He waited quietly in his cell, scraping a dirty finger nail down his chin thoughtfully. Should he wash his hands? Clean under the stubs of his finger nails? Would she notice?
Maybe.
Pulling himself off his mattress, he shoved himself over to the little sink drilled into the wall. Slowly turning the tap, he shoved his fingers under the water, rubbing soap into his palm and then scraping his nails along it, working the soap under his fingernails.
He wondered what she would say this time. She never gave her name and he never gave his, yet every second Tuesday at 3:13pm she would come to the phone booths. He never asked why, and she never said. But he found himself waiting for the days to pass. To see her timid smile, her brown hair tied back with pins always different shapes. Love hearts, smiley faces, owls. She was as ordinary as one cereal box was to another on a supermarket shelf. But to him, to him she was something bright and clean. There was no trace of the corruption running through his veins. She was beautiful in a fragile way, a butterfly with wings like any other – one touch and her wings would falter into dust. But she was the only butterfly that wanted to see him. She was a delicate creature with trusting, doey brown eyes, her head cocking to the side when his startling laugh rumbled through the plastic phone.
Would she cringe when she learned of the reason he was here? Why his only company was the stark rice-white walls that surrounded him. Would she stop coming?
He turned the tap and wiped his now starchy clean hands on his pants, sitting down on his bed. She had given him books that lay in a neat stack by his bed. At first he had refused. They were obviously novels she herself enjoyed, ones with young protagonists he never could really understand.
He hadn’t been a teenager a long time. The whiskers that threatened to bloom from his cheeks helped determine that at least.
Then she gave him fairy tales, fables, parables. He read about a girl whose seven brothers were turned into swans, the child forced to silently weave thistles into shirts so to reverse the curse. Small, graceful hands turned into a hag's broken pathway. Deep in the night he had shed a single tear for the youngest, a shirt half done. The brother looking down at his half human, half swan existence. His mate and cygnets far from him, yet forever locked in his heart.
The jailbird had felt sympathy, empathy, loss.
He looked forward to her visits.
He remembered how she had laughed at his tooth gap smile, telling him he reminded her of a child’s chuckle. He had said that was ridiculous – they were all squishy while his face was like tough leather. He heard the peal of laughter she gave him and smiled in return. She asked him questions about what he loved, what he hated, what he was interested in. What was he going to do next?
He hadn’t thought of that. What was he interested in? What had he liked before the judge took all choices away from him? Before the hammer struck wood.
He realised he was only as trapped at he wanted to be. Sure, he was wearing a bright orange suit, but he could still think. He could still imagine. He could still create.
Could this old wolf learn from the lamb that came to talk to him? Could she matter to him? He shook his head, cutting the train of thought. Never mind that.
The bell that signaled a visitor clanged just outside his cell door. He shot up to his feet, licking his hand to smooth down the mess of salt and pepper hair waving above his ears. He could already hear her voice, a recording within his mind.
“Good afternoon mister – have you heard of this book?”
The wolf smiled gently, watching his door slide open.
She had revived the humanity in the murderer.
“Mister.”
ns 15.158.61.19da2
