Prison

by Lilly Moreau

I once had a colored thread torn from a stitch. I left it behind for whoever might next spend twenty years locked in my cell. The thread took longer to whiten than me. Afterwards I relished its color in my mind. And then I had to imagine it. The thread was from my uniform. When the revolutionaries caught me, they stripped me but never found it. My thread was shorter than a finger. I hid it in the lining of a crack on the floor. That’s where it is still. Perhaps the next inmate will bring a thread of their own. A red one would be fitting. If mine were still green then the two would contrast mightily, but I can’t recall anymore if it was. How does one keep everything, even their thoughts and conceptions from melding over time and taking on those colors enforced upon them? And what happens if those colors are one’s prison walls and the same shade as the gruel that slides under the door? At least I had my thread. It was from the outside? I feel it wanting to know.