine, matted together by blood, catches on the concrete, leaving behind a path of red.
It slithers, snake-like, coiling beside me.
The silence follows, skulking in the corners and erasing the walls, dissolving space.
I feel unsafe.
The silence sidles up to me, making a cage within a cage.
The silence patrols my body, its fingers pummelling the skin mixing blueness with black.
When the silence points to the rope I know what to do, know I have no choice.