desireearmfeldt

Fraser once told me that all cultures think solitary confinement is a punishment.  He also said that some prisoners go out of their way to get themselves put in solitary.  I already knew that: they hate being with other prisoners more than they hate being with themselves.  But he put it different: it’s their way of escaping their situation and finding peace.  For people like Fraser, maybe, not that there’s many like him.  Although I think if Fraser were in prison, he’d be organizing discussion groups and taking correspondence courses and making pals with the guards.

Me, I broke some guy’s nose so they’d put me in here alone.

Out on the ice fields, it’s so big and empty and un-human, sometimes you get into this zone where you float out of your head and don’t have to think your stupid human thoughts any more, you can just be, part of the snow and the sky.  I think about that a lot, in here.

The thing about being Fraser’s partner is, you forget what it’s like to be alone.  You start believing—maybe not always in your head, but in your gut—that it doesn’t matter if you’re chained to a pipe on a sinking ship with the water coming up to your chest, or tied up by a psychopath, or on trial for something you didn’t do.  All you’ve got to do is hang on and keep from going under, because Fraser’s out there somewhere and he’s going to get you out.

Which is a terrible, terrible thing to get used to.

I don’t hate anyone here.  I could keep my head down and get through the routine.  Maybe even make someone’s day brighter for a couple of minutes, the way he’d do.  Wouldn’t be hard.  The thing I can’t do is stop thinking.  And it’s not like I forget, but habit’s damn hard to break and there I was in the lunch line and I caught myself thinking, When Fraser gets me out of here…

Which is why I had to swing around and plant my fist in the face of the guy behind me.

He’s out there.  He’s just not coming.

Out on the ice, it feels like there’s no such thing as change.  Bare white world ringed in by impossibly high mountains, capped with ice-blue sky.  Always been there, always will be.  Which isn’t really true.  Once you’ve been there for a while you start noticing all these tiny, critical differences from day to day, mile to mile.  Still, looking out over that endless stretch of white, I feel like there’s no time or space or direction.  Just this one point that goes on for ever in every way.

Thing about Fraser is, you can count on him.  He’ll do the right thing, doesn’t matter if it’s easy or impossible.  It wouldn’t make a difference if I was in the county lockup or the pit of Hell, he’d get me out.

If I was innocent.