No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison

by Behrouz Boochani

It happens one night, right at the end of the night, when I am suffering from toothache. These Papus are extremely kind. Two of them hold my arms. One shines the flashlight on my tooth. One of them lights his lighter, and another inserts a red-hot wire right into the hole in my bastard of a tooth. It blows my mind. It tears my gum. My eyes well with tears. I stop breathing, but it is good. The black cavity in my tooth is punished good and proper. And as I scream, the Papu places his hand on my head. He says nothing. But I can tell what he is thinking from the touch of his hand: ‘Son, your pain will cease.’ The hot wire does its job. A few traditional surgeries in the style of the Papus kill off all the nerves in my tooth. I know it. This I know all too well — if I had confronted the IHMS system my soul would have been engulfed in thousands of IHMS letters, reports and forms . . . and then annihilated. ——