Emma should have realised that her family weren’t the greatest of influences. After all, who on earth would call their only daughter Emma when their surname is Bezel? Poor Em Bezel was virtually set up for life as a swindler.
Instead, Emma spent most of her life trying her best to stay out of trouble, though it wasn’t easy. Her dad regularly encouraged her involvement in each of his latest schemes: a beach hut hustle; a shop scam; an online dating deception… and Emma determinedly refused to participate in each and every one. By the time she was in her early thirties she was the only member of her huge family who had completely kept out of trouble.
But still she found herself in prison. I didn’t do it, she said. I don’t know him. I wasn’t there.
But the police were determined. That’s how it can sometimes be when a crime family is involved. It’s almost a game to the police – who can set up the next family member. Everything possible is used as a bargaining tool, and Emma, good old Emma was simply an expendable pawn and a means towards the end of finally putting away her father, Brian Bezel. Before she knew it, Emma was lost and lonely in a woman’s prison, and was likely to remain there for a couple of years.
The weeks passed slowly. She made friends – just a few – and she learned how to live within the system. She also learned how to accept the constant teasing of her fellow inmates once they worked out her name, ‘Hey Embezzle. Done any fraud today?’ Those who understood it, thought it was so hilarious. It wasn’t , but these jeers were an improvement on the usual idiocy of cat calls and declarations of intended sex from her fellow inmates, and one of the seedier wardens.
Emma’s confinement coping strategy was simple. She wrote. During every solitary moment the prison system granted, Emma would scribble onto A4 pads with the tiniest of writing. The prison’s general hubbub was a major distraction, and headphones, music and other noise cancellers didn’t help much, but eventually she managed to blank it out. Once her own mission was determined, her heart rate slowed, her anxiety calmed, and her life settled. Sure, she was in prison, but it wasn’t the end of the world. It gave her time to make peace with her thoughts.
And that was when Bonny came along. Bonny, an average looking woman of average height and build, with average length hair, an athletic build and soft grey eyes. The outside was mainly average too, but it was the inside that stunned Emma. Bonny’s thoughts. Wow. What a brain. The concepts she put forward. The long and convoluted words she used. The way she tapped into Emma’s own scrappy ideas and developed them into strong and fully formed concepts.
Bon and Em. Emma knew that they were a perfect couple in the making. Their bodies would meld together as would their minds. One would complain, and the other would put things right. That was just how things were and how things would likely always be for the pair of them.
Alone on her bed, Emma would ponder her own responses to Bonny’s hypothetical questions and remarks and every day, her obsession became more intense. Soon, it was clear that Bonny had bewitched her in a way she’d never experienced before, and Emma’s fascination was as much intellectual as it was an affair of the heart. Even the thought of Bonny would send Emma’s toes twitching. She knew she must get to know her better and make things real between them. But how?
The idea came to Emma deep in the night. At these times, lights were turned off and bodies were turned on. Emma would write to Bonny. She’d write of how they might get together and begin a relationship that would last lifelong.
So, Emma wrote. Bonny, as clear in her mind’s eye as she had ever been. Bonny, perfect and thoughtful and considerate. It made it so easy for Emma to pour out her heart. ‘I can’t stop thinking of you… I sit each day hoping you will turn up outside my door… please understand… please listen… please just be real to me’.
And in her story to Bonny, the protagonist, Emma, lost in a prison cell not of her making, presented her would-be lover Bonny with two sides of scribbled pleading. And fictional lover to be, Bonny called Emma to her, and touched her hand. ‘Yes,’ she said.
And in Emma’s reality, the cell expanded along with her emotions, and she allowed herself the beginnings of happiness. Sure, Bonny was a fictional creation. Certainly, she was a fantasy perfect woman, but surely she was a fantasy that could come true, one day.
Emma continued to write, half-smiling, heart beating with a regular flutter, and lips pursed, and looked forward enormously to getting to know the following day’s intake of new girls!
#meredithschumann #author #authors #fiction #shortstory #shortstories #girls #love
Emma continued to write, half-smiling, heart beating with a regular flutter, and lips pursed, and looked forward enormously to getting to know the following day’s intake of new girls!
Good article