Captivity is being called a bird🌻

~★~
Zolani
~★~

When times are rough, friends are imaginary. Yes, imaginary.

It's like they disappear into thin air and it leaves you wondering, 'Did I even have them in the first place?'

I clearly remember always being in a large group of friends at school and in the streets. I clearly remember laughing with them for hours on end. I remember every soccer game we played, every fight we had, every girl we tried to win over with and for each other.

I  remember having friends throughout my highschool years but in grade eleven when the scandal broke out and I got arrested, my friends vanished from existence.

I didn't get a single visit or a single call. In fact I was the one doing the calling while they rejected it.

Although I do remember, Kamogelo picked up.

“Kamo, thank God you finally answered. I’ve been calling for ages.”

“Look, Zolani. I only answered because my mother was getting irritated. You should stop calling. I'm sorry to say this but my mother doesn't want me to be involved with you…”

I heard the unspoken word, murderer.

I heard it loud and clear and I dropped that phone and never bothered phoning anyone up again.

It had been four rough months in juvenile prison. The treatment was demeaning, the days were long and there was always one fight or the other.

I hated anyone who tried to talk to me. I hated anyone who tried to make friends in a place like this.

I kept to myself, nodding and answering yes when needed. I kept to my thoughts, although dangerous it was better…

It was better that way.

As better as 'better' could be in a  juvenile correctional center, serving a sentence for murder.

I was seventeen years old, at the time  and my life was already over. It flashed  before my eyes, fleeting.

Turning eighteen  soon  meant that  they'd be transferring me to prison.

  The real deal. My bones melted at the thought. I was barely hanging on  but as the social worker looked at me, I stared dead in eyes, stone cold, with not a hint of fear in my face.

“How does that make you feel?”

“How does what make me feel?”

“ The correctional center you'll be taken to on your birthday.”

“How is it supposed to make me feel?”

She huffed, hiding her annoyance at my  reply.

“Do you regret it now?” She asked for the millionth time.

The  social worker  at the juvenile correctional center always asked this question since I came four months ago. She wanted to know where my heart was at, her words not mine.

She always told me how I shouldn't feel scared to be honest with her and I wasn't. I wasn't scared to be honest in front of anyone who asked me this question.

“I don't regret it.”

“You don't regret killing him.” She clarified, like we were both talking about different things when we were clearly on the same page.

“ I don't.” I answered, like  I answered in court. Like I answered every time someone asked me the question and like I'll answer till the day I die.

~★~

I couldn't sleep  the night of April the 26th, it wasn't because of the thin sheets or the brick like bed in my cell. It was this crippling fear that was eating me up.

I barely survived a day in the juvenile correctional center. How could I survive fourteen years in prison?

Fourteen years locked away.

Fourteen years…

I was only seventeen and my eighteenth birthday was hours away. My eighteenth birthday, something I'd always look forward to because of the freedom I'd finally have.

But my eighteenth birthday was just going to be the beginning of a life locked up.

I wanted to die.

I wanted to die before I turned eighteen.

I wanted to laugh.

I wanted to laugh at all the dreams I used to hold for myself, seeing myself in places I knew a boy like me didn't belong.

I stayed up all night on April the 26th. I turned eighteen when the clock hit twelve, the darkness overwhelmed me and I stared at the ceiling, wanting to cry but feeling so dead inside that no form of life, not even tears could escape me.

“Happy birthday to me.” I said, bitterly into the air.

I thought of my sister, Zoey, wondering if she was okay, and I knew that her heart was breaking at that moment. I couldn't explain it but I just knew. Like her broken heart was calling out to mine.

It was my best friend's birthday, my twin sister but I wouldn't be there for her. I failed her once and now I was failing her again by being gone.

“ Happy birthday Zoey.” I whispered into the night, hoping that someone would carry my message through.

The next morning, the warden wasted no time in coming into my cell and telling me to pack up. Although I spent the last four months giving all the boys in my cell the silent treatment I could see the pity swimming in their eyes. I could see how scared they were for me.

“What are you looking at?” I sneered and they looked away, everyone going to their business.

I stepped outside of the juvenile correctional center for the first time in four months. The sunshine felt new and unfamilia, glaring at me like I was an uninvited guest. I was outside into the real world but this time there were wardens at my side, ready to do anything if I made one wrong move.

This time my feet and  wrists were chained.

I was heading from one place of captivity, to another.

I  heard stories of prison since I was a child. They circulated like wildfire bringing fear and even jokes into young boys' hearts.

I didn't ever think that I'd get to live out the stories. That I'd get to see everything they talked about.

The police's car drove down the road, through the traffic, and chaos. For a moment, I wasn't really in any type of captivity. The window was not allowed to be opened though because they were taking every type of safety precaution.

I wanted to tell them that there was no way I'd run away.

There was nowhere for me to run to. My friends were imaginary, my mother and my sister, Zoey, didn't need  an extra burden. I wouldn't ever do that to them.

The traffic kept my tense heart at ease.

After the long drive, I laid my eyes on the building that came into view  and my heart froze into an icy chill.

It was a tall, daunting grey brick building. The black gates opened up for the car, almost like it would swallow us.

GLENDALE’S CORRECTIONAL CENTRE  was written at the top  of the gate in bold white, and on top of that were barbed wires.

  The clouds seemed to gather on top of the building, ominously and the sun barely shone through those dark clouds.

I was pushed outside of the car, shoved to walk on the cement pavement straight into the reception.

It's all a blur from there, my heart was frozen with fear and dread. The place smelt stale the further I got into it but what pierced my frozen heart into feeling again was hearing the sound of a  man scream.

The scream was excruciatingly loud,  like a deep groan. I could hear in between the man's wails he was shouting for his mother.

The wardens beside me laughed, and I wanted so badly to punch them but I stayed put. They pushed me to carry on walking and I did, the sound of the man's screams sounding closer and closer.

The room was coloured in a very dull pitch, and the air  was stagnant but that’s not the first thing I noticed.

The first thing I saw when I stepped into Glendale's correctional center’s waiting room was a scrawny young man probably close to my age, crouched down on the floor as a warden kicked his stomach.

The scene was brutal, the young man's cries reached my ears and I forced myself to look away. I clenched my fists.

“That's enough now.” One of the wardens behind me said.

The man didn't listen, instead he kicked the young man harder, venting out whatever anger he had in him.

“Didn’t you hear the man? He said that's enough!” I acted without thinking as I pulled the warden off the young man.

He sneered at me and was ready to throw a punch but the wardens who brought me  stopped him.

The violent warden's chest heaved up and down like he had just run a marathon. He glared at me even as they pulled him away.

The beaten up young man lay crouched on the ground crying, his  wails turned into hiccups.

“You try to be the hero again and you'll see what happens,” another warden said, and then he left.

It was the beaten up man and I.

I sat on the floor with my chains because I didn't know how long whatever they were doing would take. I made sure to keep my eyes on  the pitch wall, with my back towards the guy. I didn't want to look at him.

He was too weak.

He stopped crying a while ago, and it got really quiet.

“...Thank you for stopping him,” he croaked out.

I didn't answer him. I didn't turn my head.

I wasn't about to let this man think I'd help him again. I wasn't about to make friends in a place like that.

All that ran through my mind in that moment was that he was weak.

“It feels like the calm before the storm.” The young man continued, choosing to ignore my silence.

“Are you scared?” He asked, his voice wavering.

It was he that was scared.

I was also scared but there was no way I was telling him.

“I'm nineteen years old. How old are you?”

I didn't like how he kept on talking even though I was clearly ignoring him. I didn't like how he was openly sharing information with me.

“ My name is Lebo and yours?” I could feel him staring at my back.

The guy named Lebo was telling me something else about himself, when a warden stepped in.

It was a different warden, his face was stoic and hard like every warden here but he didn't glare at us.

“Get up please.”

I got up quickly, the chain's on my feet almost making me trip. Lebo, on the other hand, had a greater struggle getting up. It was clear that he was wounded, he groaned, getting up slowly until he stood tall.

He was scrawny, his brown skin a  smooth texture like a rich boy. He didn't look like he belonged here at all.

I was relieved to see his tears had run dry.

The warden handed us the orange prison clothes with the white vest underneath.

“I'll be taking you to your cells. Inmate 3622 and Inmate 3623.”

That was me.

That was my name then, Inmate 3623.

He keyed  my chains off with one of the few dozen keys he held in his hands.

He led us down a pathway with the same full pitch colour but the floor shone, the smell of polish still fresh and we stopped by the first door.

It was a bathroom.

I immediately got into one of the stalls and changed into the orange pants, and white vest with the orange shirt. It fit me well, surprisingly. I stepped out and it was at that moment that Lebo stepped out of his stall too.

We looked at each other, and none of us had to say what the other was thinking because we were thinking the same thing.

We were officially prisoners, that was  what we'd be dressed in for the next years in our miserable lives.

I couldn't help but stare at my reflection in the mirror. I didn't look like the Zolani, I knew I was. I didn't know who this man was but I didn't like him.

I hated the colour orange immediately.

“I think it looks nice,” Lebo suddenly said, “ it brings out my eyes.”

I paid him no attention and walked out of the bathroom where the warden was waiting for us. I gave him my clothes and that's when Lebo stepped out, handing the warden his clothes.

We walked further into the hallway and honestly it looked endless. It looked like we'd never get to our cells.

There were  about four black  gates he had to open, and each time Lebo and I would stand aside, waiting. The further we walked down the hallway the more we heard the ruckus.

We were led down the hallway  and at the far end stood the last black gate. It was the seventh gate.

Waiting by the hallway were three other prisoners, with two wardens who stood guard at each side.

The prisoners looked new like Lebo and I. I could see the fear  in the depth of their eyes but they didn't look as weak as Lebo.

The warden that was with us, keyed the last gate open and when all five of us walked down that dreaded hallway that's when all hell broke loose.

“Birds!”

The prisoners in the cells on either side of us taunted us as we walked, banging on the bars of their cells, flashing their crooked teeth. They shouted crude words and curses, trying to get our attention.

“ Welcome to hell birds!”

They whistled and laughed.

“I’ll make your life a living nightmare, birds!”

They threw out threats left and right.

The five of us were entertainment.

I've heard of the walk of shame and I can confidently say that that was it.

I kept my head held high, my face stoic just like the warden who led us to our cells but inside I was crumbling. Inside I was melting with fear, crying for my mother just like how Lebo was a few minutes ago.

I felt like turning around and running back. They could keep me locked up in that room with the pitch walls, just not where I was.

They kept calling us birds as we walked on. I knew of the term birds a long time ago.

It's what they called new prisoners.

It was a funny thing, taunting us with an animal that was the representation of freedom.

It was a cruel joke, to be called a bird in a prison.