Ever since I was moved into seclusion, I was certain that my presence would soon be quickly forgotten. People shunted here were seen as being unsalvageable, and were little more than shuffling forms to be pitied. Their chances of integration being so remote there was hardly any point trying. I had no family, I wasn’t favored by the staff, and if I died under mysterious conditions, no one would care about me.
I spent my days writing on the walls with leftover residue from my meals. Even though I knew I should’ve been more conservative in my word choice, I couldn’t help but keep adding excessive verbiage when one or two lines would do. The last sentence alone took three weeks of revisions to get right. (There were more crossed-out lines on the walls than legible prose) Writing the walls was preferable to climbing them, which I only did once I ran out of room on the lower levels. You ever try running and jumping to leave a precise specific mark on a corner just out of reach at high speed? Multiple times? It’s not easy.
I was expecting to live out my solitary days in seclusion and could’ve very well spent the rest of my life holed up were it not for the arrival of an unexpected visitor. It happened when I was mixing the remains of my food for better consistency when a surprise visitor showed up. The surprise inspectors usually showed up when I least expected them, but this new arrival showed up shortly after them. Whoever this was, this guy wasn’t on the schedule.
Being on my own for so long had atrophied my social skills, my only form of communication being via my characters, which was mainly a form of talking to myself. So I wasn’t sure how to react when the new arrival ignored me, walked right past me to stand in the middle of the room, admire the graffiti and say, ‘Very impressive’ before opening a suitcase, and proceeded to take down all the writings on the walls.
I thought they were going to physically erase everything I’d painstakingly wrote down, but what happened was more impressive. The layers on the walls started peeling away like steamed wallpaper, folding upon themselves, compressing until their contents could fit inside the confines of the suitcase.
“This’ll make for compelling evidence.”
“Who are you to take away my notes?”
“I’ve been assigned to your case. Everybody who’s woken up is assigned one beforehand.”
“I wasn’t aware I had a lawyer.”
“Everybody’s assigned a lawyer, though very few are aware of it because the responsibilities of individual clients are passed down to the firm in charge of the last case, and there’s a lot of backed up laws to go through.”
“A lot of time’s passed. Wouldn’t it be easier to get new lawyers?”
“These lawyers are very protective of their cases and are loathe to let their retainer go outsourced to the competition, and since the majority of their clients are comatose or in hibernation, no one can argue in their place, unless somebody else speaks for them.”
“So wait, does that mean...?”
“No, inmates aren’t allowed to advocate for other inmates, even if you’re a model prisoner. You need an outside influence to do it for you.”
“Disappointing, but not surprising. “Who spoke for me?”
“I’m not at liberty to say, but the advocate is someone who you’re acquainted with.”
That description was vague enough to apply to practically anybody, so I attempted to narrow down the field. “It wouldn’t happen to be somebody with a canary-like smile?”
“More of a cat-swallowing the canary-like smile.”
So the Accountant went out of his way to speak on my behalf. I must’ve made quite an impression on him. “Please forward my apologies for being unable to show up for our shifts.”
“I’m not at liberty to shift your shifty words back to the recipient in question as the party of complaint isn’t limited to just one individual. You have quite a wide range of fans.”
I must’ve made more of an impression on the outside world than I thought. It turned out there were a lot more people who enjoyed reading my rambling stories, which surprised me, since I didn’t think anybody would like them. No one ever came up to me and said so, preferring to keep their opinions to themselves. This was a welcome surprise, but at the same time, I would’ve liked to hear some constructive criticism. It shouldn’t take me getting incarcerated for me to find out. Of course, this may have come out of necessity of choice. There was always the danger that openly admiring something offbeat would wind up with the admirer being harshly judged for it, leading to a re-evaluation of their tastes and wondering if they really liked it that much in the first place.
“Who are all these unspoken fans of mine?”
“I couldn’t tell you.”
“What work’s of mine your favorite?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“For a lawyer of mine, there’s a lot of things you’re not at liberty to say.”
“Oh, I haven’t read any of your stuff. I’m much more acquainted with catching up on the latest revisions to the law codes. Very engaging material. But I would say your most popular story is the one with the peanuts.”
I waited expectedly for more, until the prolonged pause of the unspoken guarantee became unbearable. “That’s it?”
“It’s not as if you made it easy for your stories to follow. If you want to leave a stronger impression, you need to create more memorable characters.”
“I did create memorable characters!”
“Well, it’s the enjoyment of the creative process that’s the most rewarding part, or so I’ve heard.”
“You’re not a very persuasive lawyer.”
“Oh, I’m not really a lawyer. Still haven’t passed the bar exam yet. The qualifications keep slipping away from me. But with your help, I may be able to meet them. Win or lose, it’s all the same!”
“Can I ask what you’re planning to do?”
“Client confidentiality forbids me from doing so.”
“I’m your client!”
“That hardly has any bearing on your case. However, I’m willing to pass along any words of complaint to anyone you may want to voice your grievances against.”
“I’d like to complain about the quality of my lawyer.”
“Once again, still not officially a lawyer.”
“Fine, as a paralegal, what’s your plan?”
“Getting you out of here shouldn’t be difficult. All I have to do is prove your competence by showing selected material of your written scrawls. I may be able to reduce your current state to a misdemeanor. With luck, I should be able to convince the parole board that you’re fairly lucid, and pose no danger to others. If all goes well, you should be walking about the mentally deficient wing in no time at all. And if everything doesn’t, I still won’t be a lawyer.”
A high-pitched sound came from the suitcase, and the not-a-lawyer lawyer dug in and brought out a bulky ream of paper. “I’ve made five transcripts of your writings. One for me, one for the prosecution, one for the Warden, one for my partners and one for you. Here’s yours.”
I had trouble catching my thrown copy, since my arms were still restrained. Oh yes, I was bound in a straightjacket restricting my movements during all of this. Did I forget to mention that bit?
“Oh, by the way, your advocate friend asked me to pass this along to you. Now that you’re no longer under his employ, I’m allowed to slip over some personal items containing pertinent information regarding concerns about your alleged mysterious past that may have been plaguing you.”
Placed next to the copy of my written notes was a curious-looking device, a boxy shape with impressionable lines etched over its form.
“What’s this?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
Clearly this so-called not-a-lawyer lawyer would be no help in parsing any useful information on my behalf. It would be up to me to figure it out on my own.
Left alone again, I examined the exterior of the thing. I could’ve asked the staff for permission, but that would’ve likely resulted in confiscation. With experimentation, I found that certain sections of the lines would either slide or bend when pressed at the right angle, revealing further compartments hidden underneath. It was difficult to maneuver the parts with just my feet, but the material was sensitive enough to move at the slightest touch, save for the areas where some of them got stuck. Whenever I was stuck, I would take breaks at odd intervals to rest or work on further notes on the walls while my mind wandered on how to best tackle this new obstacle before me.
What was strange was the more I uncovered, the larger the interiors became, revealing more intricate compartments hidden beneath. One transformation uncovered something resembling a chair, if the front and back legs were lopsided, and there was no backrest, and would collapse if you tried to sit on it. So, nothing like a chair at all. There was a section that would open to reveal a stream of light, which was useless. Fortunately, there was also a section that encased the whole room in shadow which was a welcome reprieve to the continuous surrounding bright light. A flash light, and a flash dark. Another section opened up to reveal a ream of paper, but no matter how hard I tried, it refused to allow any writing to stick. Anti-note paper for people who didn’t want to vandalize their beautiful note books. What was the point to all of this?
There was also a button to the side that I had to be careful of, since it would revert the device back to its original diminutive state. It was a race between uncovering the contents of this device and the next surprise inspection, and there was no warning for when that might happen. Whenever I heard footsteps, I had to rapidly disassemble the device back to its former state, undoing all my previous hard work and stuff the device under my person until the footsteps receded. The number of false alarms made experimenting very discouraging.
There was some kind of connection between the objects coming out from this Swiss army device, and I was annoyed I hadn’t figured it out earlier. The breakthrough came when I stumbled upon a compartment that unveiled a sleekly polished movie poster staring people I didn’t recognize titled, ‘Robin Peter to Pay Pal’. All of a sudden the interior contents began to make sense. After much trial and error, I was able to figure out that the lower bits used legs to elevate a stand, the light and shadow lighting used in conjunction against the writing-proof paper. Propped up, it was a film projector.
Even though I’d figured out what it was for, I still couldn’t figure out how to make the hardware run. I futilely attempted to view the movie with no success for three days before I figured out that the device could show the contents independently. The worst part was that it was designed to run automatically after pressing a singular button. I’d only made things more complicated by fiddling with the settings. As a result, the sound and picture were completely out of whack, and I had to struggle just to understand what was going on.
I read the summary to get an idea of the general plot. According to the trivia, the movie was something of a major controversy at the time, and debate over these fascinating events continued to this day. Maybe I’m jaded after everything I’ve seen, but when I finally saw it, it wasn’t as shocking or surprising as I hoped it’d be. Still, I’ll give a concise summary for those who’re interested.
No comments:
Post a Comment