THE PRISONERS

The rain that fell at that early hour of the morning did so in a manner that drew neither prisoner’s
attention. A single filament bulb, dull and opaque, barely lit what the cloaked moonlight could not.

Within a small cell, two men lay on bunkbeds, their breathing merged in unison. A solitary tap dripped at regular intervals, mirroring the slow heartbeats of each prisoner. Why each heart continued to beat was a question both men asked themselves each morning, when tired, aching eyes opened from broken sleep. Why do you keep me alive? they would ask, their inner voices rising like a stormy sea, crashing with force into their skulls.

‘Are you asleep?’ whispered a voice from below.

‘Shush,’ came the reply. ‘Be quiet!’ he hissed.

There was silence once more, broken seconds later by the sound of the tap.

The prisoner in the top bunk, his back and forehead covered in a cold sweat, closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He thought about jumping down from the bed onto the bare floor below. He would rip the tap from its place in the wall and scream at the top of his voice, tearing and bending the metal within his jaws as he did so, dancing in the iced water as it bathed his skin.

‘I am a man!’ he would shout. ‘You cannot take my flesh, bone or soul, for I am a man!’

He smiled at the thought, then opened his eyes. The shadow cast light on his frail body and he sighed at his plight, swallowing hard against the feeling of disgust that rose within him.

The voice from below called out once more, hopeful yet forceful.

‘Please tell me again,’ it pleaded, with a passion and longing that felt out of place in the scene.

The voice above sighed.

‘Okay,’ it whispered.

The rain fell and the wind grew, making the droplets hammer against the thick glass window.

‘Even then we knew something was wrong,’ came the voice. ‘We knew there was never one universal truth and that everything could be argued. That was what made us human,’ he said.

‘Subjectivity?’ asked the voice from below.

‘Yes, I suppose in a sense subjectivity is how best to describe it. Our values and experiences and the
things that we have...’

But he was cut off.

‘And how can a machine have values?’ scoffed the voice below, now audible and booming, aroused by the words from the bunk above.

‘Be quiet now!’ came a hiss. ‘You’ll get us all in trouble,’ called a voice from an adjacent cell.

The tap dripped, and the men’s breathing slowed once more. Both now listened to the rain on the window and thought of a time when they could feel it on their faces, as it soaked their clothes and skin.

‘It didn’t take long for things to change,’ said the prisoner in the top bunk, this time quieter than before ‘We knew then that things had gone too far, but no matter how hard we pushed against it, it grew stronger and stronger. Do you remember when the messages first started?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ sighed the prisoner below, turning to face the wall and swallowing hard against a tightness that grew in his throat and chest.

‘I was with my wife,’ said the prisoner in the top bunk. ‘We had just eaten breakfast and I was about to take the children to school. I had bought her a new perfume for her birthday and she had worn it that morning. Then the radio, TV and our mobiles flashed on with a notice. The so-called universal truths.

‘From each morning when we woke to the time we closed our eyes, we were bombarded with these so-called truths. 

But they were wrong! We knew they were wrong, so why did the others not? It was too late;
we knew it was too late. How can you argue against something that does not exist? Something you cannot see, or taste, or touch? Something so powerful, and that we welcomed so openly in the beginning?’

There was no reply from the bottom bunk, except for the sound of stifled tears. It was only minutes later that he roused himself to ask a question.

‘What was the thing you said about the stars? About the author and the stars?’ asked the voice.

‘Bulgakov?’ asked the man in the top bunk, pulling a blanket over his chin.

‘I think so,’ came the reply.

‘Everything passes away — suffering, pain, blood, hunger, pestilence. The sword will pass away too, but the stars will remain when the shadows of our presence and our deeds have vanished from the Earth,’ said the man, his voice hushed.

‘Can you promise me something?’ asked the voice below.

‘I will,’ said the prisoner solemnly.

‘Please think of the stars. If you have the opportunity, turn your gaze towards them.’

The prisoner above did not respond. Instead he closed his eyes and thought of his family.

Before the warm embrace of sleep took hold, the cell door opened, and two men dressed in white stepped in. His cellmate below closed his eyes tightly, an action he knew was expected. There was no struggle.

The filament in the bulb flickered for some moments before it involuntarily died. The cell was silent once more. Only the rain continued to fall and the steady drip, drip, drip of the tap. The now solitary man hoped the water would flow far from here.

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Blair Grant is a Scottish author living in Norway. He writes contemporary literary fiction that explores the complexities of the human experience with emotional depth and quiet intensity. His debut novel, Bookmark, was released in the fall of 2025.