by Brigitte Watson

Matt Artz, *Untitled,* digital photograph, 2024. Courtesy of Unsplash.

Salvation for Beginners

Brigitte Watson | AUG 2025 | Issue 48

After a while, a wall becomes just a wall. But for now, the wall is her whole world. She thought the world outside the cell was the whole world, but she was wrong. She sees that now. Now as in right this moment. As in no before and no after. As in there is only the wall.

She spends all her time on her bunk, leaning against the wall when she's awake. When she's asleep, she lies right up against it, her right cheek touching the cool, scratchy cement. At the spot directly across from the door, under the window.

Days and nights against the wall have taught her to notice the light and the dark, the way they refract against the metal door, relaying a secret code. A code she doesn't know how to crack.

The light and dark ebb and flow with the clouds and the rising/setting sun. She closes her eyes. It is too much beauty to take in.

The darkness of night is never fully dark. The layers of darkness have a way of skirting around the floodlights, snaking through her window and coating her and the cell in silky ink. A shadow blanket.

Maybe the light and shadows could help her find a way out the cell. Maybe she could be like them, free, but she was still too afraid to try.

The wall was all she needed and words like needed were too dangerous to mess around with. She had to watch it. Do not use that word again, she told herself, pressing her fingernails into the palm of her hands.

Could she live her whole life leaning against a wall?

Heavy footsteps outside her cell. The grate screamed open and the tray of crap tossed inside. She saw the guard do a double take.

What the fuck he yelled, and she heard the keys jingling and scraping against the lock as he finally opened the door to her cell.

She could not remember the last time the door had been fully opened.

The guard charged into her cell, eyes popping out of his head, swiveling right and left. He stepped onto her tray, skidding on the gunk, fuck, fuck, fuck, he said.

Where the hell did she go? His voice rising in fear. She saw that he was terrified. She almost felt bad for him.

She could feel her back against the wall, her butt on her blankets, her hands nested on her lap. She could see her legs extended off the bunk, feet touching toe to toe, almost reaching the guard. Her stomach growled back at him and his stupidity.

Her cell was six feet by nine feet. There was nowhere to hide and nowhere to go.

If he couldn't see her and if she wasn't there, then where was she?

You are here with me, the wall said.

Brigitte Watson can't say for sure when she became a writer. Maybe when she wrote a play in grade 2. But she lost her way after that and maybe, hopefully, she has made it back. Luckily, she had lots of snacks for the trip.