12 Serialisation of the book 'Uprising' 1st book in the 'Corpalism' series - by Arun D Ellis

Incarcerated
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Terry lay shivering on the bunk.

He was still naked. His ribs hurt like hell, his head was sore, though no longer bleeding; he felt sick and dizzy and had the mother of all headaches. To top it off he thought his nose was broken. ‘Would you credit it, over 30 competitions and god knows how many actual fights and I’ve never had my nose broken,’ thought Terry as he tried to sit upright, then he shouted, “Fucking pigs.”

At that moment, whether coincidence or not, though Terry didn’t believe in coincidences, the door of his cell swung open and 2 burly coppers burst in and proceeded to beat on him with rubber hoses. Terry adopted the foetal position, buried his face as much as he could in his arms and held onto the back of his neck. He also screamed a lot, Terry was nothing if not a screamer, and he’d never seen the value in pretending he wasn’t hurt.

After a few minutes of heavy industry they withdrew leaving him covered in fresh blood from his head wound and weal marks “Fucking scum!” he shouted after them; they ignored him, even worse he could hear them laughing and chatting. He pulled the thin and stiffly stained blanket across his body and lay there shivering.

In the next cell, possibly another coincidence, sat Jimmy O’Connell. He was interested in the events occurring in Terry’s cell only to the extent that it meant the coppers would leave him alone for a while. He had already had several beatings and felt in need of rest.

∞

News of the raid spread quickly round the estate, though it was well into the middle of the morning before anybody knew who it was that the police had dragged off and it wasn’t until around lunchtime that Sandra found out from someone at her work, by which time everyone else seemed to know.

She’d rushed home and been forced to wait whilst Don and her dad hurried off to find out what they could, which in the end turned out to be very little; just the sketchy details of the early morning raid. The police weren’t talking and because Terry was new nobody seemed to know any more about him than they did.

“We must be able to do something?” pleaded Sandra.

“Nothing we can do,” said Don, his lips tight.

“Dad?” pressed Sandra.

“Don’s right,” said Donald, “we can’t do anything.”

“Can’t we go down to the station?”

“No!” said Don.

“Don,” the word was an order in itself, “you’re only making things worse, just give us some space will you?”

Don muttered something unintelligible under his breath before leaving the room. “How about making a cuppa?” his father called to his retreating back.

“Dad?” pressed Sandra.

Donald cuddled her for a few minutes before speaking, “look Sand,” he said, “I know Don’s got a big mouth sometimes…” She mumbled something under her breath “I know he can be difficult, but this time I think he’s probably right, we can’t follow this one up.”

“Why not?” demanded Sandra, “why can’t we just go to the police station?”

“Because we don’t know why he’s been arrested, and showing too much interest could have unwelcome consequences for us all.”

“But he hasn’t done anything,” said Sandra.

“Well then, they’ll probably let him go in a day or so.”

“That won’t happen,” said Sandra, “they’ll keep him in there.” Her voice rose to a wail, “they might kill him, people die in police custody…”

“Sand, come on, you know that’s just people they want out of the way.”

“Well, what if they want Terry out of the way?”

“It won’t be like that,” her father protested, realising abruptly that it mattered to him, “they’ve probably pulled him in because he’s new, to scare him, make sure he doesn’t step out of line.”

“But what if that’s not the reason?”

“Come on, maybe someone marked his card for a beating somewhere along the line.” Her face crumpled. “…maybe just rough him up a bit?

“Dad,” she murmured her voice thick with unshed tears.

“I know,” said Donald, tears welled in her eyes and she buried her head in his chest.

“Tea anyone?” said Don, opening the door with his back to the room “I’ve been thinking …if you ask me, the cops have done us a favour there.”

“Oh shut up, you bastard,” screamed Sandra bursting past him and dashing up the stairs.

“What did I say?” asked Don, “what did I do?”

∞

The door of Terry’s cell burst open to reveal two coppers in the doorway holding a fire hose. They turned the water on and he was knocked back to the rear of the cell. “Fucking bastards!” he yelled. They sprayed him for about five minutes and left. Now he was really cold and his blanket was soaking wet.

In the next cell Jimmy O’Connell was laying on his bed, watching through the bars as two starlings and a black bird chased a magpie; they dived this way and that, twisting and turning and it suddenly struck him how complicated were their manoeuvres.
‘Jesus,’ he thought, ‘not only do they have to see all round ‘em but they’re in the air doing it…I’ve never really thought about that…how difficult that must be.’ He stared until they disappeared from view, ‘I can stop and turn or twist, sit, stand and stuff but how do they not fall out of the sky?’

He stood up and peered out, ‘what if they get it wrong…could they fall? I mean do birds get it wrong and fall? Just fall from the sky?’ He spoke aloud now, caught up in his cogitations “I mean I can fall over, that happens, I could trip or something…and cats….what about when cats get it wrong…when they try to jump on a window sill and misjudge it and fall on the floor.”

He felt exhilarated, like he was on the verge of discovering an important new fact. He fell back to silent musing, ‘I wonder if that happens with birds, and if that’s the case, can they recover in time, find the relevant thermal, that’s the word, thermals…yeah, they do fly straight into windows, now that I’ve seen, but falling? Do birds ever get it wrong and just fall from the sky?’

He sat back down on his bed, ‘but it is in the bible….isn’t it? Something about birds falling from the sky? And if it’s in the Bible…’’

“Fuck,” he growled, “this place is doing my head in - I hate being in here.”

“You and me both,” Terry muttered.

Cheers for reading

Arun





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