prison keys

Let me tell you about two people who were locked up in separate prisons.

They were metaphorical prisons, of course: Jail cells with cast-iron bars, all imagined but yet as real as if it was right here in front of you, as real as if you were in that very cell right now at this moment, yearning to be released.

She was sick of hearing what people had to say about her. She wanted to prove them all wrong, and show them once and for all that she was a trustworthy, loyal person. By keeping herself in a cell, she was attempting to start her life over, with a fresh new slate.

She realized she was in a cell after a long period of denial and insisting that her imprisonment was a choice that she made. It was an escape, an attempt to go into hiding. She felt she could leave it any time she wanted. Then, one morning she woke up and realized that, no, she couldn't just walk out the door.

She had locked herself in.

She made efforts to contact those whom she figured could help her get out. No one responded. She had alienated everyone with her past behavior. She was running out of people who could help her escape.

There was one person she hadn't tried, but she was afraid to summons him, on account of her guilt over treating him badly on a few occasions.

She swallowed her pride and made the call anyway. She needed to get out of her prison that badly. It was an extremely difficult phone call to make.


*/*


He was also in a prison of his own device, but his was more deceptive. Rather than thinking he was in hiding, he went one further and actually believed that he was completely free, that there were no constraints around him and that he was in fact outside the reach of societal institutions.

He made the mistake of trying to prove to the rest of the world that he could do all the things they said he couldn't. He (like she) was sick of the gossip, the opinions, the aimless complaining of his friends. So he ventured out on his own and found some new friends, and began to construct a new existence.

He heard the words behind his back: He was described as being "brainwashed" by the new group of people he surrounded himself with, and was faulted for stubbornly setting his intense focus on his various crafts.

The transformation was so complete that he never questioned for one minute whether he was truly a free man or not. He never saw the bars, the iron doors, the close quarters encroaching. They didn't exist to him, and he conducted himself as if the world was his to survey.

He never felt confined or trapped until things started to go bad. The dreams and goals he was promoting began to deteriorate under the weight of factors outside of his control. Soon, he was doing nothing but sitting inside his cell, with his cellmates, trying to rouse them from their respective stupors.

The moment he knew he was imprisoned was when he received a phone call.

It was she. He was surprised to hear from her, and even more surprised to hear the reasons for her phone call.

She was asking him to help her get free. But as she spoke to him, his heart was breaking, because it was right then and there that he realized that he couldn't help her be free, not when was just as locked up as she.

He shut her down, frightened by the hint that things were not as they seem, angry by the notion of her appeal to him, frustrated by the conflicts in his heart-- Why should he help her, when she had thoroughly decimated his affections for her over the course of a few years? What was to stop her from going right back into her cell the minute he broke her out?

But more than that: Who was going to help him get free so that he could make her free?


*/*


Sadly, he found out recently that he had the prison key the whole time. He could have set himself free, and then he might have been able to liberate her as well. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, and he has learned that there is no use in regretting things like that.

He has been out of the cell for some time now. He isn't sure if he is in another one, however, because it took a long time and several fucked-up events for him to realize his former captivity.

She found a way out of her cell too, albeit in a harsh manner. The prison was stormed, and in the confusion she was broken out of her confines, free to run away. She never wants to go back to it, and so she is on her guard to ensure that she never gets trapped against her will ever again.

Occasionally, these two former prisoners still have a hard time adjusting to their newfound freedoms, so they sometimes seal off the area they are in and revert to their cell-dwelling days... only this time, they are together in the cell, which makes the isolation from the rest of the world a bit more tolerable.

Eventually, though, there will come a day when they will never have to draw the shades and hide. Maybe in the future the both of them will overcome the ingrained instincts they possess, to place themselves in shackles and draw boundaries around themselves that they must not pass.

Wish these people lots of luck, because they will need it in spades.